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38 Harv. J. L. & Gender 337 (2015)
A Deficiency in Addressing Campus Sexual Assault: The Lack of Women Law Enforcement Officers

handle is hein.journals/hwlj38 and id is 357 raw text is: A DEFICIENCY IN ADDRESSING CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULT: THE LACK OF WOMEN LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS KAREN OEHME,* NAT STERN,** ANNELISE MENNICKE*** The federal government has taken a range of measures to combat the scourge of sexual assault afflicting college campuses across the nation. Whatever the efficacy of these policies, however, they fail to address a major obstacle to curbing sexual violence on campus: the chronically low rate of reporting of this crime to police. Research on crime data has produced evi- dence that as female representation among police officers increases, more crimes against women are reported. Yet, most university campus law en- forcement agencies-tasked with taking a central role in combatting sex- ual assault-include strikingly few female officers. This Article proposes an increase in women's representation in campus police agencies to foster more reporting by victims and argues that schools failing to demonstrate consis- tent, ongoing, and genuine efforts to hire female officers are contributing to a hostile environment for complainants in Title IX litigation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................... 337 . The Federal Response to Rampant Sexual Assault at U niversities ............................................. 339 I. The Problem of Underreporting .......................... 347 III. The Impact of Women Officers on Sexual Assault Reporting ............................................... 350 IV. A Call for More Women Officers on Campus .............. 357 C onclusion ..................................................... 371 INTRODUCTION Sexual violence is harrowingly common in the United States, where a sexual assault occurs about every two minutes.' Nearly one in five women * Director, Florida State University Institute for Family Violence Studies; Florida State University Distinguished University Scholar. ** John W. and Ashley E. Frost Professor of Law, Florida State University College of Law. *** Doctoral candidate, Florida State University College of Social Work. The authors wish to thank Delaney Ellen Anderson for her outstanding research assistance. 'Statistics, RAPE, ABUSE & INCEST NAT'L NETWORK, https://rainn.org/statistics, archived at https:/perma.cc/28TA-4BJ9 (also noting that there are about 293,000 victims of sexual assault each year).

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