Some good news about rape--There is much less of it these days.

[justiceischeap]

14. And there's no reason to believe reporting is *less* discouraged/impeded today than 15 yrs ago

The point is, on college campuses young women aren't encouraged to report rapes as the Pitt article articulates. It's bad for attracting potential students. I've seen stories in many states where rape kits go untested for years even if the crime is reported. People on DU were going nuts when they learned Sarah Palin's Alaska wanted to charge rape victims to test their rape kits (and Alaska isn't the only state that has proposed that).

I've also seen stories on DU where all crimes are being underreported/not investigated by police departments to drive down their crime stats (or their designation is changed to something other than what the crime is to drive down specific stats). I'm pretty sure I read an article on DU fairly recently about, I think a Kansas city that changed their domestic abuse statutes so most D.A. cases aren't even reportable.

As another poster suggested, I don't want rape stats not to go down. I'd be happy to think they're down if I didn't think the books were being cooked in a lot of cases or if all rape victims felt comfortable coming forward. I'd be even happier if rape cases were more successfully prosecuted but that's difficult to do when all the defense has to do is blame the victim.

But to possibly suggest that we have less to worry about when it comes to rape because it appears as though the stats are down, is ridiculous. If you were a young woman and you saw all the victim blaming that goes on, would you report a rape? If you were a young woman who was slipped a date rape drug when drinking, would you even know if you'd been raped? And what about molestation victims who aren't even considered rape victims? And what are you to believe a survey that is about as accurate as a political poll or what women/men are saying when it comes to rapes being reported?