After several weeks of stories about crying rape, incestuous rape, and “rape-rape,” USA Today opted for a pick-me-up: reported rapes have dropped to an all-time low for the first time in 20 years.

“The FBI estimates 89,000 women reported being raped in 2008—29 women for every 100,000 people. That’s down from a high of 109,062 reported rapes in 1992—43 women for every 100,000 people.”

I’m hesitant to cheer, not least of all because rape is one of the most under reported crimes in the United States. Sixty percent of all rapes aren’t reported to the police, and when they are, odds are the rapist will avoid going to jail without so much as fleeing the country. Only 50 percent of reported rapes result in an arrest.

From there the numbers get better. An 80 percent chance of prosecution, and if the rapist is convicted, a 69 percent chance that person will spend some time in jail. But in 2007 there were 248,300 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. That’s hardly a statistic to tout, and its omission from the USA Today’s article begs the question: Have reported rapes reached an all-time low because there are fewer to report, or because fewer people who are willing to?

Statistically, the proportion of reported rapes and overall rapes should jibe; because reported rapes have decreased, the assumption is that all rapes have, too. But other studies suggest that rapes might have been increasing during the last 15 years, and the reasoning for less reported rapes in the USA Today story might make you do a spit take.

Why are there fewer reported rapes? Because rape kits are helping prosecutors nail perpetrators, and because victim blaming–once a means of demonizing the raped–is a thing of the past. Because there’s less of a taboo, so assaulted women (and men, who account for 10 percent of rapes victims in the U.S.) won’t hesitate to come forward. Lest you wonder whether victims aren’t reporting the crime.

“We have seen reform in how police work with victims, gather evidence and investigate rape; we’ve seen increased awareness of crime, and we’ve seen better prosecution,” said Michael Males, senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco. “Hospitals now have rape kits that they didn’t have 40 years ago.”

But it’s not so easy. Rape kits can cost up to $1, 500 to test for DNA evidence, which may explain why despite this breakthrough technology that can pinpoint a rapist beyond reasonable doubt, kits often collect dust on a shelf before the crime lab bothers with them. More than 12,000 rape kits had been sitting in police storage facilities in Los Angeles County when Human Rights Watch published a report about the backlog in March. More than 450 of those kits had been there for more than 10 years. Statute of limitations, anyone?

Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times writes about one particularly horrifying incident of a rape-kit backlog that led to more assaults:

Solomon Moore, a colleague of mine at The Times, last year wrote about a 43-year-old legal secretary who was raped repeatedly in her home in Los Angeles as her son slept in another room. The attacker forced the woman to clean herself in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Tim Marcia, the detective on the case, thought this meant that the perpetrator was a habitual offender who would strike again. Mr. Marcia rushed the rape kit to the crime lab but was told to expect a delay of more than one year.

So Mr. Marcia personally drove the kit 350 miles to deliver it to the state lab in Sacramento. Even there, the backlog resulted in a four-month delay—but then it produced a “cold hit,” a match in a database of the DNA of previous offenders.

Yet in the months while the rape kit sat on a shelf, the suspect had allegedly struck twice more. Police said he broke into the homes of a pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl, sexually assaulting each of them.

That’s hardly a vote of confidence for a victim to subject herself to the invasive four-to six-hour procedure required to produce the rape kit, but according to the USA Today article, surveys by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network have found that women are more willing to report rape now than two decades ago “because they expect police will believe them.”

“You don’t see the nightmarish trials of the 1960s where a woman’s reputation would be brought into question and people would conclude she deserved it,” Males said.

But victim blaming still abounds. In Canada, where Carleton University said an assault victim didn’t keep a “proper lookout” for her own safety and should have locked the door to the lab she was working in. Or at the University of Portland, which failed to pursue a student’s claim that she had been raped but told her she was lucky she hadn’t been penalized for underage drinking. Or Rihanna, who was accused of asking for it after boyfriend Chris Brown put her in intensive care.

Worst of all, though, may be Tufts University, boasting a policy that forces victims into mediation with their rapists. Hold on to your breakfast.

Victims are required to write a formal complaint against their rapist, who in turn will receive a copy of the report and has 48 hours to respond. If each party’s stories don’t match up and the complainant—defiantly—insists on disciplinary action against the perpetrator, a date is set for a Judicial Hearing.

One clause from the 2003 Student Judicial handbook has since been, outrageously, removed: “Mediation may not be appropriate in cases where the issue involves the behavior of an individual who may pose harm or danger to others in the community.” But another clause—the one that enforces rapist-victim mediation—remains: “Sexual assault cases follow the same general set of procedures as other cases.”

During a sexual violence community forum last spring, students expressed their concern to the dean and judicial affairs officer about the necessary step to no avail. A group “personally familiar with the rape culture at Tufts University” has created a Web site—rapedattufts.com—in response. Its mission? To expose “the perpetuation of rape culture at Tufts University at the hands of the administration.”

Here’s hoping that someday we’ll treat women who report rapes how they deserve to be treated. Not as sluts, nor liars, nor children who need to sit down and talk it out. Because until we treat them as victims, the reported rapes rate will decrease for all the wrong reasons.