G.I. JOE's famous line was "Knowing is half the battle." G.I. Joe never had to battle for the safety of college students, but the phrase still applies. Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill that allows knowing to be a priority by requiring colleges nationwide to disclose the identities of students and employees who are registered sex offenders.
This legislation will help members of college communities protect themselves and each other by helping them identify threats to our safety. The Senate and President Clinton need to ignore the whining of university officials and lobbyists and enact this legislation into law.
Record-keeping and public disclosure have much to offer students in improving safety through awareness. Accurate information on sex offenders is crucial to addressing safety on an institutional level. Keeping track of offenses and offenders is currently one of the most difficult aspects of addressing sex crimes. The very existence of this system and the information it provides will help administrators and campus police deal with the threat posed by these offenders. Institutions can't address the problem of sex offenders within their communities until they have information about the nature and severity of that problem.
Such information is also key to individual efforts to improve safety. The high percentage of sexual assaults committed by acquaintances as opposed to strangers -- over 75 percent, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey -- makes knowledge of sex offenders' identities much more valuable than it is with respect to other types of crime.
Having access to a list of known sex offenders will be more useful in helping prevent sexual assaults than, say, having a list of known burglars would in preventing robberies. Unlike many types of crime, sex crimes are often committed by people we trust and are facilitated by that trust. Reliable information about who not to trust would aid our ability to protect ourselves.
A system to identify known offenders at colleges would provide information that other institutions and agencies cannot hope to provide. Colleges and universities often have exclusive access to information about sexual assaults that police departments and courts do not. State police and courts don't deal with all sexual assaults. Many of the offenses that do get reported are addressed within a university and never reported to governmental agencies. College and university authorities are the only potential sources for this information.
Such a disclosure system would also have a desirable effect on employers and admissions officers. These officials would have access to data about known sex offenders when they make hiring and admissions decisions. Perhaps more importantly, they would know that any decision to admit or hire a known offender would be subject to public scrutiny. That would introduce an extra degree of accountability into the hiring and admissions processes and pressure officials to make more responsible decisions.
This sort of system has a similar effect on the members of a university community -- deterrence. While it's definitely not an overwhelmingly powerful effect -- potential criminals typically don't decide to commit a crime based solely on their odds of having their name published -- prior knowledge that sex criminals are publicly identified for their crimes could help deter potential offenders.
Legislation is called for in this case, rather than leaving the implementation of these plans up to individual institutions, because this type of system depends on universal observance to work well. Even though some colleges might cooperate and implement a notification system on their own, some isn't good enough -- the system needs them all. That's why the legislation is necessary -- colleges cannot be left to implement notification systems if and when they feel like it.
All colleges must participate in the system because accuracy depends on sex offenses being identified and recorded wherever and whenever they occur -- not just in a few places or some of the time. The value of a disclosure system depends on its completeness and reliability. If the data is incomplete -- as it would be if only some colleges chose to participate -- the potential of the system to increase safety is greatly diminished. Thus, legislation is necessary to force all colleges to institute this system.
Some colleges and their lobbyists are complaining about the provision, saying that it will place too large of a practical burden on administrators to keep track of offenders. Yes, such a system of disclosure will create some administrative work. But this is an informational burden that colleges and universities have an obligation to bear in order to protect the safety of their students and employees.
Compulsory disclosure of the identities of sex offenders will give members of college communities the ability to help identify safety risks posed by the people around them. That knowledge is a crucial step in the battle for student safety.
(Bryan Maxwell is the Cavalier Daily Opinion editor.)
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