Unfortunate Prisoner’s Dilemma in College Campus Sexual Assault Problem
Sexual on college campuses is a very serious problem. 1 in 5 recent female graduates say they were sexually assaulted while in college. Only 20 percent of rapes on campuses are even reported. Only 16% of these students ever receive any help. The statistics speak for themselves very powerfully. Students have known sexual assault is a serious problem for a long time. The general public has known it’s a problem for a long time. And colleges have known it’s a problem for a long time. It’s hurting many colleges’ reputations and deservedly so.
And yet they are doing astonishingly little to try to combat it. Aside from the obvious and necessary benefits for the students, the colleges themselves would strongly benefit from any improvements in sexual assault safety.
However, any serious attempt at an institutional level to make campus safer first requires the college to admit that they have a serious problem. They fear that if they are the first to admit to the world that they have a problem, the public might think they are the only ones with a problem. This situation can be represented as an example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. By collaborating and agreeing to try to fix the problem, all colleges would be better off, but being one of the only schools to do so could damage a school’s reputation. And thus, even though better options exist for everyone, schools are making very little effort to help such a serious problem.
This crisis isn’t completely without hope, though. As mentioned in a post just a few days ago (https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2015/09/21/can-game-theory-help-to-prevent-rape-3/), a non-profit called Callisto is looking to solve the problem on their own. Put in the context of this post, by improving campus safety through a third party, no single university has to bring a greater share of the blame than they deserve upon themselves. While it is still baffling from an ethical and moral standpoint that any university can provide any level of tolerance for sexual assault, it is at least comforting that somebody else is out there looking to make a difference.
Sources:
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/9tm52sdK1LO6LcTVcouDgP/Equilibrium-at-the-airport.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/can-game-theory-prevent-rape/405607/
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf