Campus Sexual Misconduct: Using Perpetrator Risk Assessment and Tailored Treatment to Individualize Sanctioning

Many campuses lack the training and resources to adequately address sexual assault, and rape crisis services are often minimal; appropriate sanctions and management options for perpetrators are practically non-existent. To address this lack of programming, at the recommendation of the White House, the SMART Office developed and posted a competitive grant solicitation in FY 2014 for the Campus Sexual Assault Perpetrator Treatment Pilot Project. The purpose of the solicitation is to create a treatment curriculum for campus perpetrators of sexual assault and to pilot test the curriculum on one or more college campuses. This project is authorized by Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-76, 128 Stat 5, 63, January 17, 2014.

The Fairleigh Dickinson University was recommended and awarded funds under the FY 2014 Campus Sexual Assault Perpetrator Treatment Pilot Project. The goals of the project will include the development, implementation and evaluation of an evidence-based, interdisciplinary response to individualized sanctioning of student perpetrators. Products will include a tailored risk and needs evaluation protocol and a modularized, flexible, multi-component treatment curriculum. Procedures will include: 1) conducting an environmental scan of the judicial processes at 50 institutions selected for diversity; 2) identifying the risk factors and treatment needs that distinguish students with greater likelihood of committing sexual assault in a large sample of undergraduates from four universities; 3) using these results and extant literature to design a risk and needs assessment protocol and a best practice, evidence-based treatment curriculum; 4) educating student conduct to use tools to individualize therapeutic sanctions; 5) training clinicians to administer the treatment curriculum with fidelity to intervention modality and dosage; 6) pilot testing the approach within the judicial sanction process at five diverse educational institutions guided by direct consultation for the first 3 cases and monthly thereafter; and 7) evaluating the implementation through a structured debriefing after twelve months.
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