By Casey Fabris
A nonprofit organization that uses technology to improve sexual health is developing an online system for students to report sexual assaults, provide colleges with better data, identify repeat offenders, and support survivors.
The system, called Callisto and developed by Sexual Health Innovations, is intended to simplify the reporting process for students. People using Callisto will be presented with information about the processes for filing a report with their college and with local law-enforcement agencies.
If a student decides to report an assault to the college, he or she will be able to file a report through the system online that reaches the appropriate person on the campus, who will then contact the student to take the next steps.
But if a student decides not to report an assault, he or she will be able instead to record on Callisto as much or as little information as desired, save the information, and return to it at any point in the future.
Recording information about an assault rather than reporting it could be valuable for colleges, too. Although colleges will not be able to see details of a record without the student’s permission, Callisto will aggregate statistics about the users of the system, says Kate L. Lazarov, Callisto’s project officer.
When a survivor reports an assault online, some personal contact is lost. But Ms. Lazarov says the system’s use of technology will be one of its greatest strengths. Some survivors are afraid to talk about an assault or don’t know what their resources are, she says, and Callisto will help to reach those people.
This August three colleges are expected to begin a pilot project with Callisto. Ms. Lazarov declines to identify them, citing contract negotiations in progress.
The system will be just the first step in the reporting process — it is not meant to replace survivor advocates, Title IX coordinators, or counselors, says Tracey E. Vitchers, director of development for Sexual Health Innovations. The system is meant to help students determine if they want to report an assault and to take away some of the uncertainty in that process.
The system’s name comes from Greek mythology. Callisto was a nymph who took a vow of chastity and was raped by Zeus. It seemed an appropriate name for the system, Ms. Lazarov says, because “if Callisto were a person, she’d be a survivor herself.”
‘Technology Isn’t a Cure-All’
But the system’s approach raises privacy concerns, says S. Daniel Carter, director of the 32 National Campus Safety Initiative for the VTV Family Outreach Foundation, established in the aftermath of the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech. People need to realize that you can’t guarantee security online, he says. “Anyone using this system would need to understand that.”
“It provides a useful tool for survivors who want an additional layer of confidentiality, and they’re not having to speak to an actual person who knows who they are,” he says, “but there’s no such thing as absolute confidentiality.”
Many colleges have changed their policies and procedures for reporting assaults, Mr. Carter says, but few have offered new reporting methods. Just because colleges aren’t embracing such a format, however, doesn’t mean that students won’t. Today’s students have lived most of their lives with access to such instant communication, he says, and so they may be quite comfortable with Callisto.
But technology isn’t a cure-all for sexual assaults on campuses, Mr. Carter says. The issue is much bigger than that.
“I don’t really see the channel of reporting as the main challenge,” he says. “It’s more so how the report is handled. You can have all the technology in the world, and if you don’t have good policies and procedures and a trauma-informed response to reports, how the report is made still doesn’t matter.”
On some campuses, reporting might mean phoning a total stranger and saying you were raped, says Alexandra Z. Brodsky, a founder of the advocacy group Know Your IX and a member of Callisto’s advisory board. Callisto could be a good option for someone who finds that process intimidating.
“For a student who feels in that moment that it’s really important to go to a rape-crisis center and talk through it with someone, one on one, that’s great,” she says. “But I think the reality is that a lot of students in that moment are instead behind their laptop Googling to try to figure out how their school’s reporting process works.”
A Focus on Repeat Offenders
Callisto has a special focus in identifying repeat offenders. Students who have created records of their assaults on Callisto but have not filed reports can elect to use a matching feature to help identify repeat offenders.
Here’s the scenario: A student creates a record of his or her assault, identifying the assailant, but chooses not to file a report. Later, another student is assaulted by the same person and files a report that identifies the assailant.
If the first student, who chose not to file a report, opts in to the matching feature, his or her name and the name of the assailant will be sent to the college. The record, however, remains anonymous. The college will then reach out to the student to see if, now that someone else has been allegedly assaulted by the same person, he or she wants to file a formal report or, if not, would help to corroborate the other student’s report.
Callisto’s Ms. Lazarov gives this statistic: Some studies have found that as many as 90 percent of campus rapes are committed by repeat offenders. If they were stopped after their second assault, the studies concluded, up to 60 percent of such rapes could be prevented.
Some critics say Callisto will provide an opportunity for a student with a grudge to abuse the system.
Andrew T. Miltenberg, a New York lawyer who represents young men accused of sexual misconduct, says though Callisto seems well intended, he is concerned about dangers it may pose to students who are accused. Having the ability to report someone with just the click of a button may not be a good thing, he says.
“We’re all guilty of pressing send on an angry text or email that, had we had to put it into an actual letter and proofread, we probably wouldn’t have sent,” he says.
He knows from experience that reports can be filed in fits of rage and later recanted. Going through the reporting process in person is a more “deliberate act,” Mr. Miltenberg says, and it gives the student an opportunity to think things through more so than simply typing up a few sentences and hitting the send button.
Callisto takes some steps to prevent abuse. To opt in to the matching feature, students must provide a method of contact and agree to be contacted by a college administrator. And reports created on Callisto undergo investigation by a college or local law-enforcement agency, so matching an assailant is only the first step, not the last.
Legal Protections
Laura L. Dunn, founder and executive director of the advocacy group SurvJustice, says she is concerned about reports being made through a third party like Callisto. As a lawyer, she worries about the legal protections that Callisto users would have.
There are obvious benefits to identifying repeat perpetrators, Ms. Dunn says. Callisto’s efforts to do so remind her of the FBI’s DNA database. However, she says, identifying repeat offenders presents some legal challenges, in that certain states don’t allow other offenses to be used as evidence in court.
Ms. Dunn says that Callisto is filling a gap left by law enforcement and that the need for a third-party system like it “should be a testament to how much our law-enforcement system simply fails survivors of sexual violence.”
Callisto could be a useful tool for survivors, Ms. Dunn says. She just hopes it will account for all of the necessary policy and procedural variables to avoid complicating the reporting process. It could also be valuable for law enforcement to mimic or invest in the system, she says.
“As a survivor and as an activist, I think this is amazing,” she says, “and as a lawyer, I’m cautious.”
Callisto to Offer New Reporting System for Survivors of Sexual Assault
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