To help combat the rise of sexual assault on college campuses, numerous apps for smart phones have been designed to raise awareness, help in an emergency situation and to educate people on preventing sexual violence.
Nancy Schwartzman is a survivor of sexual assault. Schwartzman — along with two others — designed an app called Circle of 6.
Circle of 6 won the 2011 White House “Apps Against Abuse” Technology Challenge. It allows you to add 6 of your friends to your circle of emergency contacts. If you find yourself in any type of uncomfortable situation, these friends are just a few taps away from being sent a pre-programmed text message alerting them of your exact location.
“What we are doing now with the app is customizing it for colleges,” Schwartzman said. “We would work with the administrators at your school to embed safety numbers, hotlines and resources that are specific to your school.”
In addition to Circle of 6, there are many other apps to help educate and raise awareness about sexual assault including OnWatch (free 30-day subscription, $19.99 for full version), PrevCon, bMOREsafe, Shatter the Silence and R.I.S.E.
PrevCon is an app that was designed by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Its purpose is to educate people on the issues surrounding sexual assault on college campuses.
Chad Sniffen is the Information Technology, Training and Technical Assistance Specialist for the coalition and helped create the PrevCon app. He believes that no matter how prepared someone is, the risk of sexual assault still exists on college campuses.
“We think of prevention mostly as an educational activity. The Prevent Connect app does that in the sense that it helps people who educate get different ideas,” Sniffen said.
Unlike Circle of 6 which has specific situational functions, PrevCon serves to educate people as a form of prevention.
All of these apps are free to download off of the iTunes app store. Most are available for both iPhones and Android smart phones.
Claire Aubin, a UO sophomore and ASUO Women’s Center public relations coordinator, feels that these apps are a great idea, but not enough people know about the apps for them to truly help lower the number of sexual assaults on college campuses.
“I think the fact that they exist and people don’t use them a lot could be due to either there not being enough publicity around them or that in a lot of situations if you are having sexual violence perpetrated against you, you probably don’t have time to get out your phone use an app,” Aubin said.