Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

It is wise to allow anonymous reporting but ONLY if the identity of the 
accused is known and maintained in a centralized database (after all -- if 
you have one person committing multiple offenses, you will want to know EVEN 
IF all the victims wish to remain anonymous.  As a public safety matter, the 
identity of the perpetrator should never be "unknown".  There is no similar 
need to keep the identity of the victim in a centralized database -- though 
it is worth thinking about keeping some information by which she can be 
identified because in the event of a repeat offender, it might be very 
important to have access to potential "pattern" witnesses - AND victims might 
be more comfortable speaking out if they know others are involved - -but 
there would be no way to tell this to a victim and no way to bring these 
people together if you adopt a position of absolute anonymity.  

Wendy Murphy