Sara Flores

English 1010
Issue Exploration Paper

Enough is Enough
97% of rapists will never spend a single day in jailRAINN
This statistic is sickening, to think that in a country where according to RAINN (Rape,
Abuse & Incest National Network), a person is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes, but yet
somehow 97 out of 100 of those people will not set foot in prison or jail, is what truly points out
the major problem that this country is currently facing.
As we have seen recently in the news, sexual assault, and most notably, sexual assault
towards woman is on the rise. In 2014, according to the Utah Department of Health, Utahs
reported rape rate was at a 67.7% per 100,000 females, way higher than the national rate which is
at 51.9%, however, 88.2% of rapes are never reported to law enforcement, meaning that those
numbers could be much higher. With all this occurring, it is troubling to see that there still not
much being done to punish those responsible for such heinous acts, but rather, the sentences is
usually served by the victim instead of the perpetrator.
Recently, Jack Healy (New York Times, 2016) wrote an article reporting major
discrepancies the university has done when investigating sexual assault claims. Some female
students at Brigham Young University have faced ridicule and havent felt like it is in the
Universities best interest to fully investigate the crime they reported. For example, in the article,
Healy profiled Brooke, a student at BYU was raped by fellow student, upon enrolling at BYU
like every other of the 30,000 students, Brooke was asked to sign BYUs honor code, which in,
amongst other things prohibits the use of drugs or alcohol, suggests modest dress and prohibits
no sex outside of marriage. The night that Brooke was raped, she stated to the police and the

university that she used LSD. She also stated that in a prior occasion she had previously engaged
in consensual sex with the perpetrator. Weeks after her report, Brooke received a letter from the
Honor Code office at BYU informing her that she had been indefinitely suspended from BYU
because of violation to the honor code, who listed her admitted drug use and premarital sex as
the reasons for her suspension.
Perhaps we dont know exactly what led to the honor code investigation, perhaps there
was more to the story, however, the fact that the rape in itself is being overlooked over the
wellbeing of Brooke is something that is disconcerting. The lack of understanding by BYU is
just a small example of treatment of almost the same proportion nationwide to victims. Why is it
that we live in a time where harsher laws or punishment is being used to punish the people
responsible for these actions? Instead we are at a time that shaming victims, and making them
feel worse is acceptable? Erica Kinsman was allegedly raped by Heisman trophy winner and 1st
round NFL draft pick Jameis Winston in 2012 while they were students at Florida State
University (FSU). Jameis was the person who was going to return FSU to its glory days of
championships and victories, which he did. The university invested so much in him that they had
to make sure that he was well protected. When word spread that he had allegedly been involved
in a rape scandal it didnt take long for the friends of the program or university to take reigns.
Before she even knew what hit her, Erica started receiving threatening phone calls, text
messages, emails etc. Her face was plastered all over the news nationwide and people began
questions her past, her sex life and her dignity instead of the person who did this. She was told to
die, threatened to be killed and made feel worse than human waste. She questioned her decision,
she contemplated suicide and she went into a deep dark whole of depression, it wasnt enough
that she had to endure that, but now the world was making sure not to make her forget. The New

York Times (Bogdanich, 2014) published a powerful piece regarding the Winston case. In the
article, evidence of carelessness, unimportance and even corruption were alleged. Some of the
most serious accusations were the mishandling of the investigation or lacktheroff, conflicts of
interest such as lead investigators being boosters and graduates from FSU, no contact with
potential witnesses etc., but most importantly the police not even contacting Winston until two
weeks after the report and never obtaining his DNA. In the end, Winston case never made it to
court, as his charges were later dropped for lack of evidence. Even though this was a high profile
case, many cases like this are being lost or not cared enough about by the authorities. There are
constant stories like this where the police or prosecutors failed to bring justice to the victim or
didnt quite take the importance of such allegations.
As stated before in the case of BYU, rape and sexual assault across college campuses has
become a serious issue enough for even President Barack Obama to state that rape in college
campuses was a national security issue. Over the past few years there have been numerous
accusations, and reports about universities that failed to take action in investigating sexual
assault cases, most notably schools such as Stanford, Harvard, Baylor, Florida State, etc. top the
list of schools with the less reporting of sexual assault cases.
The big question is why have college campuses become such hunting grounds? In an
article written in Time Magazine (Bennett 2014) author Jessica Bennett puts a lot of the blame on
the fraternities, she argues that too many of the fraternities breed sexism and misogyny, her
argument is to abolish all fraternities from universities. We all know that most frat parties consist
of drinking and drugs, so it is nothing new to know that many of the incidents happen at frats,
this could be a good step in the right direction, however, it still does not quite answer why so
many women at universities will be assaulted. In reality, there may be many reasons as to why

this occurs, the issue isnt why it happens but rather, how we can stop it. Banning all frats may
make a dent, but we all know sexual assault can happen practically anywhere, anytime to
anyone. Others have said teach better sex-ed, and educate all victims that it is ok to speak up, to
report, to take the freedom that was taken from you, back, however, it is much easier said than
done. Through the research I have realized that many of these victims feel so worthless, they do
not want to even remember, they do not want to relive those moments where they were treated
like human waste, rather they want to forget about the incident and try to salvage any life they
have remaining. It is hard to blame them for not wanting to speak up or continue an
investigation, what they feel not too many people know what it is like unless it has happened to
you.
I believe that it is not only on the government to try and prevent this from happening but I
strongly believe it also starts in our own homes, from the way we treat each other, the way we
treat women. Children need good role models to look up to who will teach them to respect each
other, sadly, many of the cultures right now instead of praising a woman, the objectify them, they
are made into sexual objects and therein lies many of the problems. It is easier for people to
access pornography now than it was years ago, with one click they have it on their phones, songs
and movies talk about rape, or sexual assault like it was nothing, other cultures overlook it and
even punish the victim, there is a lot of material out there that depict violence against women,
PlayStation game grand theft auto encourages you to pick up a prostitute to get your health up
and afterwards you can kill her to get your money back. It is things such as these where one has
to truly realize that we are lost, the world is mad and it is on us to change things.
It is my plea that we as individuals do something to make this crime more punishable,
that we encourage victims to truly speak up so that no one has to have the same feeling they do. I

feel strongly about this topic because I believe that a woman is just as valuable as a man, we
should not be forced to do things we dont want to and most importantly we should never have to
feel guilt in saying no. Rape awareness is something that must happen now to everyone, we
cannot change what other cultures do, but we can sure change ours and at least be a light of hope
to the people who we should be protecting, I urge people to reach out to leaders, elected officials
and voice your opinion that enough is enough, it is about time that the people responsible for
doing this metaphorically feel like they too have been violated, by the punishment they have
been handed by the very courts who are sworn to protect us.

Works Cited
1. Sexual Assault Statistics. RAINN. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Aug. 2016.
2. Healy, Jack. "At Brigham Young, a Cost in Reporting a Rape." The New York Times.
N.p., 26 Apr. 2016. Web. 5 Aug. 2016.
3. Bogdanich, Walt. "A Star Player Accused, and a Flawed Rape Investigation." The New
York Times. N.p., 16 Apr. 2014. Web. 4 Aug. 2016.
4. Bennett, Jessica. "The Problem with Frats Isn't Just Rape. It's Power." Time Magazine 3
Dec. 2014: n. pag. Print.