Date Rapes on the Rise
MBPD Says If It Weren’t for Some of Their Efforts, ‘Numbers Could Have Been A Lot Worse’  

“No one talks about it. It happens so much but we don’t know about it.”

By Angie Hargot

Last year 81 rape cases passed through the Miami Beach Police Department’s doors, city crime statistics show. That’s a 30.64 percent increase over the previous year.

A related statistic sheds light onto another trend: In 62 percent of those rapes, the offender was either known to or an acquaintance of the victim.

The year prior saw a 19.23 percent increase. The attacker was known to the victim in 92 percent of 2005’s 62 cases, the city of Miami Beach’s Uniform Crime Report states.

Although a Feb. 7 letter summarizing the statistics was sent to “Mayor David Dermer and Members of the City Commission,” Commissioner Jerry Libbin said he wasn’t yet familiar with the new stats. “I haven’t heard much about it,” Libbin told the SunPost. “One rape is too many. There’s been no discussion [on the dais], but I have confidence in our Police Department — that they’ll devise a way to catch perpetrators.”

But one local producer isn’t so sure. L. Powers, although not affiliated with a nonprofit enterprise, is producing a performance of Eve Ensler’s award-winning play The Vagina Monologues this Sunday at the Colony Theatre, in the hopes, she says, of raising funds partly to produce restroom plaques warning of the dangers of date rape. Because, according to Powers, the Police Department isn’t doing enough.

“We are a sex city; people come here for sex,” Powers said. “No one talks about it. It happens so much but we don’t know about it. The Miami Beach Police Department refused to have someone talk at my show. They need to do more than they’re doing.”

Miami Beach Police Department spokesperson Det. Robert Hernandez said the department does take measures to combat date rape. “It wasn’t one of those things where you’re walking down the street — [offenders] are known to the victim,” Hernandez told the SunPost. “Spring break in Miami Beach is eight weeks long, with all of the various universities letting out at different times. We had victim’s advocates and local church groups literally walking around passing out fliers. If it wasn’t for those efforts the numbers could have been a lot worse. They could have been a lot worse.” 

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez, who was previously the director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, recently addressed an increase in rape cases in some of the county’s statistics at a press conference. “The instances where the offender is known to the [victim] is upwards of 75 percent. So it’s extremely difficult,” Alvarez said. “Except through [increasing] education, information, awareness and reporting, and by that time those crimes have already occurred.”

Although she could not confirm specifics as of press time, Powers alleges that Miami Beach Police Department officials told her they could not lend the MBPD logo to the signs she was creating. “They said, ‘We are not on the same page; we can put social workers there,’ but overall it was a bust [in terms of support]. They should have helped with the logo.

“I offered to work with [the Police Department] if they weren’t happy, to make the signs more stylized. And the word ‘vagina,’ I was told, was something they couldn’t put their name to,” Powers told the SunPost. “Even though we sell sex on South Beach, and the word ‘vagina’ is a scientific word.”

Although Powers maintains she had several conversations with various department members, including a face-to-face meeting, Hernandez says he doesn’t recall the encounter, so he couldn’t comment on if or why the department declined Powers’ proposal.

Powers said she’s producing this rendition of the Monologues after she was cast in that show while attending the University of Miami. She said she graduated from UM in 2000, and continued the project to aid awareness of date rape because, “I looked around and it was a light bulb. It was our number one socially unspeakable issue.” Last year’s show, presented to benefit domestic violence causes, was held at the Miami Beach Cinematheque in Miami Beach.

Much like the issue itself, the city’s efforts to combat a growing problem are not always overwhelmingly apparent. Although Powers says she wants plaques placed in the bathrooms of nightclubs because she sees a need for them, Sarah Poux, a victims advocate in the MBPD’s Criminal Investigations Division’s Domestic Violence Unit, said there are already posters in some clubs that have volunteered to cooperate, although she couldn’t recall a specific number.

“We put up posters in the bathrooms once they let us in,” Poux said. “During spring break we go out on the weekends. We pass out a bookmarker with tips around the clubs down Collins, Ocean and Washington.” Poux estimates the city’s volunteers and local church group volunteers pass out between 3,000 and 5,000 bookmark-sized fliers during spring break weekends. The fliers list the usual cautions against date rape: “Don’t leave your drink unattended,” “Pay attention,” and some that are more blatant — “Don’t get wasted.” Included are a slew of phone numbers to call if an incident occurs. The city also passes out 15-minute keychain phone cards, provided by the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee, which potential victims can use to acquire services or contact family members if attacked.

“When they’re on spring break they forget the safety measures, not leaving your drink alone.…” Poux said. Although Poux hopes the fliers end up in the purses of the people they are handed to, Powers thinks a good many of them end up on the floors of nightclubs, although she applauds the effort.

Including Poux, her unit has two members who are assigned to cases as detectives get them. “We’re on call 24/7. We help victims with crisis counseling, referrals — we take those steps to make things smooth for them in a difficult time,” Poux said. Victims attacked in Miami Beach are transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Rape Treatment Center. Created in 1974, the center was the first hospital-based rape treatment center in the nation, according to the center’s Web site.

The police “promote during spring break, but everyday is spring break here,” Powers said. “The Vagina Monologues is a global movement to end violence against women. The slogan is ‘V-Day until the violence ends.’ I speak to people and they say ‘it’s never gonna end.’”

She recounted her own two near-rape experiences. Both times, she was drugged by an unknown substance slipped into her drink, but escaped without being raped, Powers said. “I got away,” she said. Both instances allegedly occurred in social settings where the perpetrators were friends or friends-of-friends.

Powers says Cameo Nightclub and Score have already agreed to post her project’s signs in their restrooms, but she wouldn’t identify the clubs that declined to participate — she hopes one day they’ll come around. She understands that many clubs might not want patrons associating their clubs with rape. “But it happens,” she said. “It could only help us to say to the rest of the world, ‘Come down and drink and we’ll watch out for you.’”

For more information on Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Rape Treatment Center, call the Center's Hot Line at 305-585-RAPE (7273). To contact the Miami Beach Police Department, call 305-673-7901, or 911 in an emergency.

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com.