A community-wide committee has developed a new method of reporting sexual assaults on the Ohio University campus and in Athens, and representatives of the committee hope the reporting system will heighten awareness of sexual assault and lead to a higher level of criminal prosecution.

The advisory committee, which had been meeting since the fall, developed the first community-based sexual assault reporting system that includes reporting protocol for gathering and releasing data on incidents of sexual assaults on campus and throughout the Athens community.

The new Sexual Assault Report Form is being used by six community organizations, eight campus offices and the university's Sorority Survivor Advocate Program to file data with either the Ohio University Police Department or Athens Police Department, depending on whether the offense took place on or off campus. Law enforcement will then determine what violation occurred. The form includes a brief description of the offense without identifying the survivor.

Data will be released to parents and students attending Precollege this summer, said Jeanine Woodruff, assistant director of the campus' Department of Health Education and Wellness and advisory committee coordinator. Statistics also will be released to the media and campus and Athens communities on a quarterly basis.

On-campus forums and discussions over the past year had increased awareness of the underreporting of sexual assaults on and around campus. Woodruff estimates that 95 percent of all sexual assaults that take place locally are acquaintance rapes, where the people involved know each other.

The Department of Campus Safety released figures indicating no rapes were reported to campus police in calendar years 1993, 1994 and 1995; they reported three rapes occurred in 1996. No other sexual assault figures were released by other campus offices.

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