An Examination of Sexual Assault Resource Programs in West Virginia

An Examination of Sexual Assault Resource Programs in West Virginia Every 98 seconds, an individual in the United States is sexually assaulted (WV FRIS 2018). This means that one out of every six individuals in our country is the victim of an attempted or completed assault in their lifetime. Rural communities tend to have fewer resources when it comes to victims of sexual assault, and this type of victimization is often underreported in these communities. Specifically, in 2015 an estimated 19% of rape and sexual assault victimizations were reported to the police in urban areas, compared to an estimated 2% in rural areas (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2015). Underreporting in rural communities may be due to factors such as lack of familiarity, isolation, social climates that foster informal authority, mistrust of government, and an inclination to conceal internal and personal problems (Ruback & Menard 2001). The goal of the present research is to investigate sexual resource programs in urban and rural counties in West Virginia to compare the availability of resources for victims of sexual assault. In the end, I hope to be able to examine the effects of available resources on reporting and prosecution rates