e parents and dual-income family units, children are often left unsupervised and open to more cases of rape and sexual assault (5).It is no surprise when it is said that this type of case is on the rise today. With the low amounts of reportings, it is easier for the rapist to get away with his crime. The New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault reported that one out of every five females are raped within their lifetime and that only sixteen percent of those cases are reported, only two percent of which are prosecuted. Anne Liske, a researcher of the coalition stated that, "20,911 rapes were reported in New York in 1996, but that the total was probably more than 139,000 (New York 6)." In order to prevent these heinous crimes, Liske also discussed how laws on prosecuting the rapist must be made easier for the victims. (6)It is a fact that young teenagers are rising victims of rape. Sex play and sexual intercourse is a feature of dating behavior in high school students today. And while early experimentation with sex in high school often leads to more aggressive sexual encounters in college (Sexual coercion 447). Extensive research has documented the behavior of sexual means in undergraduate college students which have revealed a high rate of coerciveness existing in the everyday dating roles and situations of these young teens. These behaviors included unwanted touching and forced intercourse. "A review of twenty-three studies noted that thirty to seventy-eight percent of all college women had experienced unwanted sexual activity while on a date (447)." These behaviors and cases reported by the victims are usually not their first experience of sexual assault. It has been found that abuse in a child's early years "has been linked to numerous negative consequences in adulthood, including rape (Childhood 115)." In this study, Shelderic reports that women who were sexually abused as children were more likely to be candi...
