Reports of sexual assaults among San Juan County students are on the rise. | Pixabay
Reports of sexual assaults among San Juan County students are on the rise. | Pixabay
San Juan County Attorney Kendall Laws wants the community to be aware of a disturbing trend in the county’s schools, as an increase in sexual assaults among students led his office to discover a growing rape culture that has taken hold.
Laws told KUER that his office began to take a closer look after the increase in sexual assault cases they were handling that involved students.
“And since then it’s become a passion project, because we can see there is a problem,” Law told KUER.
Reports of sexual offenses have become increasingly common in the past decade, according to KUER. Between 2000 and 2010, the average annual rate among high schoolers was five. That grew to 19 between 2011 and 2018, with 2019 having 21 reported offenses.
Additionally, Laws said that the majority of cases have involved a fellow high school student as the assailant.
Laws said that some of the new offenses are also due to students who had been silent in the past now coming forward. One victim reporting a rape that occurred last year may have emboldened some of the perpetrator’s past victims to come forward as well, he told KUER.
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