Data-filled report spotlights the prevalence of sexual assault in Utah

usu.edu/uwlp

LOGAN — A new report published last week by the USU-based Utah Women and Leadership Project on the prevalence of sexual assault in Utah paints a troubling picture.

On KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday, Dr. Julie Valentine, associate dean of undergraduate studies at BYU’s College of Nursing, said this report has a lot of data that has been collected over the last 11 years.

“The findings that were released is actually a research project that I started with our state crime lab, Utah Bureau of Forensic Services, and forensic nursing teams across the state, began this research in 2011. We have a huge amount of data, a growing data base of almost 9,000 rape cases across Utah,” she explained.

Dr. Valentine said they track from the time a victim comes for a sexual assault medical forensic exam through, if the kit was submitted to the crime lab, the DNA analysis finding, and then also the investigation and prosecution of the cases.

They are also incorporating cases from Idaho and Southern California. She said they are doing about 15 different studies with the massive data base.

“We found that since our cases from 2010 through now, the rape cases have become more violent, we’ve seen increasing rates of strangulation. When we worked with Dr. (Susan) Madsen to say, ‘What do want to focus on for this snapshot?’ We decided to focus on, one, the demographic or descriptive information about who are our victims and what is happening in these rape cases.”

One thing the study showed, which wasn’t a big surprise, was a higher incidence of rape when it comes to young women.

What was a surprise, was a higher prevalence of sexual assault of black women and native American women in the state, also women who have mental illness suffer a much higher rate of sexual violence.

Overall, numbers are not good in Utah, 1 in 3 are sexually assaulted, 1 in 6 women are raped.

Dr. Valentine said to fight back against this, an environment needs to be created where  victims will come forward and report, which means that victims, too, need to know that they will be believed.

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