Rape prevention advocates say 13 percent of students are sexually assaulted while in college, but police reports don't reflect that. And DA's file few cases.
"Kaitlyn's mom," in her home on July 9, 2024, said police didn't conduct a full investigation after her daughter was raped in her dorm room at Slippery Rock University. Joe Hermitt | [email protected] morning after Kaitlyn was raped in her dorm room last year, she woke up and went to her college class.It wasn’t until her roommate returned from an overnight trip and asked her how she was doing that she broke down crying and revealed what had happened.
He likely didn’t intend it as blaming the victim, but that’s how she took it. And that is how many victims are treated across the state, PennLive found in a yearlong investigation into why so few sex crimes are prosecuted. Kaitlyn first met the man she accused of raping her in front of her dorm room at Slippery Rock University. He didn’t live in the dorm, but was talking to someone who lived on the floor above hers, then approached her.
Afterward, Kaitlyn said she lay in bed, in disbelief about what had just happened, and eventually fell asleep. Kaitlyn had her menstrual period at the time, too, just one more reason she says police should have known she wouldn’t pursue a sexual encounter with a man she didn’t know. When asked why they didn’t check the man’s Snapchat account, Lope said, “I can’t remember that with certainty.”
Kaitlyn said she remembers the prosecutor telling her “this was a serious charge” and that they didn’t want to “be wrong.” Her mom remains angry at the school and campus police for making her think during orientation that they would protect her daughter. Training on properly investigating sex crimes often is limited in smaller police departments, and campus police may face additional pressure not to make their schools appear unsafe.
Regarding the county’s low prosecution rate according to PennLive’s data, Cantorna said: “I don’t have an explanation of why that is.” Title IX guidelines introduced under the Trump administration made it more difficult and confusing for college students to report their assaults, experts say.
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