Blame the perps

Imagine going out for some harmless fun at a college party. You sip on the alcohol in your red solo cup, and chit chat with a few friends throughout the night. Next thing you know, you wake up in some strange and unfamiliar place, with slight or no recollection of the events that lead you to the gruesome conclusion that you’ve been raped.

According to nsvrc.org, one in five women and one in sixteen men are sexually assaulted while in college. The criminal justice system statistics on rainn.org blatantly show that out of 1,000 rapes, 994 perpetrators will walk free. This is unsettling and disgusting.

It seems that rape and sexual assault is highly prevalent, especially at college, and these perpetrators are receiving nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

These victims have lost sight of who they are and will struggle immensely for the rest of their lives, so the people who have carried out these detestable acts get some probation time, and maybe a few months in jail.

The Brock Turner case has spread around the world like wild fire for the leniency of his actions. His victim was thrown behind a dumpster like a piece of trash while he sexually assaulted her. He got three months in jail. That is completely chaotic and mind-boggling.

If his actions alone aren’t enough to convince you that our judicial system has some loopholes in it, then by reading some chilling lines from a letter the victim wrote you should most definitely change your mind.

“I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don’t want my body anymore. I was terrified of it, I didn’t know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it. I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else.”

Even though these are just words they give me goose bumps because they are much more powerful. This victim couldn’t stand to be in her body because someone like Brock Turner used it for his own sick pleasure. The baffling thing is he is now a free man, but just has some limited restrictions. What’s equally disheartening is Brock’s attorney asked this victim questions that shouldn’t even be deemed relevant in her situation.

She was asked: “What were you wearing? How much did you drink? Are you serious with your boyfriend?” There were far more irrelevant questions, but these stuck out to me like a sore thumb.

The attire someone puts on shouldn’t contribute to whether they get assaulted or raped nor how much alcohol they consume.

We need to stop victim blaming and blame the perpetrators. They need to be held accountable for their actions, and get the punishment they deserve. The victims shouldn’t be the only ones suffering.

Like Brock Turner’s victim said, “This is not a story of another drunk college hook­up with poor decision making. Assault is not an accident.”

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