21st Century Rape Whistle
Walking home alone and encounter a creepy man that just won’t go away? There’s an app for that.
4.28.2015
Walking home alone across campus at 2 a.m., danger looms in every corner. From the dark, creepy figure standing underneath the shadows to the frat boy stumbling home looking for a bedroom buddy, no shoulder can ever be looked over too many times.
Sexual assault and street harassment are far too common, especially for college women: about 1 in 5 women are targets of attempted or completed sexual assault during their time at college, according to a 2007 campus sexual assault study by the U.S. Department of Justice, the most recent survey on the subject to date.
But with our phones constantly glued to our bodies, there are tools available that can make our trips home safer. These four free apps could help prevent sexual assault, harassment or dangerous encounters in any situation, no matter where or what time of day.
1. Circle of 6: Designed specifically to combat sexual assault and interpersonal violence, Circle of 6 lets users select six friends to form a circle of trust. If you get into an uncomfortable or risky situation, you can use the app to automatically send your circle a pre-programmed SMS alert message with just two taps. The message will send with your exact location, so your friends know just where to find you.
2. bSafe: A multi-feature app designed to keep you and your friends safer 24/7. It only requires you to register one primary contact, but users can add an unlimited number of friends to widen your safety circle. Highlights of the app include a “Follow Me” feature, which allows users’ contacts to track their journey in real-time using GPS technology, and an “I’m Here” feature, which alerts users’ friends or family when they have arrived at their destination.
3. Guardly: With GPS technology and network failure protection, Guardly allows users to send one-way alerts to their contacts in the event of an emergency, as well as sharing photos and sending escalating emergencies to 911. Guardly will connect students with campus police if they set off an emergency alert on campus, as long as they sign up using their school email address.
4. Hollaback!: Help end street harassment one hollaback at a time as you catch those creeps in the act. The app allows users to instantly report harassment and pinpoint exactly where it occurred. You have the choice to hollaback with or without a picture. While the picture helps to tell a story, if you don’t feel safe, you don’t have to take one.
While these apps won’t actually stop the act of sexual assault from happening, they are promising prevention and reporting tools. “Not everyone is going to be able to reach their phones in these situations,” says Syracuse University Department of Public Safety Detective James Hill. “But if people actually use the apps in these bad situations, they can alert us right then and there and we can respond quickly.”
Several campuses across the U.S., including the University of Loyola-Chicago and the University of Texas-Brownsville, are developing their own apps that send alerts directly to campus security and provide resources for those who have been assaulted.
DPS Detective Cleveland McCurty Jr. says the real solution is us, all of us. “There are going to be people who don’t use any of these apps. More or less we need to help each other out.,” he says. “Whether it’s an app or a phone call or someone coming and talking to an officer, it just needs to be reported.”
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