New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault

3909 Juan Tabo NE, Suite 6

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87111
505-883-8020
3/4/2016
Dear Director of New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs Inc.,
Per your request, I am writing this report about sexual assault among college students.
Here at New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, we strive to prevent and raise
awareness of sexual assault. This report shows the lack of awareness and use of preventative
measures from a sample group of UNM college students. For this sample of students, we wrote
up a group of eight questions for surveys and then questions for two interviews. Once these were
all conducted, we compared the answers to statistics we received from RAINN.org. From this,
we realized how awareness could be improved and how students, and all citizens, should
implement more of the available preventative measures in their daily lives. Thank you for your
time.
Sincerely,
Carlos Acosta & Austin Jones
2700 Campus Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-123-4567

Introduction:
As part of our progress towards preventing sexual assault here at the
New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault, we conducted research into how
sexual assault is thought of and prevented among college students. First we
has to ask ourselves, What is sexual assault? The actual definition is any
type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the
recipient (RAINN.org). Our reasoning behind choosing college students as our
focus was because every 107 seconds, another American is sexually
assaulted, and among this, 80% of these victims are under the age of thirty.
Most college students, undergraduates and graduates alike, fall into the age
range of 18-28, so statistically, this is the time that these students are most
at risk (RAINN).
Methods:
For our secondary research, we received all of our statistics from
RAINN.org. When we compared it to the survey answers, we found that the
actual ratio for women who have been sexually assaulted is 1 in every 6, and
the ratio for men is 1 in every 33. We also used four peer reviewed articles to
help us back up our case. These four articles and why we chose them are
listed below:
1) Dead to the World: Rape, Unconsciousness, and Social Media by
Cressida Heyes, 2015

Why: This article discuss whether or not a victim can claim their
subjectivity on the sexual assault that they were the victim of or state any
information on the matter if they were unconscious.
2) Equality, Process, and Campus Sexual Assault by Julie Novkov, 2016
Why: This article discusses the Campus Sexual Assault Act which
discusses how a University can lose its federal funds if it doesnt properly
assist and guide a victim of sexual assault in their recovery. We chose this
article because it relates to college students here at UNM.
3) Rape as a Hate Crime: An analysis of New York Law by Lisa Campo-

Engelstein, 2015
Why: This article discusses how by New York Law, rape is described as just
penile vaginal penetration, and this is similar to that of New Mexicos Law.
It goes over how whether or not this should be the proper definition for
sexual assault crimes.
4) Sexual Revictimization, PTSD, and problem drinking in Sexual Assault
Survivors by Sarah Ullman, 2015
Why: This article discusses how there is often alcohol abuse among sexual
assault victims and how they sometimes suffer from PTSD. College
students usually consume a lot of alcohol over the years.
To begin our primary research, we formed the following eight questions
that we gave to our sample of students:

1) Are you male or female?

2) Do you know anyone that has been sexually assaulted? Does the
way that it affected them play into your fear of the occurrence?
3) An article done by the Wall Street Journal is titled "NYPD Reports
Rise in Sexual Assaults in Cabs", and this discusses how there is a rise
in sexual assault for both taxi cabs and services such as Uber. Does
that idea ever cross your mind if you ever call for one of these
services?
4) Ways of preventing sexual assault could be the buddy system,
pepper spray, etc. What ways do you think are good for preventing
sexual assault, and do you ever try to implement any of these
preventative measures while out at night?
5) What do you think the ratio is for women who have been sexually
assaulted?
6) What do you think the ratio is for men who have been sexually
assaulted?
7) Consider your answers regarding the ratios for men and women
above, why did you answer the way you did?
8) Where do you think are the most common places for sexual assault
to occur?

We dispersed the above questions through entities such as Facebook,

Survey Monkey, email, and text. From this, we received 50 responses from
which we gathered the data to form a sort of baseline of what all of the
answers for each questions were. These baseline answers were as follows:

RESULTS
Survey Results:
1) 66% Female (See Figure 1.)

Are you male or female?

40
30
20
10
0

Gender
Male

Female

Figure 1
2) Most respondents said no, but those that answered yes said that they
thought about that fear most of the time. (See Figure 2.)

Do you know any sexual assault victims?

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Respondents' Answers
Yes

No

Fig
ure 2
3) Most respondents said no because theyve never used these services,
but those that answered yes said that they try to avoid these types of

taxi services. (See Figure 3)

Think about the risk of a taxi service?

50
40
30
20
10
0

Respondents' Answers
Yes

No

Figure 3
4) Pretty much all of the respondents said that they use different types of
preventative measures, and the most common ways were the buddy
system with reliable friends, pepper spray, and to avoid dark areas.
5) 1 in every 8
6) 1 in every 50
7) Most respondents heard that sexual assault victims were usually
women, and some said this was because women are more physically
vulnerable.

8) The most common places are parties, dorms or home areas, and dark
places.
The next form of research that we carried out were two interviews with a
female sexual assault victim and the brother of a sexual assault offender. For
each of these interviews, we asked two questions, and they, along with the
anonymous answers are as follows:

Interview Results
Female Victim (20 Years Old)
1) Where did it occur?
Answer: It occurred on a school bus during my senior year of high school,
and another guy and I were the last ones on the bus. When the driver
looked away, it happened.
2) Whats it like going on afterwards?
Answer: I lack the self-confidence that I feel I would have otherwise, and I
cant trust anyone anymore.
Male Offender (23 Years Old)
1) Where did it occur?
Answer: College party
2) Whats it like for your family now?

Answer: Its awkward, we dont really discuss it and try not to think about
it. We never thought it would happen to us. This event has has changed
our lives dramatically. It gives our family a bad image.
Limitations:
The limitations for our research were that survey respondents and
interviewees requested anonymity because it is sensitive for them to
discuss, and this could lead to less detailed responses. The other limitation
was that our age range only went from 18-23, and this leaves out most
graduate aged students.
Discussion and Conclusion:
From conducting this research we can conclude that sexual assault mostly
occurs at parties, and out of sight areas, it happens every 107 seconds, and
it has happens mostly to women at a ratio of 8 out of every 10 victims. Our
recommendations for students are that they use more of the available
preventative measures that we discussed and discovered through our
research. Also, we think that Universities should spend more time providing
incoming students with information where, when, and how often sexual
assault occurs in their areas, and ways that they can receive help if they
become victimized by sexual assault. Many campuses are dark at night
leaving students that may have late classes at a disadvantage because of all
the dark areas that can be created from the lack of lighting. This should be
fixed by adding for of the necessary lighting and even having a more

frequent nightly patrol. From of the surveys we conducted and facts we

found, it is easy to see that college students perception of sexual assault is
that it does occur, but they dont expect it to happen to them or around
them, and they dont always do much to prevent it.

Works Cited (MLA Format)

Campo-Engelstein, Lisa. "Rape As A Hate Crime: An Analysis Of New York

Law." Hypatia 31.1 (2016): 91106. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2016
Heyes, Cressida J. "Dead To The World: Rape, Unconsciousness, And Social
Media." Signs: Journal Of
Women In Culture & Society 41.2 (2016): 361-383. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
NOVKOV, JULIE. "Equality, Process, And Campus Sexual Assault." Maryland Law
Review 75.2 (2016): 590
-619. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
Ullman, Sarah E. "Sexual Revictimization, PTSD, And Problem Drinking In Sexual
Assault
Survivors." Addictive Behaviors 53.(2016): 7-10.Academic Search Complete.
Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
UNM Sexual Assault Red Zone. Youtube. Youtube, 11 Aug. 201. Web. 25 Feb. 2016
https://youtube.com/watch?v=B5ALMPKMO1E.
Who Are the Victims? RAINN Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Who Are
the Victims? RAINN
Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. RAINN, 2009.Web. 2 Feb. 2016
<https:rain.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims>.
Anonymous Male. Personal Interview. 2016
Anonymous Female. Personal Interview. 2016

Reflection

For this project I decided to work with a partner because I thought it would be
a lot easier which was true. Both of us were able to combine our ideas and create
this report. Also English is not my best subject but thankfully my partner was able to
help out a lot. The analytical report was challenging at some points. Since our
project was on sexual assault, it was tough asking a few questions about this topic
especially to people that have experienced it. But in the end, I feel that we were
able to gather enough information and create a clear report on sexual assault.
While doing this project, I learned a lot of new material that I think everyone
elses should know. Most of the statistics were eye opening and a few were
presented in our written and oral report. The oral presentation was fun/scary
because I hate talking to people I do not really know. The only part I like was getting
dressed up. I feel more powerful whenever I dress nicely. The oral presentation was
probably the best part of Project 1 in my opinion. I do believe that my writing has
gotten better because of this assignment.
A few of the SLOs that I have progressed in because of this report were SLO
2, 4, and 5. SLO 2 is about gathering information from other places to use in my
own report. We gathered information from websites and articles. I found new ways
to gather information by using the UNM Library articles and I usually get information
from other websites. SLO 4 is about editing and revising my report. The people that
reviewed our report listed a few details that we forgot to add. In our Rough Draft we
forgot to add titles and put a few paragraphs in the wrong places. However, we did
not agree totally with some of the mistakes they said we made. What I learned
from that was you dont always have to agree with other people and you can trust
in your own work a little bit more.
They wanted us to write our results and questions into a paragraph form but
we did not make that change. We felt that it would be more presentable if we just
stated the question and answer right away. I would not want to read a report that is
just paragraphs especially if I was only looking for that information. SLO 5 talks
about how we can expand our report from just writing. That is where the oral
presentation came in handy. For instance we would not be able to show the video
we presented on a piece of paper unless we wrote it all down. The video was perfect
for our presentation and kept the audience engaged. I learned that some of the
most important information doesnt always come from text. I dont really think I
would make any changes from the report. I believe it comes across nice and clear
and gets to the point right away. The only problem I feel we had was trying to make
it turn to a certain audience. We did not know how to make our report

professional. Also the highlighted part for the works cited would not come off. But
overall this was a fun and eye-opening project.