First Advisor

Emily Salisbury

Date of Publication

1-1-2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Department

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Language

English

Subjects

Universities and colleges -- Security measures -- Oregon, Oregon University System -- Safety measures, Women college students -- Crimes against -- Oregon, Campus violence -- Oregon -- Prevention, Sex crimes -- Oregon

DOI

10.15760/etd.281

Physical Description

1 online resource (iv, 60 p.)

Abstract

College is usually thought of as a time where students, often living alone for their first time, are encouraged towards healthy risk-taking behavior, as well as social, intellectual, and vocational development. Unfortunately for female students, college becomes the time of their lives where they are exposed to the highest risk of sexual victimization. Many colleges across America have taken steps to address the significant problem of sexual assault on their campuses. However, even with rising concern about the sexual victimization of college students, there remains very little systematic information published about the content of sexual assault policies, protocols and programs that exist on college campuses. Focusing on the seven schools of the Oregon University System (OUS), this study sought to examine the schools' sexual assault policies, as well as their prevention and response efforts to sexual assault. Additionally schools' willingness for assistance and training from Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force (OSATF) was also studied. Specifically, official school sexual assault policies were content analysis and secondary survey data gathered by the OSATF was examined. Results demonstrated that, in most cases, policies of the OUS schools were vague in their definitions of what constituted a sexual assault, and lacked the additional information necessary for victims to respond to their sexual victimization. However, Universities also offered various forms of educational opportunities and awareness raising activities. While this proves promising, there is clearly room for improvement. OUS schools also appeared willing to work with the OSATF to improve the delivery of their sexual assault prevention services. The findings of this thesis are important in directing future actions of the OUS when developing and implementing sexual assault response and prevention strategies.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Comments

Hatfield School of Government. Division of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/7020

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