New issues of NEARI NEWS is now available.
This month, Steve Bengis, David Prescott and I chose to take a controversial stand on an important article about unreported sexual assaults
on college campuses. In 2002, David Lisak and Paul Miller conducted one of the first explorations into the perpetration of sexual violence on college campuses from the perspective of the young men who are causing the harm. We felt the article was incredibly
important because it documents the high level of sexual abuse at colleges today.
Here is the link to our review: http://www.nearipress.org/newsletter
While widely quoted in the media today, the article (written in 2002) is missing critical perspectives about prevention, is not informed
by what is now known about adolescents and young adults who abuse, and is lacking a complexity of responses by endorsing an exclusively criminal justice response.
Because all of the young men in the study were labeled "undetected rapists" it pushes the reader towards a "one-size-fits-all" emotional
and intervention response. In contrast, today's research tells us that we need to consider the risk posed by each individual in order to create a better intervention and ultimately maintain a safer community. Furthermore, if we think of these all of these
young men as rapists and monsters, we may not see the inappropriate behaviors and other warning signs in our friends or our sons.
We understand that our commentary may be controversial in some communities and we hope you will read the article and engage in a conversation with us.
Director of Educational Initiatives
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Joan Tabachnick
(413) 582-1294
(413) 320-3190 (cell)
Follow me on Twitter htttp://twitter.com/engagebystander
DSM Consulting
"Do Something and Mean It..." Rosie Tabachnick, age 9
