Thesis (M.S.F.S.) / Swabs are an integral part of any forensic science “toolkit”. They can be used to gather many types of evidence at crime scenes, in the lab, or even in the hospital or morgue. Cotton swabs have been the traditional choice for most forensic laboratories, and for sexual assault kits. They have been the obvious choice for decades as cotton swabs were really the only option and they were and still are relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain. In the past dozen years or so, new synthetic fibers have been incorporated into novel swab designs. Fiber swabs can be made of polyester or rayon, polyurethane foam swabs can be round, narrow, oval or arrow shaped; swabs can also be flocked, or sprayed with strands of material such as nylon. The effectiveness of any type of swab used to collect biological material is based on three characteristics: the ability to pick up the material for which they are designed, the ability to hold that material until processed and then the ability to release as much of that material as possible to be analyzed in the lab. In this study, the efficacy of four different commercially available swabs to collect, store and release spermatozoa was evaluated. Puritan Cotton fiber swabs, Fisher Polyester fiber swabs, Fisher polyurethane swabs, and Copan nylon flocked swabs were all compared for their ability to pick-up and elute cells from solid surfaces. The surfaces included three types of commonly found tile: a smooth glossy ceramic tile, a rough non-porous ceramic tile, and a smooth semi-porous quarry tile. In general, polyester fiber swabs outperformed both the polyurethane foam and the nylon flocked swab when used on all three surfaces (P < 0.05). Polyester swabs were not significantly different from the cotton fiber swabs even though the average number of cells picked-up and eluted was higher overall. Swabs used to collect postcoital samples were also compared. Volunteer couples were given a variety of swabs to use after intercourse. The result of the comparison for the same four swab types when used as postcoital swabs was different from the results of the tile study. After estimating the number of cells collected and released from each swab, a comparison was made within each couple. Nylon flocked swabs yielded the highest level of cellular material overall and foam swabs recovered the least. This study demonstrates the need for further research into different swab types and in what capacities they are to be used in forensic science.

This thesis explores nine individuals’ personal experiences with sexual assault and rape. The project provides a platform for voices that have been historically silenced, striving to empower and support survivors while raising awareness on the pertinent issues surrounding sexual assault and rape. By engaging in the tension between the individual narratives and the collective dimension of the experience of sexual assault, this thesis reframes the relationship between the personal and the political.

The temperature-aggression hypothesis, negative affect escape hypothesis, and routine activities theory all contribute to understanding the relationship between temperature, aggression, and crime. Utilizing discussions from all three theories to develop the methodology to best answer questions about the interplay among temperature, aggression, and crime. This study evaluates the relationship between simple assaults and temperature and aggravated assaults and temperature. Using data from Charlotte-Mecklenburg county from 2006-2012, a multiple linear regression was run to determine these differences. Daily ambient temperature had a positive significant effect on the total assault rate, simple assault rate, and aggravated assault rate. The rate increase for simple assault was much larger than the rate increase for aggravated assault per degree Fahrenheit. These differences in the types of assault warrant further exploration of minor crimes in prediction models.

This study evaluated a new sexual assault prevention-training module, the Experimental Leadership Challenge (ELC), designed primarily for officers in training at Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs. Students who experienced the ELC module gave it significantly higher effectiveness scores than scores given to other programs experienced by students who did not take the ELC module. Of the most commonly used trainings, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Training and Sexual Harassment/Assault and Response (SHARP) Training actually received the lowest effectiveness scores. Although short-term impact scores and commitment scores did not differ significantly between the ELC module and other trainings, students rated the ELC module as having a greater effect on their commitment towards addressing the problem of sexual assault than those who had other trainings. ROTC Commanders should consider supplementing existing programs with approaches mentioned by officers in training as particularly effective to improve and diversify the current mandatory training.

The present research seeks to identify the risks, rewards and challenges associated with hypothetical restorative justice based responses to sexual misconduct at the University of Oregon. Prior to this project here was limited research directly applicable to identifying these risks, rewards and challenges because no university-based restorative justice programs designed to respond to sexual misconduct existed to be studied. The present research uses a literature review to investigate the nature of restorative justice, sexual misconduct, and the laws and statutes that govern both at the University of Oregon. The literature review is supplemented by qualitative data gathered from a series of personal interviews with specialists on the subject. The research shows that restorative justice offers a potentially valuable supplement to existing university responses to sexual misconduct, albeit one that has a variety of limitations and barriers that would need to be surmounted in order for it to be beneficial.

Law / In this essay I consider whether or not there is a need for the creation of the crime of negligent assault. I start off by giving a brief exposition of the current position in South Africa with regard to assault. From this exposition it becomes clear that negligent assault is not recognised in South African law. I give a brief summary of the concepts of intention and negligence. After this I briefly discuss what criteria should be considered before invoking the criminal sanction. In the next section of the essay I consider the need for, and the benefits of, creating the crime of negligent assault. Lastly, I critically analyse whether the legislature should intervene or not. My conclusion is that the social benefits of criminalising the conduct do in fact outweigh the negative implications of not criminalising it, and that the legislature would not err if it were to create the crime of negligent assault. / LL.M.

In the fall of 2014, Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC’s Q, was accused of sexual assault and harassment by a number of women. The women who came forward were criticized for the delay in reporting the incidents. As a response, two female Canadian journalists started the hashtag #beenrapedneverreported as a way of using networked media to foster alternative dialogue about sexual assault, ostensibly so women who have experienced rape could control the conversation and say how they understood their own experiences. The literature on sexual assault suggests that discussions of rape involving members of the general public are shaped by myths that foster victim blame and lead to survivors being silenced about the assault. I decided to look at whether or not posters created an alternative discourse around rape by comparing constructions of rape on the hashtag with the common rape myths present in mainstream conversations. I employed a social constructionist lens to approach the data to allow for multiple interpretations of these myths and to explore the way posters discussed sexual assault. In particular, I conducted a qualitative content analysis of 8250 tweets that were posted to the hashtag between October 30, 2014 and June 26, 2016. The findings indicate that each myth identified in the literature was reproduced in the discussion, suggesting that they continue to have salience in the ways that all people, including victims, understand rape as a crime. A number of posters accepted the myths and used them to construct their own understanding of why their rape was not reportable because they felt that it was their fault. This suggests that there is still a long way to go to challenge these myths as they are internalized by some survivors. However, most posters reproduced the myths to explain how the attitudes were mobilized against them by others, in effect, silencing them. This created an alternative discussion of how social assumptions work against female victims of rape at a variety of levels. These assumptions occur not only within policing agencies and the criminal justice system but also within family and friend support networks. A smaller proportion of posters actively contested the myths primarily through discussions surrounding consent. In particular, sexual assault was construed as denying women their agency to choose what happens to their body and rape was constructed as a loss of agency/autonomy. Posters put forward that women have a right to control their own body and that choice/control is taken away by the rapist. From this perspective, rape is not a sexual crime but a violent crime that denies human agency/personhood of the victim. This suggests that the consent debate is a key moment of feminist politics and this transgressive construction of rape upends the social assumptions about female and male sexuality.

Rape culture remains a major issue on college campuses today in the United States. Significant research has been conducted on rape on college campuses in the United States, examining factors such as alcohol, cost of a date, relationship between the victim and perpetrator, apparel of the victim, sexual history of the victim, etc. However, no studies have yet investigated factors that impact rape culture in France. This study will investigate factors that impact both blame attribution and perceptions of sexual assault in the United States and in France. Participants (N=249) were shown a short vignette involving a rape scenario, and then asked questions about who was at fault for the rape, as well as their perception of the situation. Results showed that alcohol use, the cost of a date, and participant country of residence all impacted how participants attributed blame, as well as impacted their overall perception of the scenario. More specifically, participants were less likely to classify a scenario as “rape” when alcohol was involved, when the cost of a date was high, and when the participant was French. These results indicate that we need to rethink the way society approaches issues of sexual assault, in the United States and in France.

Using panel data from 31 small, liberal arts colleges from three academic years 2014-2017, I explore how the incidence of sexual assault is related to institutional characteristics. I use the number of sexual assaults per 100 students (sexual assault ratio) as my dependent variable and the following as my independent variables: total number of undergraduate students, female to male ratio, majority racial percentage, percent accepted, percent of students awarded financial aid, cost of attendance, religious affiliation, whether Greek life is available and racial percentages. I include racial percentages as additional independent variables in two of my regressions to analyze the relationship between these percentages and the majority racial percentage. Using a linear fixed effects model, it is concluded that increasing the total number of students, majority racial percentage, and cost of attendance decreases the sexual assault ratio of a college campus at a statistically significant level. Furthermore, using an OLS linear regression model to analyze cross-sectional college variation, I find that an increase in the total number of undergraduate students, female to male ratio, and percentage of students on financial aid is correlated with a decrease in the sexual assault ratio while an increase in the cost of attendance and percentage of White students is correlated with an increase the sexual assault ratio. If the impacts can be interpreted as causal, then the results of this study can help academic institutions understand how campus climate can affect the safety of their students and also assist college administrations with improving sexual assault prevention programs.

Rape cultures in the United States facilitate acts of rape by influencing perpetrators’, community members’, and women who survive rapes’ beliefs about sexual assault and its consequences. While much of the previous research on rape in university settings has focused on individual attitudes and behaviors, as well as developing education and prevention campaigns, this research examined institutional influences on rape culture in the context of football teams. Using a feminist poststructuralist theoretical lens, an examination of newspaper articles, press releases, reports, and court documents from December 2001 to December 2007 was conducted to reveal prominent and counter discourses following a series of rapes and civil lawsuits at the University of Colorado. The research findings illustrated how community members’ adoption of institutional discourses discrediting the women who survived rape and denying the existence of and responsibility for rape culture could be facilitated by specific promotional strategies. Strategies of continually qualifying the women who survived rapes’ reports, administrators claiming ‘victimhood,’ and denying that actions by individual members of the athletic department could be linked to a rape culture made the University’s discourse more palatable to some community members who included residents of Boulder, Colorado and CU students, staff, faculty, and administrators. According to feminist poststructuralist theory, subjects continually construct their identities and belief systems by accepting and rejecting the discourses surrounding them. When community members incorporate rape-supportive discourses from the University into their subjectivities, rape culture has been propagated. / Arts, Faculty of / Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Institute for / Graduate