Crime alerts sent by the University of Oregon about sexual assaults only describe cases where the perpetrator was unknown, which may propagate myths that sexual assault is usually committed by strangers. In reality, 73% of assaults involve perpetrators known to the victim. Describing only stranger assaults implies the university does not care about other types of assaults. While crime alerts are mandated by federal law, their narrow focus could mislead students about the true nature of sexual assaults.

1. Campus crime alerts may be reinforcing sexual assault myths
Oregon Daily Emerald, University of Oregon | November 03, 2014
Since 2009, 17 campus crime alerts have been sent out about cases of unwanted sexual
contact. But those are only a fraction of the sexual assault reports that the UOPD and the
University of Oregon receive.
These alerts only represent one type of sexual assault — those that involve an unknown
perpetrator.
Carly Smith, a doctoral candidate in the UO’s psychology department, says that crime alerts
with such a narrow focus help propagate myths of sexual assault as a “stranger danger” type of
crime.
But, 73 percent of sexual assault survivors know their perpetrator, according to the findings of
a UO campus climate survey and national statistics from the Rape, Abuse and Incest Network.
“Does that say implicitly that these are the only types of sexual assault we care about?” said
Smith.
Campus Crime Alerts a tool for alert and prevention — but when?
Campus crime alerts, officially called Timely Warnings, are a requirement under the Jeanne
Clery Act, a federal statute passed in 1990 that requires all colleges and universities using
federal financial aid programs to disclose information about crime on campus.
Universities must send out alerts for certain types of crimes, including sexual assault, that
occur on campus or in affiliated buildings. But aside from geographical boundaries, there are
few guidelines to when a university must issue an alert.
The basic guiding principle for releasing a crime alert is whether or not it’s a serious or
ongoing threat to the campus community.
Most of the time, acquaintance-perpetrated sexual assaults don’t make the cut at UO.
According to Kelly McIver, UOPD Public Information Officer, there’s an issue of privacy and
due process violations of the students involved, and second, a known perpetrator is perceived
as less of a danger.
When a survivor names a perpetrator, McIver says, action can be taken right away to
investigate the suspect.
But Dr. Jennifer Freyd, who, along with doctoral students Smith and Marina Rosenthal created
UO’s campus climate survey on student experiences with sexual assault, echoes the concern
that alerts may lead to misguided assumptions about the crime.
“Unfortunately, providing alerts about only certain types of sexual assault (such as dark alley
assaults) while ignoring more common sexual assaults (often off campus at parties, for
example) leads to a misunderstanding among students and the community about both the

2. prevalence and locale of sexual assaults,” said Dr. Freyd in an email.
In May, Dr. Freyd filed a complaint with the Department of Education accusing the the
university of violating the Clery Act by failing to send out an alert about the alleged sexual
assault committed by three members of the UO men’s basketball team in March.
While the UOPD recognizes that false perceptions of sexual assault could be an outcome,
McIver said that there are better ways to promote education than through crime alerts.
“Fulfilling the Clery standards (for campus crime alerts) isn’t necessarily the best
communications or marketing effort,” he said.
Campus crime alerts reinforce rape myths:
Though UO’s crime alerts aren’t intended to be the main source for sexual violence
information, many students use it as such. According to an experiment conducted by Smith in
the summer of 2012, 96 percent of UO students participating said that they read campus crime
alerts, and information was one of the top reasons cited for doing so.
Smith asked three groups of students to view crime alert emails. Each group was given a
different crime alert email to read: one involving sexual assault perpetrated by a stranger, one
involving sexual assault perpetrated by an acquaintance, and a control scenario about a gas
leak.
Smith found that those who viewed the first crime alert, especially men, were more likely to
perceive certain rape myths as accurate. The second crime alert had the opposite effect.
Survivors of acquaintance-perpetrated sexual assaults were also more likely to say they felt
betrayed by the university after viewing the crime alert about the stranger — something Smith
attributes to both the lack of representation in the crime alerts and unhelpful safety tips.
“If the only thing we’re telling them is that sexual assault is perpetrated by strangers and that
the way to stay safe is to have your friends walk you home. That is just missing the point,” said
Smith.
Crime alerts at other schools:
Around the country, other universities such as University of West Florida, Oberlin College and
the University of Iowa, have chosen to share more cases of sexual assault with their campuses,
whether or not the perpetrator has been identified.
Jane Glickman, a press officer for the Department of Education — the government entity that
enforces compliance of the Clery Act — says that this variation from school to school is
normal.
“Timely warnings can vary as long as they comply with the requirements of the Clery Act’s
provisions,” said Glickman.
However, it’s UO’s duty, says Dr. Freyd, to go above and beyond what Clery requires in order
to make sure the campus community stays informed and safe.
“Even if the Clery handbook does not require something specifically, the University of Oregon
can choose to be more protective of its students,” she said.
But the UOPD’s crime alerts often report crimes affecting UO students outside of the areas that
Clery requires the university to report on, like the Oct. 31 alerts about a break-in and physical
harassment of a UO student at her apartment on Kinsrow Avenue.

3. Recent changes:
In the last few years, UOPD has been working with advocates to improve the language found
in crime alerts.
The first changes came in 2012 after a meeting with the Alliance for Sexual Assault
Prevention, McIver says. This resulted in adding trigger warnings to protect survivors reading
crime alerts.
After Smith presented some of the findings from her experiment, she worked with McIver and
the UOPD to alter the safety tips found below the main text of the alerts. Instead of
encouraging people to keep distance from strangers, recent emails state that “no action or
inaction by a crime survivor makes that person responsible for his or her victimization.”
The university also plans to release a quarterly digest this term that includes the numbers for
other types of sexual assault reported but not sent out through crime alerts.
Other plans the university has for education and prevention include the bystander intervention
program, which recently put out a video in response to the White House’s national campaign,
“Not Alone.”