Although official reports indicate a low number, the Department of Public Safety says Iowa State is near average with national statistics of sexual assault and harassment.

“People just don’t report sexual assault to law enforcement, mostly because they don’t want their names in the paper,” said Lt. Lowell Huggins, day shift commander for DPS.

At press time, statistics for the 1997 fiscal year were not yet available. In 1996, however, only two cases of sexual assault were officially reported. Huggins said that was inaccurate.

“That’s such a misleading figure,” he said. “We know there’s more [assault cases] than that.”

Patricia Harvey, Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) coordinator, said ISU was near national averages for sexual assault instances.

“We are right in the norm with the country, which is unfortunate,” Harvey said.

Surveys conducted by DPS indicated that one in four people say they have been, or know someone who has been, sexually assaulted. According to a SART brochure, one in three women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

Although few charges are filed through DPS law enforcement, other sources are available to help sexual assault victims anonymously. According to a DPS report, the Assault Care Center Extending Shelter & Support (ACCESS) received “68 crisis calls from ISU students concerning sexual assault incidents occurring either on campus or at other locations.”

SART and DPS also take anonymous sexual assault reports, which allow them to seek information about offenders and look for patterns, Harvey said.

“We don’t do it to find out about the victim,” she said. Harvey said her office receives about five anonymous reports per semester.

“If they do want to come forward, we want to make sure they’ve gotten the help that’s available to them,” she said.

The anonymous report asks for information about the victim, whether he or she is an ISU student, his or her age and also for information about the assailant.

Although DPS will accept reports from second and thirdhand sources, the report states that no names may be given without written consent from the victim.

SART is composed of four departments. The law enforcement aspect is handled by DPS, the Story County Sheriff and Ames Police Department. ACCESS is the advocacy aspect of the team.

Ames Planned Parenthood, Student Health Center and Mary Greeley Medical Center deal with the medical issues, and prosecution is covered by the Story County Attorney.

Harvey said all of these agencies were involved in sexual assault cases before SART’s founding this year, but they now can more easily coordinate their efforts for effective prosecution.

Huggins said getting more people to report assault or harassment would be difficult as long as victim names are publicized.

“Trying to keep the name out of the public [arena] is pretty difficult,” he said. “You have to have cooperation from a lot of different areas.”

The SART 24-hour response line is 296-6397.