The Center for Public Integrity’s Sexual Assault on Campus became part of the official record of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing today on the widespread underreporting of rape cases in the United States.
S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus included the Center’s entire series as part of his written testimony. The year-long investigation found that sexual assault on college campuses is vastly underreported by victims as well as institutions, and that students found responsible receive little or no punishment.
Carter’s testimony pointed to the Center’s findings, as well as to a Department of Justice statistic that fewer than five percent of female undergraduates who have been victims of rape report it to the authorities.
Susan Carbon, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Violence Against Women, told the hearing about the pervasive underreporting of sexual assault cases throughout the country. Teen violence and college sexual assault, however, remains “one of the more serious problems we have,” she told the senators. Carbon said her office offers grants to combat dating violence, rape, and stalking on campus.