Safety Solutions

It would seem to me that many of the same programs mandated by the SaVE Act should also be presented in our middle and high schools. Why are we waiting until college to provide valuable information about sexual assault to our daughters when studies have shown that abusive relationships start when dating starts.  Most young women begin exploring relationships and dating in the middle and high school years.     These young women need this information much earlier and whether they go onto college or not is not really that releavant.

My primary concern with all the effort directed toward females attending college is that NOT all females go to college. In fact, according to the 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics one third of female high school graduates don’t go directly to college. Much of this information is valuable for all women to have access to regardless of life’s trajectory. Shouldn’t the young ladies who opted not to go college and enter the work force, military or other life options be given access to this valuable sexual assault prevention information ?

This week the media was all over how much safer female college students will be this fall as a result of the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act which goes into effect on July 1^st . The Act, an enhancement to the Clery Act, will change how colleges deal with sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and general dating violence.

As someone with over 30 years of campus law enforcement experience I commend Pennsylvania’s Senator Casey for co-authoring the Act. On the positive side the law will push some colleges that refuse to admit that a problem exists to take action. In addition, administrators with no investigative or due process training will be required to undergo appropriate training and will also have to enact policies and protocols regarding the transparency of sex related complaint procedures. Student Life administrators will also be working more closely with campus law enforcement and those administrators will be forced to explain options available if crime victims elect to seek criminal sanctions for campus violations. It certainly appears that the “let’s just keep this in house” approach coveted by campus administrators for so many years will be gone forever.

For Safety Solutions 4 Schools this is Wayne Silcox