Calculating Risk
As universities across the country try to get a handle on the often silent crime of rape on campus, one researcher suggests that the best way to prevent assault starts with changing the way we look at it. But is it that easy?
By John Allen
Some memories are difficult.
Two years ago, Jennifer x'04 was raped. Many of the details of that night are still sharp in her mind, but the event itself is a traumatic blur.
"I don't have a clear sense of the sequence of things," she says. "I didn't know what was going on. It just, sort of, happened."
Jennifer remembers the group she'd gone out with that evening — five male students and herself. She had come to UW-Madison for rowing, and she knew four of the men from crew. "They were friends of the guy I was dating at the time," she says. "I knew these guys really well. I was excited that they were living in my apartment complex — we could hang out. It would be great."
By John Allen
Some memories are difficult.
Two years ago, Jennifer x'04 was raped. Many of the details of that night are still sharp in her mind, but the event itself is a traumatic blur.
"I don't have a clear sense of the sequence of things," she says. "I didn't know what was going on. It just, sort of, happened."
Jennifer remembers the group she'd gone out with that evening — five male students and herself. She had come to UW-Madison for rowing, and she knew four of the men from crew. "They were friends of the guy I was dating at the time," she says. "I knew these guys really well. I was excited that they were living in my apartment complex — we could hang out. It would be great."
The fifth male was a friend of the other four, but a stranger to Jennifer.
She remembers the bars — Amy's Café on West Gilman and Wando's on University — and she remembers drinking far too much. "I couldn't walk, and they literally had to hold me all the way home," she says. "We went to their place for an after-bar, and they gave me a lot of beer, which I probably would not have accepted in a different situation. At the time, I didn't drink beer. We were running around the house and just being stupid."
And she remembers the crucial moment, though it didn't seem so important to her at the time. "One of my guy friends came up to me, and he said, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' I didn't know what he was talking about."
And then the four men she knew left. She was alone with the stranger. "They all left me with this one guy, and he just shut the door and locked it. And that was it."
She remembers the bars — Amy's Café on West Gilman and Wando's on University — and she remembers drinking far too much. "I couldn't walk, and they literally had to hold me all the way home," she says. "We went to their place for an after-bar, and they gave me a lot of beer, which I probably would not have accepted in a different situation. At the time, I didn't drink beer. We were running around the house and just being stupid."
And she remembers the crucial moment, though it didn't seem so important to her at the time. "One of my guy friends came up to me, and he said, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' I didn't know what he was talking about."
And then the four men she knew left. She was alone with the stranger. "They all left me with this one guy, and he just shut the door and locked it. And that was it."
"The most dangerous thing I can do," says Douglas Koski '81, "if I am a woman at the University of Wisconsin or any other place, the most dangerous thing I can do is drink alone with a nineteen-year-old male I know little about."
Though Koski is a sociologist and criminologist with the National Center for the Advanced Study of Social Forces in New York City, he talks more like an actuary, speaking in terms of statistics, risks, and probabilities, rather than assigning blame or exploring emotions. His new book, The Jury Trial in Criminal Justice, is to be published this month, but he's been examining rape from both academic and nonacademic perspectives for nearly twenty years. "And," he says, "you'd be surprised at how little college women know about what puts them at risk."
According to Koski, identifying risk factors — and helping potential rape victims avoid them — may be the most useful thing universities can do to combat rape on campus. Sexual assault, he says, is not merely a criminal issue, nor just a cultural and social issue. Bottom line, it's a safety issue, yet the debate about how to address it tends to focus more on agendas than on practical solutions. And while focusing on the various social forces that turn people into rapists may help us understand underlying causes of rape, it doesn't offer much that individuals can do to stop sexual assault today.
"As an individual," Koski says, "I can't reconstitute society. There's nothing I can do about the fact that there are a lot of young males in the world raised in emotionally charged, unstable families, with too much access to alcohol and drugs and not enough money. If you focus on root causes, you can't develop a practical, do-it-now rape prevention model."
Though Koski is a sociologist and criminologist with the National Center for the Advanced Study of Social Forces in New York City, he talks more like an actuary, speaking in terms of statistics, risks, and probabilities, rather than assigning blame or exploring emotions. His new book, The Jury Trial in Criminal Justice, is to be published this month, but he's been examining rape from both academic and nonacademic perspectives for nearly twenty years. "And," he says, "you'd be surprised at how little college women know about what puts them at risk."
According to Koski, identifying risk factors — and helping potential rape victims avoid them — may be the most useful thing universities can do to combat rape on campus. Sexual assault, he says, is not merely a criminal issue, nor just a cultural and social issue. Bottom line, it's a safety issue, yet the debate about how to address it tends to focus more on agendas than on practical solutions. And while focusing on the various social forces that turn people into rapists may help us understand underlying causes of rape, it doesn't offer much that individuals can do to stop sexual assault today.
"As an individual," Koski says, "I can't reconstitute society. There's nothing I can do about the fact that there are a lot of young males in the world raised in emotionally charged, unstable families, with too much access to alcohol and drugs and not enough money. If you focus on root causes, you can't develop a practical, do-it-now rape prevention model."
And so Koski is turning to a more pragmatic model that he feels may fit with the erratic nature of human society. He's following the example of public health.
A basic presumption of the public health model is that you don't necessarily need to cure a problem if you can successfully avoid it. This view isn't as rose-colored as it sounds. Consider the case of John Snow, one of the discipline's founders.
Snow was a nineteenth-century London physician, and he didn't have any particular concern with rape, or with crime in general. What did concern Snow was cholera, a disease that, by modern standards, he didn't understand very well at all. He thought it was caused by something bad in water, but he didn't know what, and neither did anybody else. But he did understand that when cholera appeared, corpses followed, and usually in large numbers.
In 1854, there was a cholera outbreak in London's Golden Square. Within ten days, five hundred people
had died. As Britain's leading scientists debated what might be causing the disease and how medicine might cure it, Snow pursued a different course: statistics. He catalogued every case of cholera and discovered that almost all the victims had consumed water drawn from one particular pump. Snow couldn't prove that this pump was the source of the disease, nor could he make Londoners change their drinking habits. Still, he talked a good enough game to convince local authorities, who had the handle removed from the suspicious pump. The next morning, residents of Golden Square discovered they'd have to go elsewhere for their water, and within a few days, the cholera epidemic vanished.
A basic presumption of the public health model is that you don't necessarily need to cure a problem if you can successfully avoid it. This view isn't as rose-colored as it sounds. Consider the case of John Snow, one of the discipline's founders.
Snow was a nineteenth-century London physician, and he didn't have any particular concern with rape, or with crime in general. What did concern Snow was cholera, a disease that, by modern standards, he didn't understand very well at all. He thought it was caused by something bad in water, but he didn't know what, and neither did anybody else. But he did understand that when cholera appeared, corpses followed, and usually in large numbers.
In 1854, there was a cholera outbreak in London's Golden Square. Within ten days, five hundred people
had died. As Britain's leading scientists debated what might be causing the disease and how medicine might cure it, Snow pursued a different course: statistics. He catalogued every case of cholera and discovered that almost all the victims had consumed water drawn from one particular pump. Snow couldn't prove that this pump was the source of the disease, nor could he make Londoners change their drinking habits. Still, he talked a good enough game to convince local authorities, who had the handle removed from the suspicious pump. The next morning, residents of Golden Square discovered they'd have to go elsewhere for their water, and within a few days, the cholera epidemic vanished.
Snow's work was proximate, focusing on the exact time and place that people became ill, not on the underlying cause of the disease. He didn't bring medical science any closer to destroying — or even discovering — the deadly bacterium. He merely saved lives — and gave the field of public health its basic tenet: that the one thing better than being cured is never getting sick in the first place.
This is the principle that Koski hopes to bring to the fore on rape. "Perhaps interpersonal violence per se doesn't fall within the public health domain," he says, "but injury is clearly a health issue. And rape causes both physical and psychic injury."
Like Snow with cholera, Koski believes that rape-prevention efforts will be most effective if they focus on the moment of the attack. He hopes to quantify the factors that most commonly surround rape and identify which ones might be pump handles. By giving authorities and potential victims information about the risk factors, he may well help them to avoid situations in which rape is likely to occur.
This is the principle that Koski hopes to bring to the fore on rape. "Perhaps interpersonal violence per se doesn't fall within the public health domain," he says, "but injury is clearly a health issue. And rape causes both physical and psychic injury."
Like Snow with cholera, Koski believes that rape-prevention efforts will be most effective if they focus on the moment of the attack. He hopes to quantify the factors that most commonly surround rape and identify which ones might be pump handles. By giving authorities and potential victims information about the risk factors, he may well help them to avoid situations in which rape is likely to occur.
And rape happens alarmingly often on college campuses. According to a survey released by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2000, "nearly 5 percent of college women are victimized [by rape or attempted rape] in any given calendar year. Over the course of a college career — which now lasts an average of five years — the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher education might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter."
UW-Madison's female student population is over 21,000, so if that national survey accurately reflects conditions here, there would be more than a thousand rapes or attempted rapes every year. However, in November 2002, the Madison Police Department released statistics on the city's crime rate: in 2001, Madison recorded only sixty-three rape cases. So what happened to all the assaults the Justice Department says are occurring?
Many, it seems, never reach police files. "There's still a fear out there [among victims] that they won't be taken seriously," says Lori Henn, coordinator for relationship violence prevention at UW-Madison's University Health Services. "For some people, the legal route doesn't bring the resolution they're looking for."
UW-Madison's female student population is over 21,000, so if that national survey accurately reflects conditions here, there would be more than a thousand rapes or attempted rapes every year. However, in November 2002, the Madison Police Department released statistics on the city's crime rate: in 2001, Madison recorded only sixty-three rape cases. So what happened to all the assaults the Justice Department says are occurring?
Many, it seems, never reach police files. "There's still a fear out there [among victims] that they won't be taken seriously," says Lori Henn, coordinator for relationship violence prevention at UW-Madison's University Health Services. "For some people, the legal route doesn't bring the resolution they're looking for."
In fact, the Justice Department survey found that only around two-thirds of sexual assault victims ever tell anyone about the incident, and most of those confided in friends, not family or college officials. Fewer than 5 percent of victims reported the incident to law enforcement.
Perhaps with good reason. Rape on college campuses seldom meets the popular conception of strangers lurking in the bushes. The overwhelming majority of cases are so-called acquaintance rapes, in which the victim knows the attacker. These rapes occur most often in a home — either the victim's or the attacker's — and usually both parties arrived there voluntarily. These factors present authorities with uncomfortable uncertainties about whether what took place was actually criminal rape.
"We've gotten much better about stranger assault," says Henn. "I don't think we're quite there with acquaintance assault. We're still willing to purport blame to victims to a larger extent."
Perhaps with good reason. Rape on college campuses seldom meets the popular conception of strangers lurking in the bushes. The overwhelming majority of cases are so-called acquaintance rapes, in which the victim knows the attacker. These rapes occur most often in a home — either the victim's or the attacker's — and usually both parties arrived there voluntarily. These factors present authorities with uncomfortable uncertainties about whether what took place was actually criminal rape.
"We've gotten much better about stranger assault," says Henn. "I don't think we're quite there with acquaintance assault. We're still willing to purport blame to victims to a larger extent."
Making matters worse is the presence of intoxicants. A survey by the national Core Institute found that in more than three-quarters of acquaintance rape cases, either the victim or the attacker had voluntarily consumed drugs or alcohol before the incident occurred. This figure is repeated in surveys at campuses around the nation, and the intoxicant factor, perhaps more than any other, tends to keep legal authorities from deciding an incident is a criminal sexual assault.
"If a victim was drinking, her ability to recall, relate, and testify about events is diminished," says Koski. "Alcohol decreases the likelihood of reporting and increases the likelihood of delayed reporting. This plays into police refusing to arrest, prosecutors being unwilling to file, and judges and juries being unlikely to convict. It's really a snowball effect."
All of this, he says, "leaves me pretty well convinced that we need to look at alternatives if we're going to reduce the number of rapes. And that's where I think the public health model can help."
"If a victim was drinking, her ability to recall, relate, and testify about events is diminished," says Koski. "Alcohol decreases the likelihood of reporting and increases the likelihood of delayed reporting. This plays into police refusing to arrest, prosecutors being unwilling to file, and judges and juries being unlikely to convict. It's really a snowball effect."
All of this, he says, "leaves me pretty well convinced that we need to look at alternatives if we're going to reduce the number of rapes. And that's where I think the public health model can help."
Jennifer was raped in the summer of 2001, the year that Madison officially recorded only sixty-three rape cases. Unlike most victims, Jennifer did report her attack to the Madison police, though it wasn't her decision to do so.
The day after her rape, she "was just sort of numb," she says. She told her boyfriend, who encouraged her to file a complaint. "He called the police and my parents. He reported it with me."
Jennifer's tour through the criminal justice system was swift and far from satisfying. A detective came and asked her about the incident. She admitted that she hadn't fought, that she didn't even say no to her attacker. There was still time to take her to a hospital for a sexual assault nurse exam — a rape kit — but the police decided they didn't need to collect physical evidence.
"They talked to my attacker, and he said, 'Yeah, we had sex. But it was consensual,' " she says. And then things went from bad to "horrible. They told the boy I'd been dating — they actually said to him — 'We think she's just really upset that she slept with this guy, so that's why she's in hysterics.' Like it's fun. Like I'd enjoy pretending."
The day after her rape, she "was just sort of numb," she says. She told her boyfriend, who encouraged her to file a complaint. "He called the police and my parents. He reported it with me."
Jennifer's tour through the criminal justice system was swift and far from satisfying. A detective came and asked her about the incident. She admitted that she hadn't fought, that she didn't even say no to her attacker. There was still time to take her to a hospital for a sexual assault nurse exam — a rape kit — but the police decided they didn't need to collect physical evidence.
"They talked to my attacker, and he said, 'Yeah, we had sex. But it was consensual,' " she says. And then things went from bad to "horrible. They told the boy I'd been dating — they actually said to him — 'We think she's just really upset that she slept with this guy, so that's why she's in hysterics.' Like it's fun. Like I'd enjoy pretending."
But in the eyes of the police, there had been no rape, or at least nothing they could prove in court. Under Wisconsin statute, a second-degree sexual assault occurs when an attacker "has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who is under the influence of an intoxicant to a degree which renders the person incapable of appraising the person's conduct."
Jennifer had been drunk — in her own estimation too drunk to have sex. But in Wisconsin, intoxication is curiously defined within the context of sexual assault. In 1997, when so-called date rape drugs came to the forefront, state legislators responded by criminalizing certain substances. Yet, they specifically excluded alcohol as an intoxicant in sexual assault cases. No matter how drunk a victim is, Wisconsin law says, she isn't considered intoxicated unless she's unconscious. Otherwise, the law assumes the sex was consensual.
Jennifer had been drunk — in her own estimation too drunk to have sex. But in Wisconsin, intoxication is curiously defined within the context of sexual assault. In 1997, when so-called date rape drugs came to the forefront, state legislators responded by criminalizing certain substances. Yet, they specifically excluded alcohol as an intoxicant in sexual assault cases. No matter how drunk a victim is, Wisconsin law says, she isn't considered intoxicated unless she's unconscious. Otherwise, the law assumes the sex was consensual.
For Koski, any mention of drug-related rape that ignores the influence of alcohol is dishonest. "With rape," he says, "alcohol is the drug."
It's the connection between alcohol and rape, in fact, that drove him in the direction of public health. "Alcohol use itself is a health issue," he says, "and as I looked at the various elements that showed up most often in rape cases, alcohol just rose to the top."
"We can't talk about sexual assault without talking about alcohol," agrees Henn. "We hear stories about people getting really intoxicated and losing control of their ability to make decisions, or of waking up and finding a used condom and that's how they know they had sex. It would take a very brave D.A. to prosecute a case like that [as rape]."
Koski knows just what kind of mentality it takes to try a rape case. After graduating from the UW, he studied law at Washington University in St. Louis and then became a criminal attorney, first as a prosecutor, then as a defender. "I realized I had a talent for trying rape cases," he says. "I handled a lot of rapes, and a lot of child rapes, and I'd pick up cases like that, ones that other attorneys didn't want." Over the course of his career, he brought more than 150 cases into court and won 80 percent of them.
It's the connection between alcohol and rape, in fact, that drove him in the direction of public health. "Alcohol use itself is a health issue," he says, "and as I looked at the various elements that showed up most often in rape cases, alcohol just rose to the top."
"We can't talk about sexual assault without talking about alcohol," agrees Henn. "We hear stories about people getting really intoxicated and losing control of their ability to make decisions, or of waking up and finding a used condom and that's how they know they had sex. It would take a very brave D.A. to prosecute a case like that [as rape]."
Koski knows just what kind of mentality it takes to try a rape case. After graduating from the UW, he studied law at Washington University in St. Louis and then became a criminal attorney, first as a prosecutor, then as a defender. "I realized I had a talent for trying rape cases," he says. "I handled a lot of rapes, and a lot of child rapes, and I'd pick up cases like that, ones that other attorneys didn't want." Over the course of his career, he brought more than 150 cases into court and won 80 percent of them.
Even now, as a sociologist, Koski maintains a deep fascination with the jury trial system, even though, he says, it has "assumed the dignity of a Turkish rug market" in which "prosecutors and defense attorneys haggle not about the merits of a given case, but the relative worthiness of the defendant and the victim." This is especially true in acquaintance rape cases, he says, which often revolve around the question of whether a more-or-less intoxicated victim made a refusal clear to a more-or-less intoxicated defendant.
In a 2002 study, Koski examined how juries came to their verdicts in such consent-defense sexual assault trials. He divided people into various mock juries and presented each group with evidence that was intentionally ambiguous, as in a genuine trial. In every case, the basic conflict came down to whether the jury believed the victim or the accused. Before the jurors started their work, Koski surveyed them and found that they answered much the way one would expect people to after exposure to years of political advocacy on behalf of rape victims.
"Before they deliberated, most people said they were likely to convict an accused rapist," even if the only evidence was the victim's word, he says. "But during deliberations there was a complete reversal. We couldn't get a single conviction."
In a 2002 study, Koski examined how juries came to their verdicts in such consent-defense sexual assault trials. He divided people into various mock juries and presented each group with evidence that was intentionally ambiguous, as in a genuine trial. In every case, the basic conflict came down to whether the jury believed the victim or the accused. Before the jurors started their work, Koski surveyed them and found that they answered much the way one would expect people to after exposure to years of political advocacy on behalf of rape victims.
"Before they deliberated, most people said they were likely to convict an accused rapist," even if the only evidence was the victim's word, he says. "But during deliberations there was a complete reversal. We couldn't get a single conviction."
Watching videotapes of the deliberations, Koski began to understand just how much of a problem alcohol presented to those attempting to determine the legitimacy of a rape claim. "Whenever you mix alcohol with sex," he says, "you get a lot of miscommunication and a lot of confusion. [Alcohol consumption] increases miscommunication about female consent at the time of the event and all through the criminal justice process. And it increases confusion about male intent. Criminal law 101 says that, for a crime to occur, you have to have an act and a requisite mental intent."
Alcohol, then, is one possible pump handle. "If you remove this element," says Koski, "and because it pops up again and again in so many contexts, the use of alcohol and drugs is clearly a major risk factor — if you remove alcohol from interpersonal contact situations, rape becomes significantly less likely."
Koski began looking at other factors that showed up commonly in rape cases, and found that many could be avoided by potential victims. One factor was being with seventeen- to twenty-year-old males who were drinking. Another was being alone with a male the victim did not know very well. Another was dating a number of different partners. "Each date," he says, "presents a chance that the person will be raped. So more dates, with more people, create more risk."
Alcohol, then, is one possible pump handle. "If you remove this element," says Koski, "and because it pops up again and again in so many contexts, the use of alcohol and drugs is clearly a major risk factor — if you remove alcohol from interpersonal contact situations, rape becomes significantly less likely."
Koski began looking at other factors that showed up commonly in rape cases, and found that many could be avoided by potential victims. One factor was being with seventeen- to twenty-year-old males who were drinking. Another was being alone with a male the victim did not know very well. Another was dating a number of different partners. "Each date," he says, "presents a chance that the person will be raped. So more dates, with more people, create more risk."
Although Koski focuses on American society as a whole, not on campuses, he points out that all of these factors are common in university communities. "College women are only a tiny percentage of the population," he says. "Still, they're a high-risk group." But being aware of risk opens opportunities for reducing it. By educating potential victims about risk factors, Koski says, a university could help its students avoid dangerous situations.
And by being aware of where and when rapes most often take place, authorities can perform "crime mapping," which would enable authorities to increase surveillance, not on students, but on the physical spaces in which attackers most commonly operate. This, he says, "allows us to put surveillance where it's needed most - that is, where crimes have occurred with high frequency in the past." Either action would take the offender's opportunity away and eliminate a potential rape.
And by being aware of where and when rapes most often take place, authorities can perform "crime mapping," which would enable authorities to increase surveillance, not on students, but on the physical spaces in which attackers most commonly operate. This, he says, "allows us to put surveillance where it's needed most - that is, where crimes have occurred with high frequency in the past." Either action would take the offender's opportunity away and eliminate a potential rape.
"It's not a value judgment; it's just a fact," Koski says. "If I spend a lot of time with nineteen-year-old males, sooner or later, I might become the victim of some act of interpersonal violence." But, he adds, "if you change the environment at the proximate point of the attack, you can make a rape much less likely to occur. Drinking and violence are socially integrated into college campuses. And there's a hyperglorification of legal remedies and their enforcement to solve problems. But the public health model gives ownership of problems back to potential victims, the people who actually have some control over their environment in the first place."
However, not everyone sees it that way. Although Lori Henn at University Health Services also speaks of rape in terms of risk reduction ("I don't talk about rape prevention anymore, because I can't guarantee prevention. All I say is that we try to help students realize how to reduce risks"), she worries that such an approach lays too much responsibility on the shoulders of potential victims.
However, not everyone sees it that way. Although Lori Henn at University Health Services also speaks of rape in terms of risk reduction ("I don't talk about rape prevention anymore, because I can't guarantee prevention. All I say is that we try to help students realize how to reduce risks"), she worries that such an approach lays too much responsibility on the shoulders of potential victims.
"If someone wants to assault a woman, they're going to go and get her," she says. A model like Koski's "implies that rape can be significantly reduced because a woman doesn't go and get a beer or keeps her door locked. It's not about doors."
Similarly, Koski expects resistance to some of his recommendations, especially as they may impinge on the freedoms that college students cherish. "If someone had said that the university should increase surveillance of its students when I was an undergraduate," he says, "I would have screamed. But increased police presence and simple things like lighting and video cameras — even if they're not turned on — these things work. Nobody likes surveillance, but it works."
Henn, too, is skeptical of the willingness of the campus community to accept restrictions, and she believes the university has to strike a balance between offering students the data that will help them make informed choices and allowing them to be free. "I feel some resistance to continually telling women to curb their behavior," she says. "Should we tell new students, 'Don't make friends'? 'Don't be with people you don't know'? How do you say that to freshmen? They don't know anybody here. We don't want to instill fear or paranoia," she says, "but we do want our students to have common sense."
Similarly, Koski expects resistance to some of his recommendations, especially as they may impinge on the freedoms that college students cherish. "If someone had said that the university should increase surveillance of its students when I was an undergraduate," he says, "I would have screamed. But increased police presence and simple things like lighting and video cameras — even if they're not turned on — these things work. Nobody likes surveillance, but it works."
Henn, too, is skeptical of the willingness of the campus community to accept restrictions, and she believes the university has to strike a balance between offering students the data that will help them make informed choices and allowing them to be free. "I feel some resistance to continually telling women to curb their behavior," she says. "Should we tell new students, 'Don't make friends'? 'Don't be with people you don't know'? How do you say that to freshmen? They don't know anybody here. We don't want to instill fear or paranoia," she says, "but we do want our students to have common sense."
And so she would keep ownership of sexual assault as much with men — with potential offenders — as with women. "That this is deemed a women's issue is severely misguided — it's first and foremost a human issue," she says. Her office helps connect speakers with residence halls and groups such as fraternities, where Henn hopes the university can find leaders to combat the behaviors that turn men into rapists. She feels that changing male, not female, attitudes is the ultimate key to preventing rape. "After all," she says, "if I help Jane avoid an assault and not Becky, and then Becky is assaulted, did I prevent an assault? No. I just moved it from Jane to Becky. If we're going to reduce the number of rapes, we have to look at the source."
For Koski, too, the struggle is about lowering the number of rapes, even if it means encouraging the innocent to alter their behavior. "Who wants to hear, 'Don't date'?" he asks. "But if I don't want to become the victim of aggression, it's probably best to avoid the circumstances in which it's likely to occur - pubs and clubs and places where alcohol is served."
For Koski, too, the struggle is about lowering the number of rapes, even if it means encouraging the innocent to alter their behavior. "Who wants to hear, 'Don't date'?" he asks. "But if I don't want to become the victim of aggression, it's probably best to avoid the circumstances in which it's likely to occur - pubs and clubs and places where alcohol is served."
The question of how to avoid rape is long past relevance for Jennifer Jennifer, who's still struggling to rebuild her life two years after her attack.
The rape put her through "a list of disorders," she says. "I had posttraumatic stress disorder. I had horrible nightmares that were always visions of what had happened. I had anxiety if I was walking to class alone - I never wanted to be alone."
Her grades dropped, and she began seeing a therapist and was put on anti-depressants. She gave up rowing and split up with the boyfriend who had helped her report the attack. An eating disorder she'd battled in high school returned.
"Depression gets to be a safe place," she says. "A really good week was when I would smile once. Somebody would have to tell me to go to class, to go to the library, to eat dinner. I had no ambition. There's a feeling — even now — that I'm not ready to succeed, that I don't deserve to succeed."
The rape put her through "a list of disorders," she says. "I had posttraumatic stress disorder. I had horrible nightmares that were always visions of what had happened. I had anxiety if I was walking to class alone - I never wanted to be alone."
Her grades dropped, and she began seeing a therapist and was put on anti-depressants. She gave up rowing and split up with the boyfriend who had helped her report the attack. An eating disorder she'd battled in high school returned.
"Depression gets to be a safe place," she says. "A really good week was when I would smile once. Somebody would have to tell me to go to class, to go to the library, to eat dinner. I had no ambition. There's a feeling — even now — that I'm not ready to succeed, that I don't deserve to succeed."
But in January 2002, she joined a sexual assault prevention group called PAVE, Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment. Since then, "a lot changed," she says. "It gave me an outlet and let me know that there are other people out there going through the same stuff that I am."
Even so, she says her healing is far from over, and she has a hard time driving memories of her attacker out of her mind. "I think a lot about him," she says. "He lives a normal life, and I — well, I wonder if he ever thinks about it. Because I do."
Even so, she says her healing is far from over, and she has a hard time driving memories of her attacker out of her mind. "I think a lot about him," she says. "He lives a normal life, and I — well, I wonder if he ever thinks about it. Because I do."
