The issue of how to punish sexual assault and rape is interesting to me because as a young woman, I am the percentage of the population that is most affected by the crime. This research question of punishment affects and questions the justice I or any other female/male student would receive after being sexually assault. The issue with rape is that it is not a black and white topic where there is a right and wrong answer, there are multiple scenarios and factors that apply to the situation. There are multiple places where sexual assault occurs and not all of the information or facts are present, making the dictation of punishment even more troublesome. Issues with mandating retributions are made even harder because many schools attempt to protect their reputation by mishandling or botching the sexual assault allegations, which occurs in about 55% of the rape and sexual assault incidents (Burleigh). With regard to personal experience, the issue has not directly affected me, but has been a pressing topic that has always surrounded me and I have been highly educated on sexual assault through my academics, personal life, and social activities. I am qualified to write about the topic of punishment in rape because I have been taught and informed about the wrong doing of sexual assault. I've listened and watched multiple speakers and movies dictating the issues and laws of rape. 

To answer my research question, I have utilized three sources so far. My first source is an article written by Nina Burleigh called, "Confronting Campus Rape". In the writing Burleigh starts with the story of a rape survivor and how the event altered her life completely and the men who violated her, acknowledged they had raped her, but have never been punished for their heinous crime. This story illustrate how Universities and Colleges are failing to protect their student because even though the two men confirmed they sexual assault the young girl there was no repercussions or punishment for the young men. Burleigh continues with stating the rise of sexual assault in college life and that many people are calling for more recognition of the crime and harsher laws. Most significantly, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has called attention and made comments that the laws and punishment of sexual assault need to be intensified. Burleigh highlighted that rape is a local law enforcement issue, but once it occurs on a college campus it becomes a federal issue because of past rape cases that forced new acts and laws to come about. However, these federal issues are mostly not dealt with and are left to the schools to dictate. Many women's advocacy groups are calling for the acknowledgement of these injustices and the formation of boards to take care of and end sexual assault in college (Burleigh). The author seems credible because all of her information is based on facts and information published in academic journals. Burleigh seems mostly unbiased towards the topic of her article and is mainly informative rather than argumentative.  

My second source is an article from Time Magazine, "The Debate: How Should College Campuses Handle Sexual Assault?", written by Kirsten Gillibrand. In the article, Gillibrand illustrates that sexual assault is a crime and not something that can interpreted as an accident. She argues that rape needs to be redefined and a clear and concise definition should be utilized to describe exactly what schools define as sexual assault, so that there are less grey areas when confronting the issue. The article also says that the decision of declaring whether or not there was crime committed should be taken out of the universities or colleges' hands because they are only concerned with their image and not the students. However, Gillibrand also argues that schools should not go on a hunting spree or have a mass hysteria, that an middle ground needs to be found while handling sexual assault, so that justice is being served but not at the expense of one person (Gillibrand). Gillibrand is a credible source because she consulted many specialists/professionals and cited them as her help for writing this article, this illustrates that she took information from many sources so that she had all sides of different views and ideas of how to handle the issue of rape. The author and source are somewhat biased and definitely lean towards a specific view how what changes should occur throughout colleges and universities. 

The third source is an article found through the Academic Search Complete database, it was written by Eliza Gray and is called "This Is The New Frontier In The Fight Against Campus Rape".  In the article Gray talks about how the state of California is imposing mandatory minimum punishments for colleges and universities to punish predators. The new punishments and laws being proposed would help sexual assault victims. The bill will force the hand of colleges to punish their students, who are found breaking the laws, and universities would also be held accountable if a student was not reprimanded. These new laws would end the lack of punishments, while also affecting the rapists standards with the school and ultimately endangering the perpetrators futures, acting as an incentive for the possible attackers to not sexual assault fellow students (Gray). Gray and her source is seen as credible because her writing is unbiased and based solely on information and facts thus looking at the issue from all sides. The article is informative rather than argumentative and demonstrates the recent changes going on with the issue of rape and sexual assault. 

The issue of dictating a punishment of rape at colleges and universities, has been argued and discussed countless times without ever coming together with a definitive answer, thus illustrating it is arguable. All of my sources agree that there needs to be changes in the laws and more restrictive punishments for those found guilty of rape. However, there has been no clear action of what changes should occur to help those victims have justice or punish the perpetrators.  The different perspectives of my sources have made me question my initial belief of how predators on college campuses should be punished and if the colleges and universities should be held accountable as well for the crimes. Following the change in my perspective, I might need to research further and find cases where schools have been successful with stopping sexual assault on campuses and punishing rape criminals.

