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

["Shaffer, Jyl R" <>]

Carmen, I’m not aware of anything written down as official guidance about how to handle avoiding duplication. The best practice method I have seen used and what has been taught to me is this-

 

If a CSA submitted a report without names, the person compiling the ASR would take their list that has names and ask the CSA to look at it. The CSA would then only tell the ASR person yes or no as to whether or not their report is already listed. I’ve seen departments send their list over to, say, the counseling center, and then the counseling center adds whatever reports they may have that are not already on the list. That’s another way to reduce the risk of duplication without disclosing identifying information.

 

Only the ASR is required to be non-identifying, so a CSA could (and they often do) report information that includes personally identifiable information (page 114 of the handbook). The guidance actually says we should encourage CSAs to include personally identifying information, although if a victim said they did not want their name issued a report could be submitted without it. (page 81 of the handbook)

 

CSAs who do not have privilege or confidentiality may be asked to disclose more details, but institutions should be alert to not violate an alleged victim’s right to decline notification to the police as per the new proposed Campus SaVE regulations. If we forced CSAs to disclose, but a victim did not want police notified, we could be violating the law.

 

 

Jyl R. Shaffer

Equal Opportunity Specialist

Office of Equal Opportunity Services

University of Houston

153 Student Service Center 2

Houston, TX 77204-3020

Direct line: (713) 743-8821

Fax: (713) 743-0959

Office main line: (713) 743-8835

www.uh.edu

 

From: Hotvedt, Carmen [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 5:48 PM
To:
Subject: duplicate crime statistics reports and victim privacy

 

Hi all:

 

Can someone point me in the right direction regarding how an institution should manage potential duplicate crime statistics reports as well as the privacy of the victim/s? 

 

I seem to remember there being some guidance or best practice on this at some point in the past five years that reinforced that proxy reports containing no victim names should not be looked into further (i.e., calling the staff who filed the report and compelling them to divulge more information like the name of the victim) in order to avoid duplication.  Clery crimes reports absolutely should be reviewed for duplication, but not at the expense of violating the confidentiality of the victim, yes?

 

Case study example:  a sa victim discloses to three or four CSAs, and all fill crime stat reports.  The reports vary just enough that the crime stat staff cannot fully discern if there were multiple separate assaults on multiple students or one incident with multiple CSA reports.  In this case, what is the guidance on how a the crime stat compilers/ASR reporters should proceed? 

 

I cannot find this particular piece of guidance though have reviewed a few ASRs that address this very issue in policy.  Can someone point in the direction of any guidance or other discussion? 

 

Thanks—please feel to respond off list!

Carmen Hotvedt
Violence Prevention Specialist
University Health Services
UW-Madison

EVOC:  End Violence On Campus
EVOC Change.  EVOC Equality.  EVOC Respect. 
An initiative at UW-Madison to address sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking.