jriddle@thealpenanews.com
Alpena County either excels at supporting sexual assault survivors or has a serious sex crime problem.
Over the past five years, Alpena County police received more than 300 reports of sexual assaults including rape, unwanted sexual touching, and other forced sex acts making sex assaults the most prevalent violent crime in our area, according to Michigan State Police data.
The data also suggests we might have more of a problem than other communities: The assaults reported here over the last five years work out to 1,102 assaults per 100,000 residents, double the statewide rate (Alpena County’s per-capita rate shows more assaults than actually reported because we have fewer than 100,000 residents).