Gaybutton wrote:I'm opposed to such a committee. If somebody is a victim of sexual harassment, they can go to the police.
Respectfully, the notion of only providing the option of going to the cops seems to exhibit some blindness to the whole problem.
First, there is the natural inclination of victims of this type of activity to never speak out about it for various reasons - some being economic (don't want to lose their jobs or even have the ability to have any interruption to their stream of income) but, I suspect, mostly because of perceived embarrassment. Whether it's right or wrong, we don't talk about this kind of stuff with just about anybody.
Second, the notion that cops have the ability to appropriately interview a victim is ludicrous in my opinion (while I'm sure that there are a few cops around that would be great at this, the average detective I've known over the years has the social skills of a dinosaur.....and I don't want to even imagine the social skills of the city cops in some smaller towns just about anywhere in the US). While a few of the larger departments have officers who've been trained to better handle victims of sexual violence, the reality is that smaller departments neither provide the training nor could afford to provide specialized officers; besides, what we're talking about here for the most part is sexual harassment, not criminal sexual behavior (unless and until acts cross the criminal line, the police departments wouldn't have any jurisdiction to even investigate the matter in the first place).
Yes, sometimes the pendulum swings too far but, as far as I'm concerned, I'm rather enjoying the recent swing to the left as women (most of the victims of sexual harassment) in general have been treated like crap forever.