“Rape crisis line, this is Julie,” she announces in her soft but confident voice.
Baton Rouge Rape Crisis Center training has taught her not to give her last name to callers. It has something to do with people trusting an outside opinion more, she said. She’d also rather not have people calling her house at all hours of the night.
But Julie is willing to take these calls from within the Crisis Center’s main office, a small and cluttered room on the second floor of the district attorney’s office. She understands the need for a 24-hour hotline. So, on Columbus Day, when all other government workers have the day off, Julie takes calls.
A caller may assume Julie is an area rape victim, someone who has dealt with her own crisis and is willing to help others recover as she did.
Julie is an area resident. She has volunteered for the Baton Rouge Rape Crisis Center since the spring of 1992. She continues to do so, not because she is an expert, but because she one day realized she had the time and personality a volunteer needs.
Julie, like many other people in the Baton Rouge community, voluntarily deals with the aftermath of rape on a daily basis.
So when the Rape Crisis Center’s statistics reveal a significant increase in the number of rape victims it has assisted in the past few months, Julie is not surprised. She is saddened, but not shocked.
A spike in statistics
Rape Crisis Center Director Jane Wood has her own room within the center’s small second-floor office. It is here that she compiles statistics that include police-reported rapes and those reported to her counselors. Her figures are a more accurate reflection of actual rape in the area, she said.
After each month, Wood will combine figures from the Baton Rouge Police Department, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, LSUPD, Southern Police and any other East Baton Rouge agency. Those figures are added to the reports that come through her office.
There were 17 total reported rapes to her office in September – a figure she finds unusually high.
Few people see the information she compiles, though. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report probably will only include about two of the 17 cases for September.
The UCR tracks violent crimes nationwide. The disparity between it and Wood’s figures occurs because not all victims report to the police, Wood said. Another large portion of cases fall under the simple rape category, a type of rape not included in the UCR and often considered acquaintance rape.
LSUPD Capt. Mark Shaw said he hates using the term “date rape” for what is occurring.
“If you and I met at a bar and you bought your drinks and I bought my drinks, I didn’t buy it and I didn’t force you to drink it, but if I took you home and took advantage of the situation – that is simple rape,” Shaw said.
Louisiana law defines simple rape as a sexual assault occurring after either the victim or both parties have voluntarily ingested toxins but the victim is too incapacitated to make a decision.
Shaw considers true date rape to be a rape that happens when victim is intentionally drugged. To him, it is a more serious offense than simple rape.
“In a date rape scenario, two individuals know each other, are in some type of social circumstance and the perpetrator goes through something to render the other more pliable. I look at it as premeditated rape,” Shaw said.
Both date rape and simple rape usually can be interchanged with the term acquaintance rape, Wood said. Both terms describe sexual assault committed by someone the victim has met or knows. But because formal dating is rare in the younger generation, the term acquaintance rape usually more accurately reflects what has happened.
“It could be someone you meet at a party, but it’s not a formal date,” Wood said. “But at this day and time, people are meeting at parties, bars or social gatherings. That’s just kinda the way it is now.”
Wood said she first noticed a significant increase in acquaintance rapes around August.
“These are not stranger rapes. These are [committed by] acquaintances, and many have been on LSU’s campus,” Wood said.
Her eyes widened to emphasize what she considers an alarming bit of information. She is sure that either six or seven of the cases in September have occurred on or near the University.
This past week, The Reveille reported that BRPD arrested another University student after he allegedly raped a woman he met at a Sigma Nu fraternity exchange party. Police charged the student with simple rape when they could not determine if drugs were involved.
Wood also has reports of 10 rapes in August. The figures for both August and September are about twice as high as they normally are for this time of the year, she said.
“We’ve seen the damage. I’ve never seen these numbers so early for LSU students,” Wood said. “It’s alarming and I don’t know whether they are reporting more or whether it is occurring more. I think there is no way to actually gauge that; my guess is that it is occurring more, but that is just a guess.”
Though BRPD’s statistics show a 20 percent decrease in rapes between the first six months of this year and the first six months of last year, those figures only account for BRPD’s jurisdiction, Wood said.
Shaw confirmed that LSUPD is investigating at least two cases so far this school year, one that a woman reported as occurring behind the Rec Center after the first football game and another that a victim reported as occurring on Oct. 13. Neither were acquaintance rapes, he said.
“We know of other incidents that have occurred, though,” he said.
Voices beyond the victim’s
Dr. Julius Mullins of Louisiana Women’s Healthcare knows of other incidents that have occurred as well.
For the past 20 year, Mullins, a gynecologist, has spent most of his days in Baton Rouge seeing patients and delivering babies. But to contribute to the community, he helps the Rape Crisis Center by examining victims.
He, like Julie the phone counselor, is someone affected on a day-to-day basis by the high number of rapes. His decision to step away from his comfort zone comes from a desire take away some of his patients’ pain.
“When police tell them we are coming to examine, they are really pretty receptive,” Mullins said of the most of the victims he has seen. “But they’ve obviously been traumatized. They are hurt and angry when we see them. It’s terrible.”
Julie often will get a similar reaction from the victims she speaks to, she said. Her usual response is to try to convince the caller that sometimes things happen that people can not account for and are not responsible for. Often she must convince the woman that her rapist committed a violent act in which he used sex as a weapon or tool to gain power.
“I think it’s that [rapists] don’t care,” she said. “They only want to gratify themselves and fulfill that power and control over someone.”
The idea is not always easy for victims to grasp, she said.
“A victim sees herself as guilty a lot of times and is ashamed. A lot of times she’ll blame herself for some reason or other,” Julie said.
Sometimes the only thing she can do for a caller is to listen. Listening is what Julie had the most trouble with when she started counseling. But listening allows callers to make their own transformation from victims to survivors. Julie’s voice acts as a voice of reason, grounding them and putting their emotions into perspective.
Mullins thinks it is his job to do the same by directing patients to someone like Julie. At the time he sees patients, most don’t realize how difficult things may be for them in the upcoming months or even years, he said.
“I just try to make sure they get taken care of and have a good support system at home or at school,” he said.
The work is frustrating, and both Mullins and Julie said they are not immune to the emotions surrounding rape.
“The date rape on campus really bugs me. I just want to cry sometimes,” Julie said.
She finds it especially difficult to talk to parents whose daughters may have just moved to Baton Rouge for college.
Sorority and fraternity mixers frustrate Mullins the most about his job. Though he is not opposed to social activity, he has been around long enough to recognize that it is hard to convince young adults they need to be careful.
“All these damn fraternities and mixers, they are a ruse to get college girls to see college boys,” he said.
Both Mullins and Julie said they have picked up on what seems to be an obvious trend – those who leave the social group risk assault and those who have formed a buddy system stay safe.
A drug and alcohol problem
Some date rapes are planned. Sometimes a man will begin with the intention of raping his date or an acquaintance.
Wood, the Rape Crisis Center’s director, has heard cases of men offering a woman a ride home or bringing her up to his dorm room with the intention of forcing himself on her. No drugs or drinks are involved.
But often the rapes are influenced by both these substances.
“We see both. Sometimes it happens when something is slipped into a drink and sometimes they are drinking,” Wood said of the reports she’s received so far this year. “You name the scenario and it’s happened.”
There is no general scenario associated with acquaintance rape, but the growing popularity of sedative drugs such as GHB has caused authorities to be on guard against drug-induced rape.
In February 1997, the Food and Drug Administration re-issued a warning against GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyric acid. Reports had been circulating in the media that a form of the drug was legalized to enhance bodybuilding.
But according to the statements released, the FDA said GHB “continues to be an unapproved and potentially dangerous drug and cannot be legally marketed in the United States.”
EBRSO Capt. of Narcotics Shane Evans said those distributing or using the drug face mandatory jail time.
French scientists originally created GHB about 40 years ago as a possible anesthetic. The drug resurfaced in 1987 in the research community as a possible treatment for sleep disorders, according to www.ProjectGHB.org, the Web site for an organization that said it is committed to public awareness of GHB.
This known effect enticed body builders at about the same time, Evans said. They would have a hard workout and take the drug to sleep and give muscles time to heal.
In recent years, GHB has gained popularity as a recreational or “rave” drug. A person who ingests GHB usually can get the same effects they would get from drinking about a case of beer “really fast,” Evans said. Combining the two depressants is risky, though.
Low doses of the drug produce depressant effects on the brain and give a person an euphoric or “high” feeling. High doses of the drug result in slowed heart rate, respiratory failure and sometimes coma.
Evans can recall at least half a dozen area deaths from GHB in the past few years.
When deaths occur, most often people have made the mistake of treating a GHB overdose like an alcohol overdose. Unlike alcohol, GHB overdoses can’t be slept off and require medical attention, he said.
Despite the risks, the drug remains the most popular intoxicant used in date rapes because it is generally odorless, colorless and tasteless.
“In most mixed drinks you can’t taste it, even in beer,” Evans said.
For example, one woman who called Evans said she usually can drink two white russians and barely feel intoxicated. That night, she got extremely intoxicated after just one drink, a indication that something may have been slipped in her drink, Evans said.
GHB begins working after only 15 minutes. And its side effects are more serious than those of alcohol.
The drug’s slumbering effects leave a person vulnerable and open to assault.
“It’s like being able to see what’s going on, but not being able to feel it or do anything about it and not remembering all details the next day,” he said.
Problems with prosecution
Assistant District Attorney Sue Bernie, a sex crimes prosecutor, said GHB reacts quickly in the body and within a day is impossible to detect.
This, combined with the drug’s memory-erasing characteristics, causes Bernie to sometimes find sex crime cases more challenging than the murder cases she once worked on.
Bernie began solely prosecuting sex crimes cases in Baton Rouge 15 years ago. Through her experience, she said she realizes that she offers victims help in the form of letting them know someone believes in them.
“This is a way to help victims,” she said. “A lot of people don’t want to handle these types of cases, but it’s worth it when you are able to get justice for a victim.”
Other factors that complicate Bernie’s quest for justice are proving lack of consent when alcohol or drugs are involved. It is more difficult to prosecute someone when the victim voluntarily consumes the substance that incapacitated her.
But no case is impossible, she said.
Even those found guilty of simple rape could face up to 25 years in prison – a penalty that surprises some.
“I think sometimes people commit crimes and they have no idea what the penalties are,” Bernie said.
Those accused of forcible rape face a maximum 40-year sentence. Cases in which GHB or other drugs are used without the victim’s knowledge fall into this category.
The penalties often deter victims from reporting someone they know. However, Bernie encourages students to remember that it is not uncommon for someone who has raped once to do so again.
The truth about acquaintance rapes in Baton Rouge
Almost all of the officials agree that any rape in the area poses a problem. The recent statistics have set off alarms for many, including the gynecologist and Wood, the Rape Crisis Center’s director. But not all are sure how bad the situation actually is.
Women may just be reporting rapes more, Wood said.
“There has been a lot of publicity in the last eight or nine months,” she said. “It’s hard to measure, but I would hope that women are just reporting it more.”
Wood remembers that the Baton Rouge Crime Stoppers held a campaign this past year for awareness of sexual assault and club drugs. This campaign may have encouraged more people to report the incidents that always have been going on.
“It is virtually impossible to gauge that,” she said.
BRPD Cpl. Don Kelly said Baton Rouge police think the campaign is a likely factor in the spike. But his figures are consistent with Wood’s in that three-fourths of the rapes coming through his office are acquaintance rapes.
“There is a misconception,” Kelly said. “People are worried most about the person lurking in the bushes when numbers show it doesn’t usually happen like that.”
And though Kelly and others think the public is also more aware after serial killer attacks in 2002 and early this year, Wood is more confident that the taboo associated with reporting acquaintance rapes may be dissolving.
“Before, if it was a friend or if it happened at a fraternity or sorority exchange, there was that stigma, but that’s not the case anymore,” she said.