A safe place to learn? Examining sexual assault policies at Canadian public universities

Abstract

Sexual assault on university campuses is a pervasive problem that affects approximately 25% of female students and has wide-reaching negative outcomes [DeKeseredy, W., and K. Kelly. 1993. ‘The Incidence and Prevalence of Woman Abuse in Canadian University and College Dating Relationships.’ The Canadian Journal of Sociology 18 (2): 137–59; Krebs, C. P., C. H. Lindquist, T. D. Warner, B. S. Fisher, and S. L. Martin. 2009. ‘College Women’s Experiences with Physically Forced, Alcohol- or Other Drug Enabled, and Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Before and Since Entering College.’ Journal of American College Health 57 (6): 639–49]. It is important that universities develop and implement comprehensive policies and procedures to address this complex issue. This research explores sexual assault-related policies (N = 119) at all public universities in Canada (N = 72). We examine four elements suggesting comprehensiveness of a university’s sexual assault response (policy comprehensiveness, availability of campus support resources, and sexual assault information webpage presence and comprehensiveness), and test whether these elements are related to various institutional features. Results show significant differences related to university characteristics across the measures of comprehensiveness, and indicate a need for increased focus at the institutional level to ensure that policies are sufficiently comprehensive to handle the complexities that arise in sexual assault cases.

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