Despite how far society has come in viewing rape, prosecution and social advocates alike are saying there is still a long way to go.
“Victims can have advocates the whole way” through a rape case, which is a generally new concept, said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. “In the ’60s and ’70s, if you were a rape victim, you didn’t have advocates.”
One of those advocates, Scott Berkowitz, founder and president of Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, otherwise known as RAINN, said the reason about 40 percent of rapes go unreported is more of a social than a legal issue.
Berkowitz said he thinks Ohio’s rape statutes are fine enough, but there are some road bumps to convict someone for rape.
In Ohio, to prove a sexual encounter was indeed a rape, it is not necessary that a victim prove physical resistance toward the offender, according to Ohio Revised Code Chapter 2907.02.
Despite the effectiveness of modern DNA testing, rape cases — especially one in which a child is the victim — still pose a challenge for prosecution and law enforcement officials, DeWine said.
Other factors, such as the victim’s sexual history and whether the victim was in a relationship with the perpetrator, are generally considered to be irrelevant in determining rape.
Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle, without commenting specifically on the alleged rape that took place on Court Street on Oct. 12, said Ohio’s rape laws do not favor the women over the men.
“I just don’t think that’s the case, because there is a responsibility, and that responsibility isn’t just one way,” Pyle said. “When you have, again not speaking specifically on (the Court Street) case but just sexual assault cases in general, when you have two individuals, they both must consent, and they both must be in a position to consent. And they both must have at least the impression that the other person can give consent. If one of those things is missing, then you have an issue.
“It can go in either direction.”
Berkowitz said most state laws are thorough enough to criminalize all the behavior the public would think of as rape or sexual assault.
“In most places, the laws are fine; it’s the implementation that’s the problem,” Berkowitz said.
At Ohio University, the punitive measures taken against alleged rapists are a bit tighter.
Even if a student accused of rape escapes charges from local law enforcement, he or she has a good chance of being punished by the university, said Ryan Lombardi, vice president for Student Affairs.
He said that’s because the university will find someone guilty on preponderance of the evidence and, unlike a court, does not need evidence that proves one guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
For example, even if a student is found not guilty of rape in a court of law, OU could still suspend or expel a student if it determines the student breached the code of conduct.
“It’s much higher than that (of a criminal court),” Lombardi said. “Preponderance of the evidence is essentially more likely than not that something happened. It’s 51-49 percentage split that it did happen. That’s the way a university judicial system works here and virtually every university in the country.”
Some have said Athens’ party-school reputation trivializes a rape culture. Though that might be impossible to prove, Athens County had more reported “forcible rapes” in 2012 than some similar counties centered on a college town, according to FBI data.
Athens County, with five reported rapes in 2012, had more rapes than Portage County, where Kent State University is based, and Wood County, where Bowling Green State University is based; but, OU had fewer reported rapes than Miami University’s home county, Butler, which had six, according to the data.
Overall, Athens County ranks 77 out of 88 in county population, but ties with five other counties for 26th in terms of number of reported forcible rapes in 2012.
Law enforcement officials and social advocates believe that data on reported rapes doesn’t include most rapes that occur, because rape crimes often go unreported.
“(Rape is) a difficult case to prosecute because rape is such an intensely personal crime,” DeWine said. “A victim has to tell what happened to 12 strangers. That’s not easy.”
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Asst. Campus Editor Will Drabold and staff writer Allan Smith contributed to this report.
