The War On Campus Sexual Assault Goes Digital

HughPickens.com writes: According to a recent study of 27 schools, about one-quarter of female undergraduates said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college, but most of the students said they did not report it to school officials or support services. Now Natasha Singer reports at the NYT that in an effort to give students additional options — and to provide schools with more concrete data — a nonprofit software start-up in San Francisco called Sexual Health Innovations has developed an online reporting system for campus sexual violence. One of the most interesting features of Callisto is a matching system — in which a student can ask the site to store information about an assault in escrow and forward it to the school only if someone else reports another attack identifying the same assailant. The point is not just to discover possible repeat offenders. In college communities, where many survivors of sexual assault know their assailants, the idea of the information escrow is to reduce students' fears that the first person to make an accusation could face undue repercussions.

"It's this last option that makes Callisto unique," writes Olga Khazan. "Most rapes are committed by repeat offenders, yet most victims know their attackers. Some victims are reluctant to report assaults because they aren't sure whether a crime occurred, or they write it off as a one-time incident. Knowing about other victims might be the final straw that puts an end to their hesitation—or their benefit of the doubt. Callisto's creators claim that if they could stop perpetrators after their second victim, 60 percent of campus rapes could be prevented." This kind of system is based partly on a Michigan Law Review article about "information escrows," or systems that allow for the transmitting of sensitive information in ways that reduce "first-mover disadvantage" also known to economists as the "hungry penguin problem". As game theorist Michael Chwe points out, the fact that each person creates her report independently makes it less likely they'll later be accused of submitting copycat reports, if there are similarities between the incidents.

Comments

hugh pickens

[Anonymous Coward]

lol gtfo

Re:hugh pickens

[cayenne8]

I think this problem is WAAAY overblown from what it is....

In the US, our society, the male is still expected to be the aggressor. And the girl still often does play somewhat hard to get. In the old days, what was called trying to get to 2nd - 3rd base, can now be called sexual assault, if the girl decides later (after the fact, much later) that's she's mad at the guy or pissed off, for nothing having to do with the mutual groping session.

The PC society and over concern of things of this nature are sending mixed messages to young folks of both sexes.

I'm not talking about overt rape, or violent sexual assault, but instead, redefining what is expected groping for want of a better term....where a girl expects the guy to be an aggressor. Guys often have doubts when and where to try, but know they are expected to. If you don't try some sexual advances, you are doomed to be relinquished to the dreaded "Friend Zone".

*sigh*...what was once known as being a boy, is now termed ADHD and they drug them. What was known (and expected) as males trying for heavy petting, is now borderline (at least) sexual assault.

Common sense on things like this have gone straight out the fucking window....I'm glad I'm not having to grow up in this day in age, with so many mixed messages...and the fear that a normal male with nomal (at least by recent history standards) sexual drives and attempts...can potentially have his life ruined by accusations and permanent exile to the sexual crimes lists out there....

Re:hugh pickens

[AmiMoJo]

In the US, our society, the male is still expected to be the aggressor. And the girl still often does play somewhat hard to get. In the old days, what was called trying to get to 2nd - 3rd base, can now be called sexual assault, if the girl decides later (after the fact, much later) that's she's mad at the guy or pissed off, for nothing having to do with the mutual groping session.

Have you ever considered that even before this was commonly regarded as sexual assault it still wasn't okay? Maybe what you call "playing hard to get" was more like "rejecting the advances of". "Trying to get to 2nd - 3rd base" was more like "wearing her down until she gives in".

Sadly, this is a technique used by pick-up artists. The famous "no means no until it means yes", where initial rejection is ignored or taken simply as a sign that more alcohol/pressure is required.

Personally I've never needed to pester girls for sex. I get to know them, go on a few dates and then we both use subtle cues to escalate to sex, without any pressure or doubt that either of us might be uneasy about it. I really don't buy this argument that it's somehow necessary to be aggressive or hard to be completely consensual.

Will Any Effort Be Made To Validate The Report?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or will they just assume the guy is guilty?

"Hey, I don't like that guy. Let's all report him through the rape app. We're girls so we'll be believed over him, particularly by the media. The media will even believe us after it's been shown that we were lying because it fits with their narrative."

Re:Will Any Effort Be Made To Validate The Report?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. The college administration will lynch the guy on the college green.

You are such an idiot.

Nah, they'll just "suspend" EVERY SINGLE FRATERNITY over fabricated anti-white-male SJW BULLSHIT .

Who's the idiot?

Calling you an idiot would be an insult to idiots, you anencephalic howler monkey.

Re:Will Any Effort Be Made To Validate The Report?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the only problem I have with it, as long as police/judges treat the earlier reports with enough suspicion I don't have a problem with it.

There's no police here: this is about confidential, university investigations. One hopes that those investigators would actually contact those prior accusers as part of the investigation, but there are no formal rules of evidence for such panels, as there are for criminal investigations.

Of course, the penalties they can impose are also much less severe. There's no jail time. There's no public disclosure. The worst that can happen is expulsion, and the university will not report the reason for expulsion - beyond academic or conduct. Nor will the university disclose any records at all without the student's (ie, the sanctioned) approval.

So the criminal behavior of RAPE is swept under the rug?

Or false accusations are sufficient to run someone off campus under a cloud of suspicion?

No matter how you look at it - it's BULLSHIT.

Re:Will Any Effort Be Made To Validate The Report?

[Anonymous Coward]

Secondly, the app time-stamps submissions so obvious collusion will be, well, obvious.

Hey Susie that guy over there is such a creep I reported him last week you should report him this week.

OMG that's hilarious Janey I will do that right now. He is so gross.

"nonconsensual sex or touching"

[Zapotek]

According to a recent study of 27 schools, about one-quarter of female undergraduates said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college

So basically they asked about touching and sex just so they can put the phrase "nonconsensual sex" and "one-quarter" together?

Those 2 are nowhere near the same level of severity to be reported in that fashion.
I've been touched plenty times nonconsensually, I figured "that's a bit too familiar" (yes I'm a man, yes by women), however I wouldn't place those occurrences nowhere near anything having to do with rape.

Re:"nonconsensual sex or touching"

[gweihir]

And that is the kicker. The 25% number has nothing to do with rape, but they make it appear so as if it has. That is dishonest to the extreme.

The problem here is that "touching" is one of the established ways of testing out whether somebody else is amenable. Of course, you go for non-critical areas, like hands or lower arms or shoulders, but unless these idiots intend to re-program basic human behavior, touching and then observing the reaction is an acceptable and very well established (probably a few 10'000 years old) ways of asking a specific question. (There is also a whole formalized instance of this: Dancing. That is no accident.) And the established way to deal with it is to not get offended, but signal interest by accepting the touch or non-interest by terminating it. Anybody that thinks this is unacceptable behavior or even a crime needs therapy because there is something seriously wrong with them.

Re:"nonconsensual sex or touching"

[AthanasiusKircher]

If you look up the study, the exact quote is âoenonconsensual penetration or sexual touching involving physical force or incapacitation,â.

The summary is brain-dead, but in a way that *understates* the problem, compared to the actual quote (which doesn't contain the word "rape").

Two things:

(1) You'll notice that the section of the summary which mentions "touching" is actually a very close paraphrase of the NYT article which is linked there. So the NYT is actually what's "brain-dead," and TFS just continued the "brain-dead" trend of not looking at the source.

(2) I'm sure this will be ignored by most people here, but can I just offer a plea to moderators to think about posts a bit before modding them "+1 Insightful" or "+1 Informative"?

The particular issue is with the common type of Slashdot post which shows up frequently around just about any study -- "Well, gee, a proper study of X would have to consider [obvious factor Y]." The default policy here seems to be to assume that all researchers running studies are absolute morons and would never consider whatever obvious flaw I came up with after 2 seconds of thought and posted on Slashdot. Or, as in this case, we assume that the researchers have some sort of agenda and ignored obvious data flaws or whatever.

Guess what, mods? 90% of these posts are WRONG. Most studies do have some subtle flaws, but researchers generally make an attempt to address many of the obvious ones.

The problem is that summaries are generally too short to contain all the details, so you'd actually have to RTFA to see that the researchers actually did take into account "obvious factor Y." Sometimes TFS is also misleading or poorly worded in such a way, which contributes to the problem. This is an editorial problem, but complaining about the editors here is fruitless, so I'll appeal to those with moderation points:

If you see a post that seems "too good to be true" in claiming to have found some obvious flaw that completely invalidates a study, either take a minute and look at the study and check it, or just ignore the post. Don't just mod it as "Insightful" or "informative" because you wish it were true, or you'd like to think everyone else in the world is an idiot (or, in this case, a manipulative idiot).

I'm tired of seeing obviously stupid posts rise to "+5 Informative" within an hour of a story going up (two such posts in a row here). I'll excuse the people posting such crap, because there's always a lot of crap posts here. But moderation should be taken at least a little more seriously.

Collusion?

[Ydna]

I think this is a pretty cool idea (improving the likelihood of reporting rapists and ill-informed post-adolescents). But will it be able to avoid collusion on the part of those reporting? Multiple persons with an ax to grind (or just wanting to "tease" someone) could seemingly file multiple reports triggering the escrow's release. That, in itself, is not the problem. It's the consequences of free (or possibly anonymous) condemnation. I still think anything that improves reporting of (genuine) assault is a good thing. I just worry about how technology has an equal hand in facilitating asshattery.

There are two goods I would like to see from an effort like this: punish the truly criminal and better educate those poisoned with the antique ideals of past generations. I didn't have the best education regarding this (but it was better than most maybe) as a child and must frequently question my thinking regarding other humans. Yes, I'm talking about men. I prefer to be inclusive, but men are the fucking problem here.

I just don't want to ruin someone's life because of poor guidance (by parents, peers, media, educators, etc.). I expect that a small percentage of false-positives is to be expected. But I don't want to provide a means to facilitate it.

Even the most vile transgressor deserves to face their accusers.

Re:Collusion?

[gweihir]

This is extremely easy to abuse, and makes defending oneself against such accusations even harder. After all, the reports were "independent" (no, there is no indication that they were, but the idiots advocating this are not capable of understanding that).

In short, this is a witch-hunt support tool and it will be sued as such.

I can really only advise all male students that can afford it to not do their education in the US as all sanity is gone from that system.

Re:Collusion?

[AmiMoJo]

One of the problems at the moment is that often people don't report sexual assault when it happens, for a variety of reasons, and then later discover other people have been alleged victims of the same person and decide to come forward. You then get a number of reports filed at the same time after the alleged victims have had time to discuss the details with each other. The alleged perpetrator then claims collusion.

With this system, the hope is that alleged victims will report closer to when the assault takes places and so reports will build up over time and the people filing them won't have spoken to each other before hand. This should actually make it easier to distinguish genuine reports from collusion, because many people reporting at the same time will be even more suspicious and difficult to explain.

One-off attacks are almost impossible to prosecute unless there was physical violence or drugging. In the case of sexual touching, or non-consensual but non-violent sex (e.g. passed out) it comes down to the victim's word against the accused's word. Where there are prosecutions of non-violent crimes it is usually because a number of victims are able to give believable stories establishing a pattern of behaviour. So the accusation of collusion is a pretty powerful defence, and one-off accusations carry almost no weight.

You should welcome this, it makes everyone safer from false reports and everyone more likely to be believed and get justice when a real attack takes place.

Open to abuse, by design

[Sibko]

Notice how "evidence" and "courts" aren't words used anywhere in this.

Write a script to automatically file rape claims against every male in the school. It gets held by the escrow service, so the university can't even see the fact that everyone has a rape claim against them, at least, not until they've asked for the data during an investigation.

Someone eventually escalates some situation or another and the university pulls the data on the person and - Woah, 33 pre-existing rape claims! You're expelled buddy! And then this gets shared with every other university, and you make newspaper headlines, so all google searches of your name turn up rape accusations and, well, good luck ever getting a job or college education for the rest of your life.

And all this, without a single court getting involved.

"Social Justice"? More like modern Salem witch trials.

Re:Open to abuse, by design

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the question is: why are the universities imposing a paralegal system when we have an adequately functional one? Disciplinary committees are NOT intended to deal with criminal activities, particularly activities that they don't have the capacity to assess. Allegations are NOT proof that a crime was committed and the accused has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Disciplinary committees simply can't do that when the evidence boils down to "she said, he said".

When a woman gets raped, she has to call the police as soon as possible. They will use a rape kit to collect the evidence proving that a rape actually took place and possibly incriminating data about the perpetrator. And thats the starting point of a criminal investigation. Disciplinary committees don't have the legal authority or the means for doing that.

As it is, this has become ridiculous to the point that at least one guy has been banned from campus for resembling a rapist. Not for actually committing any crime or disciplinary transgression, just for looking like a different guy that raped another student:

https://reason.com/blog/2015/02/19/male-student-banned-from-campus-because

Wait...

[EmeraldBot]

In the article, it mentions female undergraduates, and only females. Guess what, men get raped too. Why is there no insurance for that case? Because every man is an insaitable sexual animal who can't do anything but assault the nearest woman? That's not very gender equal, is it, to automatically assume that the male is automatically the rapist? Isn't this the very definition of sexism, to treat someone differently solely by gender?

That's ignoring the absurdity of not checking this in court or anything either. In some states, rape is a capital crime, punishable by death in the US. If another person and I have a vendetta against someone, can't we just file two reports? Boom, no proof required, no pesky legal checking. Minimum, they'd be ruined for the rest of their whole lives: potentially, they could wind up on death roll (in some places). That'd be indirect murder, clearly a very funny college prank, yes?

It's astonishing to me how no one thought this through or even put aside their cultural biases to do any research into this whatsoever.

Re:Wait...

[jmac_the_man]

You're 100% correct in your point about rape investigations, like all criminal investigations, should be a job for actual police and courts with a responsibility to protect the right of the (potentially falsely) accused.

However,

In some states, rape is a capital crime, punishable by death in the US.

is wrong. The only capital crime under any state law is murder. There's a few others at the Federal level (treason and the like), but rape isn't punishable by death anywhere in the United States.

Re:Rape in America versus India.

[Flavianoep]

Official rates doesn't tell all the truth: in societies where women are repressed, rape cases are likely to go unreported. BTW, it's very unlikely that there are more cases of rape in the US, where there is not a tradition of classifying some women are outcasts, nor anyone there says that outcast women deserve rape.

Re: Co-Eds Needs To Stop Showing

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

It's not PC to say, but most of these women out themselves in bad situations. Not usually by how they dress, but by the things they do, usually heavy partying, drinking and drugs. If these women stayed away from these situations, they probably wouldn't experience any of this. Of course, it doesn't excuse the perpetrators, but it's just the reality of the situation.

I'd bet my anal virginity that 90+% of these situations involved alcohol being consumed.

Women, you have two choices. Party and risk being in an uncomfortable situation from time to time, or avoid the parties and have an extremely low risk. Again, doesn't make it right, and campuses should try to reduce this unwanted contact, but but we can't deny it's just the way things are. The choice is yours.

This message brought to you by Carl's Jr. Because they pay me every time I say it.

Re: Will Any Effort Be Made To Validate The Report

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is there are more males being raped in America than females (most in the prison system). Of course, this never gets reported by the media, and if it's ever mentioned, it's only for a cheap laugh.

So feminists, if you're really for equality, when are you gonna stand up for these men?

Re: Co-Eds Needs To Stop Showing

[dave420]

I can't believe I just read that in the 21st century. It's staggering that you think that. It's not "PC" to say what you did because it's fucking ridiculous. Women know the risks, but that doesn't in any way excuse anyone who thinks it's fine to just go raping people. Women shouldn't have to tame their behaviour because some guys can't handle it. That's the thinking in fundamentalist religious communities where women have strict dress codes.

You are living in the past.

Comment on comments

[XB-70]

As you read the initial comments about this article, a clear pattern emerges: a vast preponderance of comments refer to any lack of formal trail process, gaping cracks in the factoids quoted and major concern that males will be 'tried' and 'convicted' without due process.

Sexual (and physical) assaults are crimes - but they are not crimes limited to one gender nor are limited to one gender upon another. Ideas like this perpetuate stereotypes while significantly reducing real rights and freedoms.

Statistics have shown that lesbian people (as an example) experience domestic violence at a very similar rate to that of heterosexual women (Waldner-Haygrud, 1997; AVP, 1992). It has been estimated that between 17-45% of lesbians have been the victim of at least one act of violence perpetrated by a female partner (Burke et al, 1999; Lie et al, 1991), and that 30% of lesbians have reported sexual assault / rape by another woman (Renzetti, 1992).

In short, if such a system is to be introduced, it needs to be gender neutral, have significant oversight and be tightly tied to the legal system.

Re: Co-Eds Needs To Stop Showing

[TWX]

There are two major aspects to this. The aspect that seems to be en vogue to talk about is the perpetrators of the crime. The other aspect, that people get very upset when it's talked about, is how to avoid being a victim. As this thread shows, some people automatically assume that discussing how someone can avoid being a victim somehow excuses the behavior of the perpetrators. It doesn't. It merely acknowledges that there are circumstances beyond the control of the would-be victim, and that it is in that individual's interest to control those circumstances that they have influence over to avoid being victimized.

When I meet to buy or sell property through the classifieds I am very mindful of the meeting place and the surrounding circumstances. I don't bring more money than I'm prepared to spend. I keep the money separate from the wallet. If what I'm purchasing or selling is small enough to be readily moved I pick locations that are public, visible, and in safe areas. I pick either times of day where it's light outside, or else I pick places that are more likely to be safe even at dusk or early evening. I leave a printout of where I went with the contact info, I tell someone, and depending on what it is or if I cannot satisfy some of these other conditions (like for large things that will be loaded into a vehicle once and only after purchase) I bring someone along. In any meeting place I attempt to maintain awareness of what's going on around me.

I do these things because while it is completely against the law for someone to rob me, I know that there are people in this world that will try to rob me anyway. I could go through life without taking this kind of care and get indignant when I hear of robberies or when I'm robbed, or I can accept the fact that there are bad people, take precautions to not be harmed by them, and move on with my life.

The nature of the discussion of rape is much of the time in fallacy. In many ways, the motivations of the robber and the rapist are not wholly dissimilar. Both want something. Both are willing to ignore the wants of the victim in order to get it. It's not about power, it's about being callous in taking what one wants against the will of the victim. Both obviously know that it's wrong, but they do it anyway because it's about what they want.

I don't know how effective a system like the one the article describes is going to be. The prosecution of rape is already complicated by the nature of physical evidence and by the difficulty in distinguishing forced sexual contact with consensual sexual contact, becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate as time past the episode passes. Look at accusations against Bill Cosby, somewhere around forty women have accused him of sexually assaulting then, but without physical evidence collected at the time, all Mr. Cosby has to do is invoke his right to not speak with authorities and he will never see the inside of a courtroom. In the case of this escrow idea, if women don't go to the police/hospital to document their attack then justice cannot be served against the attacker. Conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An accusation without supporting evidence does not meet that standard, even when everything in that accusation is true. I suspect that's why juries are asked to find a defendant either, "guilty," or, "not guilty," rather than, "guilty," or, "innocent." "Not guilty," does not mean innocent. It simply means that it could not be proven.

So that brings us back to the whole point, try to avoid being a victim in the first place. Ideally all bad people would be caught or would stop, but pragmatically, bad people exist and being intelligent about the dangers in the world can prevent or reduce the number of bad things from happening to you.

Re: Co-Eds Needs To Stop Showing

[Immerman]

Actually there's some evidence contradicting that - though it's probably true of violent rape (as opposed to coerced or exploitative. Though actually coerced is probably lopsided as well since we don't have nearly as many women in positions of power). There's also some evidence suggesting that men under-report rape by much larger margins than women (also domestic abuse). Probably linked to the fact that our culture is steeped in homophobia (in the case of M-M rape) and machismo (in the case of F-M) "She got you drunk and raped you? Really? You expect me to believe you didn't want it?"

But to the main point, yes, rape is (probably) statistically one-sided. Do you really not see a problem with that? Hell, I live in a state with one of the highest rape rates in the country, and my girlfriend avoids walking alone at night out of not-entirely-unreasonable fear. Meanwhile I have enjoyed wandering the streets and parks in the wee hours of the morning for most of my life.

Re:Rape in America versus India.

[Jack Griffin]

"about one-quarter of female undergraduates said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college" I get non-consensually touched every day. I have one of those things where I don't like being touched. A pat on the back, a grab on the arm, getting bumped into on the bus, I hate it all. Officially that qualifies as "non-consensual sex or touching" even though 0% of it involves sex.
I'm always weary of any research which uses such vague classifications.