When it comes to sexual assault on college campuses, increased numbers of incident reports can be a good sign; it means victims feel more comfortable coming forward and seeking help.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Annual Security and Fire Safety Report for the academic year 2014-15, released Wednesday, reported 34 sex offenses in 2013, a number consistent with the year before and slightly lower than the 37 reported offenses in 2011.

However, Carmen Hotvedt, assistant director for violence prevention, said the numbers found in this annual, federally mandated report are not indicative of the reality of sexual assaults on campus.

She said an estimated 2-13 percent of assaults are reported, and even the numbers that are on the annual report only represent a limited amount of reported assaults, as the numbers are drawn only from assaults that occur on or near campus.

“Not all students will see their experience represented because of how the federally required report works,” Hotvedt said. “It does not accurately show how many are occurring, not even all that are reported to police.”

In light of allegations a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee fraternity had slipped “date rape” drugs into various drinks at a party, along with continuing reports of incidents on college campuses, including an assault reported at UW-Madison on Monday, both the university and the state of Wisconsin are responding with plans to address sexual assault.

Last week, the UW System released a plan to develop a new task force to target the issue. The UW System Task Force on Sexual Violence and Harassment was created in efforts to increase preventative education on sexual assaults, Tonya Schmidt, a member of the task force and the director of Title IX and the Clery Compliance, said.

Schmidt said she believes the new actions will strengthen current programs already in place, such as Tonight!, a program administered through University Health Services that is mandated to all first-year and transfer students to raise awareness on sexual assault prevention.

“I believe the education provided in the Tonight! tutorial helps students identify sexual assaults and instructs students on reporting incidents…the numbers reported will only increase, which is good because it means survivors are getting the help they need and perpetrators are being held accountable,” Schmidt said.

Sexual assaults have been an election topic among running candidates seeking to propose answers to the problem. Attorney General candidate Brad Schimel released a plan to handle the problem by uniting law enforcement, students and college administration officials in a special task force that would brainstorm and implement various solutions.

Schimel said the renewal in a movement to solve issues of sexual assaults is something that should be ongoing and not forgotten as dramatic incidents spike interest that can fade away.

“Well, when tragedies like this happen people get angry and we need to leverage those emotions into actions, let’s do something, let’s make a change,” Schimel said. “UW-Milwaukee is where I went for undergrad. I hope they’ll be able to effectively clean this up. This is an opportunity [around the rest of the state] to be proactive.”

Another part of Schimel’s plan is to advocate for the Good Samaritan Law. This law, similar to UW-Madison’s Responsible Action Policy, allows for a victim or peer to report incidents to police without fearing consequences if they were drinking underage or consuming marijuana, for example.

This plan goes hand-in-hand with another part of Schimel’s plan, which will provide free date rape drug test kits and expand current availability of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner services.

“That’s our hope … that even if a victim is not ready to come forward, they can discreetly get their hands on a kit and when they’ve cleared they’re heads they have that preserved,” Schimel said. “The Good Samaritan Law will ease that reluctance. Someone could say, ‘Well I don’t want to do that because now I’ll get in trouble for having smoked marijuana.’ [This law] makes sure they are not reluctant to come forward.”