New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault

3909 Juan Tabo NE, Suite 6

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87111
505-883-8020
3/4/2016
Dear NMCSAP,
Per your request, I am writing this report about sexual assault among college students.
Here at NMCSAP, 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 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). With this in mind, we knew that we could ask our questions based
on the wide range of perceptions of sexual assault. 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.
Methods:
For our secondary research, we received all of our statistics from RAINN.org, and when we
compared it to the survey answers and, we found that the actual ratio for women is 1 in every
6, and the ratio for men is 1 in every 33. We also used four peer revised 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
Why: This article discuss whether or not a victim can claim there 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

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.
3) Rape as a Hate Crime: An analysis of New York Law
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
Why: This article discusses how there is often alcohol abuse among sexual assault victims
and how they sometimes suffer from PTSD.
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:
Survey Results:
1) 66% Female
2) Most respondents said no, but those that answered yes said that they thought about
that fear most of the time.
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.

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.

Are you male or female?

40
30
20
10
0
Gender
Male

Female

Do you know any sexual assault victims?

40
30
20
10
0

Respondents' Answers
Yes

No

Think about the risk of a taxi service?

50
40

30
20
10
0
Respondents' Answers
Yes

No

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:
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. Lastly, 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.

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://www.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://rainn.org/getinformation/statistics/sexual-assault-victims>.

Anonymous interview with 20 year old female

Anonymous interview with 23 year old male

Reflection
The best thing about working on this project was working on it in a team with my good friend
Carlos. I have had the opportunity to work in groups before and have enjoyed it, but the ability to work
with someone that I click with on a personal level proved to be very beneficial. We were able to bounce
ideas off of each other to figure out the best route to take, and if one of us had a better idea than the
other, then nobody got their feelings hurt. When it was time to present, we were able to easily divide up
everything that we needed to say with what we felt we were more comfortable with what we could do
better. In the past, Ive been in groups where a person is dead set on presenting a certain part that they
arent very strong in whether it was because it made them look better or it was easy, but Carlos wasnt
afraid to tell me that he would be better presenting something else.
For the peer review portion of the project, I immediately knew that the only thing I would have
liked to be different was for it to have been done earlier or even two days of it. Personally, I was unable
to finish reviewing the paper that I was looking at due to this lack of time. I found what my peer
reviewers to be very beneficial for this assignment. A lot of times that I have done peer review, I havent
gotten much decent feedback, but this time, the help that I received helped me to add two full pages of
extra information that I hadnt thought of before.
The first SLO that I felt we hit on very well was the finding and evaluating information. For us,
this was specifically for our secondary research when we had to use a total of at least four peer
reviewed articles to support the primary research that we had gathered. These allowed us to use factual
information from revised sources, and Ive never really had to use information from actual academic
sources such as the four I chose. It usually ends up being from a random Google search, Wikipedia, etc.
The second SLO that was really the more obvious one was composing our work in different
modes. Ive never before had to do as much work for a presentation as I did for the actual written report

like I did for this one. It was also weird presenting before having to actually turn in the report, but I also
felt that it was beneficial because it helped us solidify the necessary information when we put it into the
presentation.
If I could have done anything better for this assignment, it would have been to obtain a better
grasp on our audience being the same as the people we are working for. This made it difficult to make
a strong argument towards that given audience because I struggled with how to do so. Overall, this was
one of the most beneficial projects Ive had to do because of all of the areas of work that it covered.