The neurobiology of sexual assault seminar video was presented by Dr. Rebecca Campbell. In the video, Dr. Campbell discussed the research on the neurobiology of trauma and the criminal justice system response to sexual assault. She explained the underlying neurobiology of traumatic events, its emotional and physical manifestation, and how these processes can impact the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault. Her current work, which is funded by the National Institute of Justice, focuses on sexual assault nurse examiner programs in the criminal justice system. She's published over 75 scientific papers and two books on these topics and has conducted over 150 presentations at state, national and international conferences. Over her career …show more content…
One great point that stood out during this presentation was that about law enforcement/persecutors. They are trained to handle something that looks fragmented and sketchy as if it is not truthful. Their job is to look at it from multiple points of views and keep cycling back on it to try to find out what is true and false. They are just doing their jobs. I am hopeful that continuous education on sexual assaults can help to break this cycle. A disheartening fact that I already knew was that not all victims report sexual assault to the criminal justice system. However, of those make reports to the police, only a small number of them are actually going to be prosecuted. Dr. Campbell had research from multiple disciplines to try to understand how and why this is happening. She started by talking about some criminal justice research on the problem of sexual assault case attrition. She then talked about known research from psychology and psychiatry about victim behavior and the neurobiology of trauma. Her hopes were to bring those two together to get empirically based recommendations for how to change …show more content…
Campbell explained that is the information coming into the brain, into the body, is emotionally charged, fearful, the amygdala is actually the structure that's going to pick that up first. So the amygdala and the hippocampus have to work together for the encoding of that information and then the consolidating of that information. The information that's coming into the victim's brain and body during a sexual assault is traumatic and threatening. The amygdala is going to recognize this as a threat to the sustainability of the organism. For some victims, it's the corticosteroids that have dumped out at very high levels and actually reduces the energy available to the body, which causes fight, flight, or freeze. For some victims, they don't fight back and don’t flee the situation. Their body freezes on them and it can trigger essentially an entire shutdown in the body. The technical name for this is tonic immobility. Tonic immobility is often referred to as rape-induced
90 percent of the victims of sexual assault are women and 10 percent are men, and nearly 99 percent of offenders in single-victim assaults are men (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2010). According to https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault, Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. () Sexual Assault can happen to anyone, not just women it can happen to men and kids as well. Sexual Assault these days are a big trouble and it is not being addressed in good order, and it is
Sociological Analysis of Sexual Assault This essay will examine the social and cultural conditions, within the macro-diachronic and micro-synchronic theoretical models, that intensify or perpetuate sexual assault. I have chosen only one concept from each model because these are the only concepts that I feel that I can use to most accurately and comprehensively depict causes and reasons for why sexual assault is deeply entrenched in our social structure. I will thus explore, from these ideological viewpoints, some of the motivations and circumstances that lead offenders to sexual assault. I will also fuse some of the historical attitudes from which today's concepts have evolved into our contemporary understanding of these social phenomena. However, it’s important that we look beyond both offenders' motivations and history, and to the greater sociological view, if we are to correctly reconstruct acts of violence such as sexual assault.
Notman, M. T., & Nadelson, C. C. (1976). The Rape victim: psychodynamic considerations. American Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 408-413 .
According to the authors of “Enhancing Care and Advocacy for Sexual Assault Survivors on Canadian Campuses”, “Sexual assault has immediate and long-term health consequences for victims including suicide, HIV infection, depression, and social isolation,” (Quinlan, Clarke, and Miller). Another common side effect these victims face is post-traumatic stress disorder. Someone experiencing PTSD may have random outburst of anger, have trouble concentrating on day to day tasks, or may even have flashbacks of their attack. These consequences make it hard for victims to get back into the normal routine of everyday life (“Effects of Sexual Assault”). In a case at Amherst College a young women named Angie Epifano faced many of these consequences after she was raped by an acquaintance in one of the college’s dormitories. While immediately choosing to ignore what had happened to her Epifano soon became an emotional wreck. Before the attack Epifano had believed herself to be an extremely strong and independent individual. In an article done on Epifano’s story she stated “Everything I had believed myself to be was gone in 30 minutes,” (Epifano). Sexual assault takes away a piece of someone. With their hopes and dreams clouded by the tragedy they have endured, victims face a lifetime of
Sexual assault is defined as a type of behaviour that occurs without explicit consent from the recipient and under sexual assault come various categories such as sexual activities as forces sexual intercourse, incest, fondling, attempted rape and more (Justice.gov. 2017). People often become victims of sexual assault by someone they know and trust (Mason & Lodrick, 2013) which is conflicting to the public’s perception and beliefs that offenders are strangers. Women are the main victims for sexual assault and are 5 times more likely to have been a victim of sexual assault from a male (Wright, 2017, p. 93). Men are victims of sexual assault however only 0.7% of men, compared to 3.2% of women, experience some form of sexual assault which highlights how vulnerable women are compared to men. Sexual assault is publicised and exposed in the media, however is often
Sexual assault and rape are a serious epidemic in today’s society; statistics show that one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in their lives. (United Nations Development Fund for Women, 2008). And the reporting of sexual assault to the police is exceptionally low and few offenders are successfully prosecuted this leads to a lack of support and education within the community. (Madeleine van der Bruggen,
To most Americans Rape has a tendency to be one of the cruelest forms of criminal violence. The victim can suffer from incredible injuries, and substantial amounts of embarrassment. Rendered powerless by physical force, threats, or fear, after which being forced to submit to sexual acts, including vaginal penetration, oral copulation, sodomy, and penetration opening with a foreign object, the victim is left virtually alone. Rape is an intrusion into the most private and intimate parts of the body, as well as an assault on the core of the self. Whether or not the victim acquires any physical injuries, the psychological impact of a sexual assault is severe. Additionally, the painful, post-trauma symptoms that usually always accompany rape are long-lasting. Even the victims who seem to have been able to move on with their life often find that an extreme feeling of powerlessness and vulnerability remains close and can easily, and unexpectedly, be re-experienced. A most important aspect in the long-term impact of rape is that the assault negatively changes the victim...
The consequences of prison inmate rape are unbelievably ignored or treated with less importance. Several episodes of a traumatic sexual attack may be inflicted on the same person causing undesirabl...
Further biological research on the effect of psychological trauma on the neurochemistry of memory may help clinicians distinguish between true repressed memories and false memories in clients who report abuse. However, to date there is no method to determine the accuracy of these memories. Therefore clinicians and the courts must rely on corroborative evidence, and behavioral and physiologic clues to distinguish veracity.
According to a statement addressing the sexual victimization of college women The Crime and Victimization in America states that, “ One out of four women will be sexually assaulted on a college campus.” This disturbing fact has not minimized throughout the years, instead it is continuing to worsen throughout college campuses. Sexual assault is not an act to be taken lightly. Society must stop pinpointing the individuals who commit these crimes one by one, but rather look at the problem as a whole and begin to understand the main cause of sexual assault and possible methods to reduce these acts of sexual coercion.
About one in four women are victims of sexual assault in college, but there are ways to prevent this problem. The consequences of sexual assault are harmful and long-lasting and affect not only the victims but also their families and communities. Solutions to this problem _______. But, as Richard Edwards, chancellor of Rutgers-New Brunswick college said, “Regardless of the number, it’s a major problem, affecting our students and people all across the country and it has to be taken seriously” (5). If people work together, the steps can be taken to stop sexual assault in colleges.
Through the assessment of data, examiners reached a general conclusion regarding the permanent somatic and emotional effects of CSA. According to Irish et al. (2009), it was proved that victims of sexual assault undergo extreme depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and terror outbreaks. Likewise, the investigation indicated that these persons exhibited a conversion of their psychological trauma into somatic signs since they developed drastic health issues such as body aching, obesity, gastric complications, and heart and lung illnesses; as a result, victims of child sexual abuse usually get sick more often during middle and old age than other individuals.
Gaskill, Richard L. and Perry, Bruce D. (2012) “Child Sexual Abuse, Traumatic Experiences, and Their Impact on the Developing Brain” Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse: Identification, Assessment, and Treatment. Online.
Sexual assault is an offense that plagues many U.S. citizens. Although some studies show that rape is on the decline, other studies report that the phenomena actually occuring is that less rape victims are reporting the crime. In fact, approximately 68% of sexual assaults go unreported to the police according to the U.S. Department of Justice in a National Crime Victimization Survey from 2008-2012. It is common knowledge that rape victims are usually severely traumatized after the event, which leaves them susceptible to various emotions such as shame, anxiety, numbness, fear, denial, and guilt. Because of this, many rape victims decide to repress their experience and let it go unheard. However, not only does this prevent them from healing emotionally,
Per Martin, Taft, and Resick (2006), most women do not leave their abusive relationship immediately after the offense (Para. 8). Most women choose to seek help after noticing a change in the frequency and severity of sexual abuse, at the point where they felt the husband was going to hurt someone else or she was going to hurt him. Many women fear reporting marital rape and seeking help for a countless number of reasons. Martin, Taft, and Resick (2006) list some of those reasons as “fear of retaliation, helplessness, embarrassment, self-blame, and the belief that marital rape is not a serious problem (para. 8). Counseling is recommended for all rape victims. Per Mahoney & Williams (1998) “raped wives need different types of support than the battered only wife (Bowker, 1983) or the raped woman” (p27). The victims of wife rape need to address the incident itself as well as seek counseling for body issues, sexuality and physical abuse. Two methods of treatment have been suggested for marital rape victims; stress inoculation therapy and cognitive processing therapy. “Stress inoculation therapy (SIT) facilitates physiological, cognitive, and behavioral coping for fear. There are two phases in SIT. Phase one focuses on education and the identification of fears, and phase two teaches patients adaptive strategies for dealing with anxiety” (Martin, Taft, and Resick, 2006). The second method of treatment,