Reducing Risk and Victim-Blaming in Campus "Timely Warning Notices" about Sexual Violence
Location
Room 207/205 Interactive Panel
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
24-2-2018 10:45 AM
End Date
24-2-2018 12:15 PM
Description
The Jeanne Clery Act requires universities to provide a “timely warning notice” to their campus community when there is a dangerous criminal situation that represents a serious or continuing threat to students and employees. Though this requirement applies to a broad array of crimes, but it specifically does apply to Clery Act crimes, including sex offenses, domestic violence and stalking.
The Clery Act requires a timely warning notice be issued when a Clery Act crime:
- Occurs on the campus’s “Clery Geography.”
- Is reported to the campus police.
- And might pose a serious or continuing threat to students or employees.
A timely warning notice must also be issued in a “timely” manner, include all information that would promote safety and that would aid in the prevention of similar crimes (risk reduction tips), include pertinent information about the crime that triggered the warning, and reach the entire community.
Though the Clery Act does not specify what “timely” means, recent reviews of timely warnings indicate it is within hours. This short window of time creates the need for universities to create set scripts that can be utilized efficiently under varying circumstances. How these messages are constructed is a balancing act of effectively providing required risk reduction tips and crime information, while being sensitive to the victim, the accused, and the perceptions of the recipients of the message. One critique of the current scripts is that these messages seem to place the burden of preventing sexual assault onto potential victims, rather than aiming messages at potential perpetrators. In-depth prevention education is typically not provided by universities in timely warning notices in order to keep messages succinct and focused.
How can universities disseminate useful timely warning notices to help reduce risk, without also sending out messages that can be interpreted as a form of victim-blaming?
The creation of these USU scripts for timely warnings represents a new interdisciplinary collaborative process that acknowledges the needs and concerns of various stakeholders from the campus community. This team will consider the ethical and legal implications of distributing emailed timely warnings to USU’s community of over 20,000 students, faculty, and staff in situations where it is difficult to ascertain if a crime might pose a serious or continuing threat to students or employees. This team will also create a suggested procedure to aid in making decisions about threat levels of crimes, along with scripts to report those crimes.
This interactive panel presentation will first give the perspectives of different stakeholders in reporting sexual violence on campus: communications, law enforcement, and victim advocacy. Each stakeholder representative will give a short 5-minute presentation and answer audience questions (30 minutes total). After presentations and initial questions, USU’s timely warning notice scripts will be discussed and distributed, and participants will break up into groups to critically analyze the scripts. Stakeholder panelists will circulate among the groups to answer questions and discuss critiques. We are interested in how the required information about risk reduction in the scripts is received and interpreted.
Reducing Risk and Victim-Blaming in Campus "Timely Warning Notices" about Sexual Violence
Room 207/205 Interactive Panel
The Jeanne Clery Act requires universities to provide a “timely warning notice” to their campus community when there is a dangerous criminal situation that represents a serious or continuing threat to students and employees. Though this requirement applies to a broad array of crimes, but it specifically does apply to Clery Act crimes, including sex offenses, domestic violence and stalking.
The Clery Act requires a timely warning notice be issued when a Clery Act crime:
- Occurs on the campus’s “Clery Geography.”
- Is reported to the campus police.
- And might pose a serious or continuing threat to students or employees.
A timely warning notice must also be issued in a “timely” manner, include all information that would promote safety and that would aid in the prevention of similar crimes (risk reduction tips), include pertinent information about the crime that triggered the warning, and reach the entire community.
Though the Clery Act does not specify what “timely” means, recent reviews of timely warnings indicate it is within hours. This short window of time creates the need for universities to create set scripts that can be utilized efficiently under varying circumstances. How these messages are constructed is a balancing act of effectively providing required risk reduction tips and crime information, while being sensitive to the victim, the accused, and the perceptions of the recipients of the message. One critique of the current scripts is that these messages seem to place the burden of preventing sexual assault onto potential victims, rather than aiming messages at potential perpetrators. In-depth prevention education is typically not provided by universities in timely warning notices in order to keep messages succinct and focused.
How can universities disseminate useful timely warning notices to help reduce risk, without also sending out messages that can be interpreted as a form of victim-blaming?
The creation of these USU scripts for timely warnings represents a new interdisciplinary collaborative process that acknowledges the needs and concerns of various stakeholders from the campus community. This team will consider the ethical and legal implications of distributing emailed timely warnings to USU’s community of over 20,000 students, faculty, and staff in situations where it is difficult to ascertain if a crime might pose a serious or continuing threat to students or employees. This team will also create a suggested procedure to aid in making decisions about threat levels of crimes, along with scripts to report those crimes.
This interactive panel presentation will first give the perspectives of different stakeholders in reporting sexual violence on campus: communications, law enforcement, and victim advocacy. Each stakeholder representative will give a short 5-minute presentation and answer audience questions (30 minutes total). After presentations and initial questions, USU’s timely warning notice scripts will be discussed and distributed, and participants will break up into groups to critically analyze the scripts. Stakeholder panelists will circulate among the groups to answer questions and discuss critiques. We are interested in how the required information about risk reduction in the scripts is received and interpreted.