ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A survey of Alaska women about sexual assault and domestic violence found higher rates than indicated by crime reports, the Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.
The University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center found that more than half the women surveyed had been victimized at some point in the life, and one in eight had been victimized in the past year.
The center surveyed 871 women by phone in May and June under a $280,000 state grant.
The new survey found:
- Almost 59 percent of the women surveyed said they had experienced physical violence or threats of it from a partner, or sexual violence from anyone, at some point in their lives. If that percentage holds true for the whole population about 145,000 Alaska women have been victimized, said Andre Rosay, Justice Center director and the lead researcher.
- Nearly 27 percent of the women said that over their lifetime they had had unwanted sex when they were drunk, high or passed out, and unable to consent. Almost as many had been sexually assaulted after being subjected to physical force or threats.
- During the year before the survey, close to 12 percent of the women said that they had experienced sexual violence or domestic violence or threats of it. About 9 percent said they had suffered physical violence at the hands of a partner including being slapped, kicked, pushed, beaten, burned or choked.
- Also in the past year, 2.5 percent said they had been sexually assaulted, which doesn't count those too disoriented to give consent because of drinking or drugs. That means an estimated 6,181 Alaska women had been victims of sexual assaults in one year's time, Rosay said. Of those, maybe 3,700 had been forced into vaginal sex, meeting the FBI definition of forcible rape used in crime reporting. In comparison, there were 503 forcible rapes reported to Alaska law enforcement in 2009, according to statistics collected by the state Department of Public Safety for the FBI uniform crime report.
Gov. Sean Parnell said the findings confirm that Alaska is in the midst of an epidemic of sexual and domestic violence.
"It really is the secret evil that is rotting us from the inside. It is something we don't talk about too much. It is done in the secrecy and privacy of homes," Parnell said Thursday.
He said his administration has been pushing to address the problem on several fronts including public education to prevent violence, tougher sentencing for abusers and more support for victim services such as shelters, he said. Some crime bills passed this year, and more work is needed, he said.
1] It doesn't separate domestic violence from sexual assault, and they are really 2 different animals, although they MAY occur together.
They are both dominance/control-related crimes, of course, and that maybe the reason they are lumped together, but it's deceptive and has an unsavory bias to me, to mix violent sexual assault in with 'domestic' issues. The other reason they may have been lumped together, for the purpose of this survey, is that they are apparently examined as 'crimes against women'.
And that is my 2] objection - I agree with snowangel. Neither of these categories are limited to women [and/or children] victims, by any stretch of the imagination. Although there is a growing public awareness that men may just as well be the victims of domestic abuse [by women], sometimes as violent as any perpetrated against women [by men], both the legal system and the social networks have apparently not caught up with that reality, and there is a pronounced bias in the system that can be extremely hard to overcome and can result in some fairly gross injustices. Additionally, the sexual assault rate of males [often juvenile, usually be other males] is under-reported, and therefore unaddressed, at a rate probably greater than 90% of the time. And that is due to exactly the same reasons that sexual assaults on females has been so under-reported in the past [and is only now *beginning* to change].
Now I'd like to see our State address both these dominance/control crimes in a far more vigorous manner. Time to get beyond studies and verbage, and get down to the brass tacks: adequate funding and rigorous motivation/mandates for the whole system, from LEO response and investigation, through the DA's office prosecutions, and into the Court time. And while we are at it, maybe we could get rid of a lot of some of the old, outdated, and quite artifical divides and biases of male/female dominance issues, and for lord's sake, stop lumping sexual assault in with 'domestic' problems!!.
I understand many women are abused but I truly believe the tide has changed and more men are going to jail even though they are innocent.
Not only that... all the paperwork for assessments for domestic violence help, are geared towards the feminine side. (Did HE hit you? How many times has HE threatened your life" etc etc..) What is wrong with the programs who are suppose to be there to support ALL VICTIMS... of domestic abuse.. . So in saying all this.. I do not believe any phone polls or statistics. Yes I know there are some true victims out there... but my point is.. they ain't all women..
The UA Justice Center is a reputable research organization and has published a variety of respected and credible studies on a variety of issues in Alaska. Surveys are part of that process, using accepted protocols for selecting those to be called as well as for analyzing the data.
What is interesting is that these numbers validate what the domestic violence shelter people have been saying for years. They hear many more reports of sexual assault and DV than are ever reported to police. This study helps to quantify the disparity, which will hopefully lead to better strategies for identifying the additional perpetrators and victims.