Sexual Assault Tracker May Reduce Campus Attacks

Did you know that nearly half of all sexual assaults take place during the first few weeks of the school year and that freshmen girls are the most vulnerable?  What an awful way to start college.

 

Twenty percent of women and 7.5 percent of men report being sexually assaulted while in college. The perpetrators consist of just 10% of the male population and each of these perps commit these crimes about 6 times.  So statistically speaking, if we stop these repeat offenders, we could stop 60% of the sexual assaults on campus. Wow. 

 

The good news is that Jess Ladd, a sexual assault survivor at Pomona College, created an online sexual assault tracker called Callisto to help students report rape and other sexual assaults on college campuses. Her organization, Sexual Health Innovations, gives victims 3 ways to report these heinous attacks: (1) report a sexual assault; (2) record a report and save for later; or (3) report the crime only if other people accuse the same person.  These reports are encrypted until they are shared with the college administrator who handles these cases.  

 

Callisto is being used on several campuses: Pomona College, Univ of San Francisco, Coe College, and Central College. Later this year, Callisto will also be available in Colorado, New York and other states. By making the reporting process somewhat easier and less invasive, more victims will come forward.  By removing repeat offenders from college campuses, Callisto will substantially reduce sexual assaults, and general awareness of Callisto will probably deter first-time offenders. I hope to see Callisto on every school and college campus. 

 

[Source]