07/18/08
Sexual Assaults Often Slow to be Reported -
Categories: The Dallas Morning News has posted an article online that addresses the number of reported rapes this year in Garland. The article does an exemplary job of explaining that reports are often not recent, are maybe years old. The article also does a good job of offering advice to victims from professionals and from Garland Police Dept's Public Information Officer Joe Harn.
Over the last six months, there were three such reports in District 1, one each in Jan, Feb, and Mar, but none since.
Garland rape reports up 139% so far this year
11:31 PM CDT on Friday, July 18, 2008
By WENDY HUNDLEY / The Dallas Morning News
whundley@dallasnews.com
Halfway through 2008, sexual assault reports in Garland are up 139 percent over the same period last year, but police officials aren't worried that assaults are the work of an elusive serial rapist.
Instead, many of the rape reports – there have been 43 through June compared with 18 at this point in 2007 – are old attacks and the victims are just now coming forward. Some of them date back to 2001 and 2002, and in the majority of cases this year, the victims knew their attacker.
Out of the 43 cases, 17 involve offenses at least a year old. Many of the victims are children, and most of the alleged attackers were family members or acquaintances.
Only three victims said they were attacked by strangers.
That's very typical, said Dr. Susan Clark, crisis response coordinator for Parkland Memorial Hospital's Victim Intervention/Rape Crisis Center.
"Stranger rapes are very rare," she said. Most rapes are committed by people the victims know, she said.
And Dr. Clark said she isn't surprised that some victims wait months, even years, before reporting a rape. "Most of our counseling is for historic ones," she said.
After a woman has been raped, she often wants to push the crime out of her mind, Dr. Clark said. But these dormant memories often come flooding back when she experiences a significant event in her life – a marriage or the birth of a child. That's when she finally seeks counseling and feels safe enough to report the crime.
As for this year's increase in Garland, Dr. Clark said one possible explanation for it is better outreach and education about the crime to the area's Spanish-speaking population. More than a quarter of Garland's population is Hispanic, according to the census estimates reported by the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
Officer Joe Harn, Garland police spokesman, said he understands why many sexual assault victims might be slow to come forward immediately after an attack. But he said there are good reasons to contact police as soon as possible.
If too much time elapses, evidence and details of the crime may be lost and it may be harder to locate the perpetrators, he said. Also, police can refer victims to counseling, he said.
"One of the reasons we like them to come forward early on is to get them help to deal with the trauma," Officer Harn said. "If they wait five or six years, they haven't dealt with it."
While Garland is seeing an uptick in reported rapes, that's not the case in some neighboring communities. Richardson reports a 45 percent drop from last year at the same time. In Dallas, rape cases are down almost 12 percent this year. Mesquite police are not seeing any fluctuation in the number of these crimes.
But Garland's experience may not be far off the mark.
In June, the crisis response team at Parkland hospital reported 78 sexual assaults and 81 domestic violence cases – a 26 percent increase over the same time period last year.
"We're seeing an increase in violence overall," Dr. Clark said. "We don't have hard numbers as far as where the people are coming from. We draw from across the area."
Dr. Clark also sees a link between the slumping economy and growing rates of domestic crimes. "As we see financial stresses increase," she said, "we also see a steep increase in domestic violence and sexual violence."
