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What if the murders are the result of gang activity? Maybe seminars on not joining gangs, or on dispute resolution, might cut down on those murders. I think it’s great to catch murderers–and rapists–but perhaps some people might not become those kinds of criminals if there was some kind of effective pre-crime intervention. Of course, if you just think that all rapes and murders are the work of sociopaths, this won’t work. But are they?</p>
<p>Actually, I was thinking just the opposite. Most murders (unlike rapes) are crimes of passion, most murderers only kill once, know their victims, never do it again. (And anyone can commit them.) Most people, however, don’t join gangs (which is why most of our gang prevention stuff is an abject failure.)</p>
<p>Here are a couple of things I think we could do. Some may seem silly, but stopping even one rape would help. </p>
<p>1.First, I think we need to teach college students the legal definition of rape. From the OneInFour site I linked previously </p>
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<p>I think college is a little late to develop a moral compass but a few men may not do certain things if they know they are illegal. So, we have to make sure that all men understand that a drunk woman or a woman under the influence of E or Molly or a roofie cannot legally consent to sex. (I’m astonished by the # of people who don’t now that.) They need to know that putting any part of your anatomy into any opening in anyone else’s body is legally rape in most states. So forcing a female, drunk or not, to give you oral sex or putting your fingers in a vagina, or having anal sex with someone who doesn’t agree to that, etc. all constitute rape in most states and in the others, it’s still illegal. (Post Steubenville, there were a lot of comments on news stories that said things like “He only fingered her. How is that rape?” One of the defendants even wrote “I should have raped her. Everyone thinks I did.” he really did not seem to get that using her body to arouse himself and the other things he did were wrong.</p>
<p>In that context, I think those mock scenarios which upperclassmen act out and then discuss do help. Not only because it makes people aware of the law,but also because if most students say that Y or Z is wrong… the ones who don’t think it is may “get” that their views aren’t the norm. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>We have to teach bystander intervention. We have to teach our kids that if someone does get drunk or seems under the influence of drugs, they should take an active role in getting him or her living space safely. As I said before, I recommend that, if at all possible, a male and female do this together. NEVER let a male who volunteers to see an inebriated/drunk female home do it alone. But we shouldn’t limit intervention to the drunk scenario. If we see someone using physical force to intimidate someone, say something if possible…ESPECIALLY if you are male and the guy is someone who knows and likes you. So, if you belong to a frat or a sports team and a guy seems to be manhandling a female, say something to him. </p></li>
<li><p>Teach our kids, especially our daughters, not to be afraid of being “uncool” when they start college. Don’t go along with what “everyone” is doing if it’s stupid. Teach them to be a good friend…even if it’s unappreciated at the moment. Don’t let a drunken girlfriend leave alone or with a guy other than her own brother. </p></li>
<li><p>Teach our kids, especially our sons, to speak out when others brag about “banging” some drunk girl, etc. Remember the awful Steubenville video? There’s one guy who said “What if it were your sister?” What if LOTS of guys said things like that EVERY TIME that sort of “locker room talk” happened? How are young men who do this sort of thing going to know it’s wrong if other people don’t object when they brag about it? </p></li>
<li><p>Get rid of all freshmen dorms. I really think that the amount of drinking and other nonsense which freshmen do declines when all 4 college years live together. Moreover, I think freshmen females in particular benefit from the wisdom of the older female students. Back in my day…in my mixed year all female dorm…the older female students got to know us. When they saw a freshman girl from our dorm do something stupid at a party, they helped. They got their boyfriends to help. And,yep, they warned us about the bad news guys. I think kids living in all freshmen dorms behave more outrageously and have less of a safety network. </p></li>
<li><p>Offer more social alternatives to drinking parties, especially at rural schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Encourage our kids to report it when someone ADMITS raping someone. When Steubenville happened, a LOT of people KNEW what had happened, including a female high school student who stayed over in the same house that night. Admissions like this are evidence. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Will all of the events combined stop all rapes? No. As I said before though, stopping just one rape would help.</p>
<p>The data on binge drinking show that drinking increases among young people (including those in college) until the age of 24.</p>
<p>Re: post #143
Does advising our daughters about the dangers of binge drinking fall under item #3?</p>
<p>Yes. It definitely does. I didn’t focus on it because half of the thread says that so I assumed everyone agrees that getting drunk out of your mind makes you more vulnerable to being attacked.</p>
<p>“We have to teach our kids that if someone does get drunk or seems under the influence of drugs, they should take an active role in getting him or her living space safely.”</p>
<p>This is a reasonable theory, but as it plays out in practice, I hate this expectation and actively resisted it as a college student. If you deliberately make yourself unconscious or incoherent, it is not my job to take care of you, and I am not a bad friend, uptight, whatever for not doing it. If you get food poisoning in the dorm, I’ll help you all night long, but I’ll be damned if I’m spending my Saturday night holding your head out of a taxicab window for the sake of YOUR good time. Especially not week after week (which is how this often goes).</p>
<p>Putting negative social pressure on creepy teammates? Yes, I’m all for that. But it is not my duty to leave the party and drag you back home (as you protest and argue!), even if we arrived together. This is just transferring the cost of bad decisions onto the shoulders of people who knew better.</p>
<p>Can you tell that this happened to me once or twice? It’s a tax on the habitually sober.</p>
<p>Well…Hanna, if it’s week after week…maybe not.</p>
<p>But if it’s a freshman girl who gets drunk at her first frat party? Yeah…I’d want my own offspring to help.</p>
<p>If someone wants to be generous and help, great. What I object to is the idea that one is obligated to help. That cultural obligation, IMHO, enables a lot of the bad decision-making.</p>
<p>mom2and post 139. I respectfully suggest you reread the article. It says:</p>
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<p>Here’s a link to the study itself. Note in the summary that the men averaged 5.8 rapes each. The median was 3.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wcsap.org/sites/www.wcsap.org/files/uploads/webinars/SV%20on%20Campus/Repeat%20Rape.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wcsap.org/sites/www.wcsap.org/files/uploads/webinars/SV%20on%20Campus/Repeat%20Rape.pdf</a></p>
<p>“In the NPR report posted by Mini in #3, one psychologist is reported to state that there are serial predators on campus, while another:”</p>
<p>That “another” is a law professor, and knows nothing about on-campus behavior. He has no data, and no experience. He is purely speculating.</p>
<p>from 143: "…to make sure that all men understand that a drunk woman or a woman under the influence of E or Molly or a roofie cannot legally consent to sex. (I’m astonished by the # of people who don’t now that.) "</p>
<p>In my state legal age adults that are voluntarily intoxicated(or drug users) can legally consent to sex. I’m astonished by the # of people who don’t now that state laws can vary.</p>
<p>Which state do you live in?</p>
<p>While the study we’ve been talking about is very interesting (here it is again:
<a href=“http://www.wcsap.org/sites/www.wcsap...eat%20Rape.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wcsap.org/sites/www.wcsap...eat%20Rape.pdf</a>). I think it’s important to note that it was performed at a single urban commuter university, and the mean age of the questioned students was 26. To say that this represents the picture at all colleges is a stretch. Of course, things might be worse at schools that aren’t commuter schools, but that would be speculation. I will add that the study support’s jonri’s statement that men may need to be educated as to what is rape and what isn’t, and what is illegal and what isn’t–the respondents were questioned about actions that would be legally considered rape, without stating that they were rape.</p>
<p>jonri, it does vary by state. In MA, one must be mentally or physically incapacitated to not be able to legally consent. There is considerable space between drunk and incapacitated.
This discussion has been far more heteronormative than this issue is on campuses. Men are victims too.</p>
<p>thank you for another example, electronblue.</p>
<p>just to clarify my post 152, any woman passed out, or unable to speak-obviously, cannot give consent, and that is very different than a voluntarily drunk woman saying yes. Similarly, a woman that is involuntarily intoxicated cannot give consent.</p>
<p>That might be part of the disagreement here. An adult woman voluntarily intoxicated might consent to sex though she wouldn’t have said yes sober. In some states apparently that is rape, in other states it is poor judgment. Therein lies confusion. “No” means no, but “yes” means- Yes? No? Maybe?</p>
<p>There are lots of things that can happen to both men and women who drink to excess. They can get MIPs, they can get hit staggering back to their dorms, they can get assaulted and robbed, they can end up in the hospital and they can get raped. Bottom line is to try and drill into kids heads not to drink to excess…easier said than done and I surely didn’t raise paragons of total virtue but the bottom line really is that it is the drinking to drunkeness that is the root of the problem…along with serial rapists. Kids can and will get in trouble of they plow through a ton of alcohol over a short period of time.</p>
<p>I know it varies by state. My definition of drunk though is incapacitated, not has had a few drinks. So, sorry if I was unclear too.</p>
<p>Just curious…does anyone know of any cases involving Molly or E(cstasy)? I’m out of date now, but E used to be the way to get a girl to be “friendly.”</p>
<p>There is no evidence that women who “drink to excess” are more likely to be raped. There is only evidence that women who have had a drink are more likely to be raped (though that may be because they have been in places where drinks are available.) For all we know, “drinking to excess” might be protective - there may be men who certainly don’t want to have sex with a sloppy drunk.</p>
<p>Don’t misread me: those who know me know what I think about binge drinking (and the efforts of colleges and universities to take responsibility for it.) But that’s a different conversation.</p>
<p>thank you for clarifying now, Jonri. To most people I know, there is a HUGE difference between drunk and incapacitated. MADD sure wouldn’t agree with your definition- but what counts is that we now understand what you mean by drunk, and now you understand that for most, drunk is not defined as incapacitated.
Obviously, a drunk woman that gives consent is not incapacitated(re posts 152 and 156)</p>