EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a week-long series explaining how sexual assault cases are handled in Southeast Ohio and the resources available to assist survivors.
It’s not easy to report a sexual assault when the county sheriff is your neighbor, the emergency room nurses know you by name or the offender is the sole breadwinner for your family.
So some survivors of sexual assault in Southeast Ohio never come forward, said Stacy Crook, domestic violence coordinator for the Athens County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office rarely receives calls reporting rape.
That could be for a variety of reasons — one of which being the fact many people who live in the county, comprised of two cities, eight villages and 14 townships, might not be exposed to the legal and medical procedures following a sexual assault.
“In a sexual assault, nobody reports it,” Athens County Interim Sheriff Rodney Smith said. “People need to know what resources are available in Athens County. I think people who are already reporting it know, but there’s not many reporting it.”
Crook assisted a female survivor of sexual assault just a few weeks ago who was ashamed to admit she was raped.
Getting to that step is rare — 67 calls for sexual offenses were dispatched by the sheriff’s office in 2013, though only five of those calls were described as sexual assault or rape — possibly because the legal definition of sexual assault isn’t explicitly clear to those who’ve been assaulted.
Smith’s office responded to 28 calls for sexual offenses in 2014. One was called into dispatch as rape, as of Sept. 30.
In some cases, dispatchers were responding to calls outside of the county.
Grant money expands the area’s resources for sexual assault survivors
The Ohio University Women’s Center was given $65,000 by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office to expand and offer “core services” to the Athens area.
Core services, as defined by the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, include:
— Offering 24-hour crisis hotlines
— Criminal justice advocacy
— Community outreach
— Referral services
— Collaboration between different agencies
DeWine also determined in 2013 nearby Perry, Meigs and Monroe counties offered little to no services for survivors of sexual assault. Those counties were among 41 percent of Ohio’s 88 counties DeWine determined didn’t offer core services.
But funding DeWine made available in his Sexual Assault Services Expansion Program allows larger counties, such as Athens, to offer them those core services.
Since the program started, Monroe County Sheriff Charles Black Jr. said his office hasn’t seen an increase in survivors coming forward despite the additional services offered.
“A lot of people are embarrassed or feel it’s their fault,” Black said. “For whatever reason, they don’t want family members to know.
“There might be a situation where an individual is not pro-law enforcement.”
Also following the state’s sexual assault services expansion program, OhioHealth O’Bleness Memorial Hospital began to offer sexual assault forensic examinations 24/7 in Oct. 2013. It remains the only hospital in the county that can perform the procedure, sometimes vital for investigating a sexual assault case. O’Bleness serves nearby Perry and Meigs counties as well.
Morgan, Monroe, Noble and Vinton Counties don’t have a hospital at all — and for most counties a hospital is 30 minutes away. Most edge closer to an hour’s drive.
The Athens County Sheriff’s Office recognizes the need to explain the legal definition of what it means to be sexually assaulted and the resources available. Crook plans on hosting — with federal grant money — educational, information sessions to those in the fringes.
“(Crook’s) going to be the first face a victim sees instead of a detective, or some guy doing a raw investigation,” Smith said. “She’s going to go to each community and listen to the issues they have, and say what resources are out there.”
Appalachian culture affects sexual assault reporting
However, the area’s Appalachian cultural values could dissuade survivors from utilizing the resources.
Holly Raffle, an assistant professor in OU’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, researched behavior and values among Appalachian women in 2011 when studying the resistance toward breastfeeding in Southeast Ohio for the Ohio Department of Health.
“People come into these communities, take advantage and leave it,” Raffle said. “They’ve learned to rely on themselves, historically. If they’ve relied on other people they’ve been hung out to dry.”
Because of that, outreach programs by law enforcement and medical professionals could still fail to reach sexual assault survivors.
“Any issue with cultural competence isn’t about changing the person, but about changing what we do as professionals to make the environment more comfortable,” Raffle said.
Sometimes you’re going to have to dig a little deeper to get a confession of sexual assault out of an Appalachian survivor, Dr. Jane Broecker, an OBGYN with OhioHealth Athens Medical Associates, said.
Broecker worked to institute the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination, or SAFE program at O’Bleness last year which trains nurses to perform the examination.
“I think the problems are so multi-faceted and complex and wrapped up in poverty, drug use and cultural norms that it’s more than defining to these people what sexual assault is,” Broecker said.
She added she once interviewed a postpartum patient, and was asking standard questions about the status of the baby’s health and the relationship with the father when the mother replied, “Well, he’s just being more of a dick.”
Broecker said she could have ended the conversation there, but chose to press the patient to define what being a “dick” meant to her.
“ ‘Well, he’s up to his usual tricks again,’ ” the patient said, according to Broecker. “ ‘You know I’m not supposed to have sex for six weeks after I have my baby, and he’s already been after me about it.’ ”
“ ‘I need to get away from him. He takes my drugs.’ ”
Broecker said that is where Appalachian sexual assault cases differ: you’re in a closed community where everyone knows your name, and the man you’re relying on — who might own the home you live in — sexually assaults you.
“She was in a controlling situation that probably resulted in sexual assault on a regular basis that she wouldn’t define as sexual assault,” she said. “Because it’s just a part of her day-to-day life.”
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