As part of a fellowship project in the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART), Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice, we are exploring how institutions of higher education share, respond and coordinate information to prevent sexual assault perpetration.
This project will collect information about current practices utilized by colleges and universities with regards to the following:
• Policies and practices regarding registered sex offenders who may be students or employees
• Policies and practices regarding individuals found responsible and sanctioned for campus sexual misconduct policy violations
• Policies and practices used in reviewing criminal or disciplinary sexual misconduct history of prospective or current students
The information from this questionnaire will be used to inform a report to the field. Responses to the questionnaire are confidential and will not be linked back to you personally or to your institution. You will be able to leave your contact information if you would like to share your institution’s policies or protocols. Any institutions that voluntarily share policies or protocols won’t be identified by institution name (and only general information would be shared) in any published report unless the institution agrees in writing.
Your institution is invited to take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete a questionnaire on these important topics. Click HERE to access the questionnaire or cut and paste the following link into your browser: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CISR2018. For more information about this project see the attached letter.
Input from institutions of higher education with innovative approaches and any sample policies and procedures are of special interest. Please share this article with any other institutions that you feel might be interested in contributing feedback.
Thank you for your time and your important work!
Sincerely,
Joan Tabachnick
Visiting Fellow
USDOJ SMART Office