“But I told the police!”<\/p>\n
The immediate followup to that needs to be “The University Police or the real Police?”<\/p>\n
Large universities present lots of unique problems, especially if they exist in small towns like State College, PA.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The local government is very dependent on the University for its employment and revenue – but generally the University does not want local law enforcement playing any role in the University.\u00a0\u00a0 If the local police department were to launch an undercover investigation to find pot smokers on campus or underage drinking, the city’s police chief would be out of a job so fast…<\/p>\n
So most college towns have an “arrangement”, with different levels of formal legal structure.\u00a0\u00a0 The “University Police” handle the crime that happens at the school, and for the most part the regular police just stay away.\u00a0\u00a0 The “University Police work for the school, are generally not well trained – their main day to day duties are handing out parking tickets and directing traffic at the football games.\u00a0\u00a0 Things that are crimes out in the real world are usually just treated as administrative matters in the college’s code of conduct, with the most serious penalty being you get kicked out of school.<\/p>\n
So it is not in the interest of the University that the University Police actually respond in a meaningful way to an alleged crime.\u00a0\u00a0 Universities vie with each other for the title of “Best Party School” or “Best Sports Teams”, not “School with the most women who wake up after a night of partying and think they may have been raped”.\u00a0\u00a0 So “reporting” something to University police is basically going to result in nothing more than them trying to convince you that nothing happened, or at most “writing up a report”.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.rapeis.org\/activism\/campus\/campus.html<\/p>\n
A few years ago, Congress made an attempt to “fix” this systemic problem<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.securityoncampus.org\/index.php?Itemid=60&id=271&option=com_content&view=article<\/p>\n
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“But I told the police!” The immediate followup to that needs to be “The University Police or the real Police?” Large universities present lots of unique problems, especially if they exist in small towns like State College, PA.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The local … Continue reading