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Program Case Study: Campus-Based Sexual Assault Service–On the Cutting Edge

Kirkland, Connie J
June 4, 2015

Source: (2004) In David R. Karp and Thom Allena, eds., Restorative Justice on the College Campus: promoting student growth and responsibility, and reawakening the spirit of campus community. Springfield, Ill. : C.C. Thomas. Pp. 239-256.

Sexual assault and associated acts of violence have long been common occurrences on college campuses. However, only in the last decade or two has university and community recognition of these problems come to the forefront. The tragedy of the 1986 rape and strangulation of freshman student Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University (in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) led to the Clery family’s establishment of Security on Campus, Inc., in 1989, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving safety and security on college campuses. In the following years, the federal government passed several acts of legislation to improve campus security, to protect women from assault, and to assist victims of assault. With all of this in mind, Connie Kirkland looks at efforts by the Commonwealth of Virginia and George Washington University (in northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C.), beginning in the 1990s, to address the problem of sexual assault and related violence on campus. She describes the program model; barriers to reporting of crime and victimization; interaction with the criminal justice system; university judicial procedures; and resolution, recovery, and restoration; and emerging trends in campus services.

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AbstractCourtsNorth America and CaribbeanPolicePolicyRJ in SchoolsRJ OfficeSex OffenseStatutes and LegislationTeachers and Students
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