Or she doesn't trust the cops, or she doesn't want to have to recount the traumatic memory repeatedly through criminal proceedings, or she doesn't want to deal with drawing this out for months or even years, or, or, or...

Nobody has suggested this as an option. You are insane

Get informed. These are very real reasons why rape victims don't want to inform the cops, and the justification which has been used for not necessarily involving law enforcement.

Annnnd? Where is the proof that anyone in this thread has said all rape cases should be handled internally with no involvement of the authorities? I'll be over here holding my breath til I pass out

Fly said he felt the cops shouldn't necessarily be involved in instances of campus murder/rape. I say they should.

So, which entity or entities do you want to punish in what way for what failure(s) if you had your way?

I do have a point, but if there is no debate or discussion, is your problem that people are interfering with you neither debating nor discussing with DIB? What would you call what you are doing?

Why was the student screaming if she didn't want to involve the cops? Why did she tell anyone? In the middle of your ****ing story she switches from panicked witness to accessory after the fact, apparently with mind-control powers. You didn't really think this through champ. Your story only makes sense if IRBs and courts were in some way overlapping instead of, as they are in the real world, entirely parallel. Seriously the Winston **** is on ESPN and sports talk radio like 3 hours a day, you'd think this would filter into your brain through osmosis from the trucker semen.

(LOL you really thought I was making a semantic point about whether it was called "rape", rather than a substantive point about how crimes are crimes and code violations are code violations. God damn you're a ****ing moron)

But also, RAs are just students, you know that right? Are you asking for some sort of penalty for students who become aware that a crime may have been committed who don't call the police? That's pretty ****ing Orwellian.

What is the point you think you have? What specific policy do you want implemented to fix what specific problem?

Bickering aside, the thread title's question seems genuinely interesting. The main upside is justice and prevention of serial re-offending, the main downside is that victims may be deterred from reporting rapes to begin with. It's not obvious what effect dominates.

Are you trying to say that victims will necessarily not cooperate if their allegation of rape is reported to the police against their will? Sure, some might not, but there will be some whose preference would be to ideally avoid getting the police involved, but this does not ultimately overrule the desire to punish their assaulter.

As for the question of what punishments there should be for people who ignore laws requiring them to report sexual assault, I agree that it'd be difficult to punish them much of the time, but you could potentially have modest punishments to someone who was discovered to have purposefully failed to report in the aftermath of repeat offenses. But I don't think it matters much, the mere existence of a law helps create compliance with it so long as people think it to be reasonable.

This is the problem when you let chezlaw title the thread, the question there is not really what we're talking about. Rape victim support is like, counseling. This thread is primarily about whether colleges should be permitted to discipline students for code of conduct violations that are also crimes.


But Brian came up with this mandated reporting thing and DIBs has latched on to that, so fine, we can talk about that too. Right now in many states, certain medical professionals and non-psychologist social workers and the like have a duty, enforced with criminal penalties, to report situations where they have a reasonable suspicion of child abuse to relevant state agency(generally not the police, the state social services agency).

Nich, should potential rape victims be criminally liable for not reporting their own potential rape?

Note what he actually wants there, per previous discussions, is to prohibit the school from disciplining the murderer.

I don't see how that solves the problem, that decreases the number of people the conspiracy needs to cover up the murder.

Again, to bring it back to reality, the reason DIB wants to prevent school discipline for sexual misconduct is because right now there are guys where the state cannot get a conviction for rape but where a school may be able punish him, and he doesn't want those bros getting the hammer dropped on them just for ****ing some drunk slut. That's the scenario we're talking about.

re institution like schools its very dangerous to allow them not to report assaults such as rape. Some want evidence to convince them of that but I'd take the opposite view that we would need compelling evidence to convince us that we shouldn't make them report. As it seems the evidence is that we should make them report its a no brainer.

Then there's concern as to whether a victim should have access to some professional support, independent of the institution, that isn't allowed to report to police without the permission of the victim. BTM seemed to suggest this has turned out to be unnecessary in practice even though it seemed like a good idea. I'm not sure if there was some misunderstanding but I'm looking forward to hearing from him.

I've no idea why anyone would think this is a bad discussion to have. I suggested this thread title because it seems to cover all the interesting bit. If there's other interesting bits then fine include them or have another thread.

Oh my God and now the SMPers are discussing purely hypothetical worlds where they appear to be accepting DIB's garbage premise that "the school" is learning about crimes and not telling the police, and, I guess, preventing others from telling the police? And that's the problem we need to solve. That crime victims are being prevented by their school from calling the cops. Yeah that checks out, makes sense internally. Definitely what's going on.


FFS how the **** do none of you even have the ASPIRATION of knowing what you're talking about?

It would be inflicting further punishment for someone who'd already suffered a lot from that event, so no. It'd also encourage the victim to deny the rape ever occurred, which they would be less likely to do if it was some other person who was being held responsible for not reporting.

So, again, for the 18th ****ing time this thread, Nich,

What specific policy are you advocating for to fix what specific problem?

Wow, you clearly are well informed.

Can you tell me more about these "non-psychologist social workers" (lol) you speak of? Are they ever compelled to report to Adult Protective Services?

So mandatory reporting for me, as a nurse, is basically reporting any suspicion of abuse of a vulnerable population - the elderly, children, and those with mental disabilities.
It kind of varies from state to state about whether or not domestic violence falls under this umbrella, but it is generally thought to be better to not report domestic violence unless the victim wishes (because of the whole, you're likely to get killed thing).

The problem wrt rape is the way society looks at women having sex, consensual or not. If you want it so that more women come forward to report their rapes to police, then you need to change the way police deal with these situations. And some states have been trying. this is a pretty decent article about how cops treat victims and how it needs to be changed

So, yeah, perfect world - victim is believed and it's easy on them to report. But that's not the perfect world. As it stands, when you report a rape you have to undergo a rape kit which is incredibly invasive and involves pulling pubic hair out (5 with the skin still attached iirc) and a gynecological exam. AND THEN your rape kit is going to sit. Untested. And repeat offenders who could have been caught, aren't.

There is an incredible amount of wrong in how we handle rape (or any women's issue, really).

DIB- Uh, I could look up any individual states laws and procedures if I wanted(the protected classes, groups with the mandate to report, etc. vary from state to state), but I don't. Are you driving at something approaching a point, or is this just another one of your trademark tangent switches?

I thought we were talking about whether schools should be permitted to suspend or expelled students who violate the student code of conduct.

Well as I said, I don't know if the costs outweigh the benefits. But the specific problem is that reporting rape to police may not be the first preference of a victim, but from society's perspective you want rapists to be identified and punished. The policy: people in positions of authority who learn of alleged rapes (and other serious offenses) must report them to police. Punishments for non-compliance would probably be modest except in cases of malicious cover-ups.

Now, as to the mandated reporting, I know I'm asking a lot from you lot, but read Gizmo's post up there and then really think through what the advantage of this mandate will be.

So a therapist or counselor at the school speaks to a student and develops a reasonable suspicion that a rape occurred. That counselor... tells the cops? What do you expect the cops to do with that information? "A patient of mine thinks her roommate was maybe too drunk to consent last night"....

Cops don't believe VICTIMS when they say they've been raped, what the **** do you ******s imagine cops are going to do when they receive a report from someone who isn't even the ****ing victim? That's not a crime report! That's ****ing gossip.


Nich- You didn't answer my question. Try again. Specific policy, specific problem. Don't speak in generalities, what people who learn about what conduct should file what report.

Like do you people imagine like, the University President is currently receiving an inventory of all unreported crimes on campus and cackling to himself before balling it up and throwing it in his fireplace, and then somehow those crimes aren't allowed to be prosecuted except through internal school discipline? Do you think "Hey I already got suspended over this" is a defense you can use in court?

Seriously, this all started when Brian assumed, against evidence, that DIB had a point that I was being unnecessarily dismissive of.

"Should colleges be allowed to punish students who violate the student code of conduct?"

That should be the thread title. It is a very easy question to answer.

I agree that this a major point against mandatory reporting, and is mostly why I'm undecided. But it's not as if 100% of rape allegations are summarily dismissed. Obviously a fair few get through, otherwise there wouldn't be any rape convictions. Even if it takes a lot of allegations to get one conviction, it could still be a worthy trade-off.

What am I, a legislator? "I'm not going to take you seriously until you have a detailed policy proposal specifying the exact process, and by take you seriously I mean I'm going to find a flaw in the second paragraph which I will take as proof that the entire concept is invalid".

But here's the problem -

If police generally won't believe you're a victim and treat you combatively, and you have to deal with the **** they throw at you... what incentive is there to seek medical help if you know you will be forced to file a report?
The problem here isn't "should people be required by law to report suspicions of someone who has been raped" the issue is "how do we make it so more women feel comfortable coming forward".

If DIB's position is or was that colleges shouldn't be allowed to punish students, well I totally disagree, but that's so obvious it's not worth discussing further. The thread title as it stands is a lot more interesting, and appears to be what nearly everyone is discussing anyway.