Criminal Justice Professor: New State Law Helps Us Understand Sexual Assaults on College Campuses
July 1, 2015
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
In an editorial in The Baltimore Sun, Tara Richards, assistant professor in the University of Baltimore's School of Criminal Justice, joins a colleague from American University in praising a new Maryland law that will make it easier to analyze the issue of sexual misconduct on college campuses in the state.
"Before this new law, those of us seeking to understand the issue of sexual misconduct at colleges and universities have faced serious limitations," Richards and her co-author write. "The only institution-specific data available was by way of a campus' Annual Security Report, which is a mandate of the federal Clery Act. This tool includes 'the number of forcible and non-forcible sexual offenses,' but offenses only include sexual assaults that were reported to specific 'campus security authorities.' Victims of sexual assault might feel safer reporting an incident to a school counselor, yet these reports may not find their way into the institution's Clery report. Also, incidents must occur within 'Clery geography,' which typically does not include off-campus locations. With an estimated two-thirds of assaults at residential institutions happening off campus, the Clery Act data may simply tell us how comfortable students are in reporting sexual misconduct to campus officials, rather than how many assaults actually took place."
Read the op-ed.
Learn more about Prof. Richards and the School of Criminal Justice, part of UB's College of Public Affairs.