When it comes to incidents of sexual assault, who doesn’t report is just as important as who does.
Last week, two reports — released within two days of each other — gave conflicting numbers about the number of survivors of sexual assault and rape at the University of Oregon. The first was a study conducted by a UO psychology professor Jennifer Freyd and her PhD students. The second was UO’s Clery report, officially known as the Campus Security and Fire Safety report, released annually by the UO Police Department.
One out of every 10 women who took Freyd’s survey said they’d been raped while attending UO and 35 percent said they’d been sexually assaulted. A total of 982 people took part in the survey.
But this year’s Clery report shows instances of sexual assault from 2012 to 2013 down by more than half — from 30 instances to 14.
The differences between the two reports comes down to how and where the data was gathered.
The Clery report, as mandated by the federal Jeanne Clery Act, has tight geographical boundaries. A map of the Clery reporting area shows that only crimes occurring immediately on campus, in UO-owned buildings, and the area between campus and Autzen are tallied. This means that some sexual assaults that are reported by students outside of those areas are not counted in the data.
“Clery doesn’t care about you at all,” said Kelly McIver, UOPD communications officer. “Clery only cares about geography.”
The 95-page report, which is primarily composed of safety guidelines, includes a few charts that tally the number of crimes that occur on the UO campus and in related buildings.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if half, if not more than half, of our campus crime alerts fall outside of the Clery boundaries,” said McIver, referring to the notifications students receive via email about crime occurring close to campus.
“We are always coaching people to not put a lot into Clery numbers because nobody thinks they are truly representative of what’s happening and it doesn’t guide us in our response or prevention efforts,” McIver said. “Just because you had something happen to you off campus doesn’t mean it’s less important.”
As far as the 50 percent drop in sexual assaults, McIver said that any increase or decrease in numbers may appear dramatic because “it still remains a vastly underreported crime.”
Underreporting of sexual assault is why Freyd’s survey is important, according to Dr. Steve Johnson, who received his Ph.D in sociology from the UO. Johnson has been designing and administering surveys for Lane County and around the UO for 30 years.
5,000 student emails were provided by the registrar for polling for Freyd’s survey. Of those, 982 students responded. This is a uncommonly low sample size, according to Johnson, who stresses that the non-respondents are equally as important.
“Are the non-respondents just people who’ve never had a problem, or people who, because of the stigma and trauma attached to people who have had a problem, are less likely to respond?” Johnson said.
Ultimately, the reports are too different to even be compared. But they do speak volumes about the reporting of sexual assault, or lack thereof.
“(Freyd’s survey) is good science,” Johnson said. “Does that mean you can’t do more or better? No. You can always do more.”