Bonnie S. Fisher

Estimate prevalence and identify correlates of self-reported access to a gun among college students. Degree seeking students never serving in the military at 24 postsecondary institutions participating in ACHA-NCHA III during spring of 2020 and 2021 (N = 17,293) stratified by ciswomen, cismen, and transgender/gender nonconforming. Independent variables included measures of individual-level risk behaviors and experiences including interpersonal violence, mental health issues, and current and lifetime substance use. Individual-level demographics, indicators of institutional affiliation, and institutional characteristics used as controls. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests of independence, and adjusted odds ratios are reported. About 14% (n = 2,349) of sample self-reported access. Students' involvement with multiple different risk behaviors and experiences increased the odds of access. Access is a prerequisite to firearm use and resulting on-campus assaults, suicides, and homicides. Additional research on access prevalence, location and type of firearm being accessed, and the correlates of access is needed.

Responding to high rates of interpersonal victimization and perpetration among adolescents, schools have implemented bystander intervention (BI) training to educate students to intervene to prevent or stop violence. These trainings function much like an application of scripts for guardianship in action. The current study builds on the overlapping and complementary bodies of BI and routine activities research by testing whether participation in BI training, namely Green Dot (GD), influences individuals’ underlying ability to intervene. Using four years of survey data collected from high school students ( N = 2,374–3,443), we use item response theory to model the difficulty of engaging in different BI behaviors. We then estimate multivariate ordinary least squares regression models, one for each year, to estimate the effect of GD training on students’ ability to intervene. The item response theory results show that BI behaviors differ in terms of how “difficult” they are for respondents to engage in. Findings show that in each year, GD training increased students’ underlying ability to intervene. Our findings suggest BI training and guardianship in action scripts should take into account this varying difficulty of intervention behaviors to best train individuals for successful intervention to prevent victimization.

Attention to sexual misconduct has focused on acquaintance rape, leaving a need for research on less highly recognizable forms of harm. We estimated institution of higher education (IHE)-specific prevalence of yellow zone sexual harassment (SH) among students at 27 IHEs. We then examined SH and perceived risk of sexual assault/misconduct, knowledge regarding policies/resources, and perceptions of sexual misconduct response. Between 37.1% and 55.7% of students experienced SH. Harassed students were much more likely than non-harassed students to feel at risk for sexual misconduct and to have negative views of sexual misconduct response. Implications for research, policy, and prevention/response are discussed.

Failure to take responsibility for intervening has been identified as a primary barrier to bystander intervention. Building on these findings, we examine how perceptions of responsibility affect responses to witnessing victimization in the online realm—a topic that has received limited attention. Using a maximum-likelihood selection model, we analyze data from the Pew American Trends Panel ( N = 3709) to estimate the effects of respondents’ perceptions of the role different groups should play in addressing online harassment on their likelihood to engage in intervention, target hardening, or inaction in response to witnessing online harassment, conditioned upon their likelihood of having witnessed such behavior. Findings indicate that the greater role respondents believe online users should have in addressing online harassment, the more likely they are to intervene. ( b = .310). The greater role respondents believe law enforcement or elected officials should have in addressing online harassment, the less likely they are to intervene ( b = −.135 and −.072, respectively). These findings have implications for future efforts to curb online harassment through users’ crime prevention efforts.

Since 2014, a debate has raged over trigger warnings in college courses. Proponents see trigger warnings (oral or written advance notification of course content with the potential to trigger adverse health responses, and therefore, inhibit academic performance) as supportive of students, particularly those who have experienced trauma. Critics see them as harmful to those same students, and as a threat to learning and academic freedom. Using data from a survey of criminal justice and criminology faculty (N = 791), this study found three domains of faculty attitudes, with trigger warnings as a student-centered teaching practice, an academic harm, and compromising content. Female faculty, those who had taught victimology, those in criminal justice departments, and those who identified as more liberal had more positive views of trigger warnings. Only attitudes viewing trigger warnings as a student-centered teaching practice predicted use of trigger warnings. Future research should undertake inter-disciplinary comparisons.

Objective: Previous research has found women who experience eight or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are 3.5 times as likely to be victims of adult IPV. This study examined the relationship between ACEs and IPV (physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and stalking) among college students. Participants: This study was conducted among undergraduate students (N = 2,900) at two large, non-profit, public universities in the United States. Methods: Students completed a web-based survey addressing self-reported ACEs and violence that occurred within the current academic year. Chi-square tests and logistic regression models were used to evaluate the relationship between ACEs and violence. Results: College students with higher ACE scores were more likely to experience violence. Students with ACE scores of four or higher were between 1.9-4.9 times more likely to experience violence. A dose response relationship was found between ACE score and experiences of violence. Conclusions: Campus violence prevention programs may benefit from incorporating discussion of ACEs into programing.

In May 2013, Yale University was fined $165,000 for failing to meet its disclosure obligations under the mandates of the Clery Act related to four sexual assaults that had happened on its campus (Sander, 2013). This is one of the most severe penalties enacted to date, and it makes evident the seriousness with which the U.S. Department of Education treats sexual victimization on college campuses. It may seem that this treatment and attention given to sexual victimization on college campuses is relatively new, but that is not the case.