Crime Logic, Campus Sexual Assault, and Restorative Justice

Abstract

The dominant campus sexual assault narrative that emerges from both media and regulatory accounts is that of a male “sexual predator” assaulter who penetrates without consent a white heterosexual female victim. In contrast to the paradigm case, LGBTQ students face considerable risk of experiencing campus sexual assault; campus administrators see a range of sexual misconduct with a dramatic range in severity, including at the low end “sexual coercion”; the conclusion that most campus assaulters are “predators” is based on misapplied research and is unsubstantiated by more sophisticated longitudinal research. Furthermore, the paradigm occludes the ways in which intersectional forms of oppression based in race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and sexual identity, define not only risks for assault, but risks for administrator bias (both with regard to those accused and those who claim to have been harmed).

Schools face intense political pressure to import “Crime Logic” into administrative regulations that address campus sexual assault. Crime Logic refers to a set of beliefs and attitudes characterized by a focus on individual culpability rather than institutional or collective accountability; disdain for policy attention to social determinants of behavior; and a preference for narratives that center on simplistic bad actors and innocent victims and for banishment/incapacitation over rehabilitation for those who harm others. The potential to use Civil Rights law as a means to change the social norms that promote sexual mistreatment is compromised when administrators employ punitive responses based in Crime Logic over responses that educate, rehabilitate, and better meet the varied needs of victims of assault.

An intersectional public health approach that avoids the punitive and simplistic individually-focused accounts dictated by Crime Logic will reap better results in intervening and lessening campus sexual assault. Such an approach should intervene in the social and psychological factors most frequently correlated with campus sexual assault.

Restorative Justice (RJ) processes offer unique opportunities to support changes in not only individual behavior and beliefs, but also in campus norms and culture. RJ, in tandem with public health approaches, provides intervention that escapes Crime Logic and responds to the varied needs of victims.

Keywords: restorative justice, sexual assault, campus sexual assault, campus restorative justice, Title IX, Crime Logic