Did they report it to stop it? A realist evaluation of the effect of an advertising campaign on victims’ willingness to report unwanted sexual behaviour

Reka Solymosi,Andrew Newton,Kerry Cella

doi:10.1057/s41284-017-0117-y

Reka Solymosi, Andrew Newton + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-017-0117-y

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Journal: Security Journal	Publication Date: Oct 25, 2017
Citations: 18	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: University of Leicester, Transport for London

Abstract

Tackling unwanted sexual behaviour (USB) on public transport is a concern for transit authorities across the world. However, high rates of underreporting mean a lack of reliable information about USB, presenting a key barrier to prevention. This paper presents a realist evaluation of an initiative called ‘Report It To Stop It’ (RITSI) implemented in London, UK, to tackle underreporting. RITSI aimed to encourage victims to report details of USB incidents to police and transit authorities through media campaigns. Results show that the initiative did increase reporting of USB and that this increase was not due to a rise in the prevalence of USB. Crucially, there was no evidence of any increase in passengers’ fear of crime during the campaign activity. However, the impacts of this campaign were more pronounced in earlier waves, and on certain modes of transport. These findings demonstrate the importance of the context in motivating reporting behaviour change.

Highlights

Sexual harassment and fear of sexual harassment on public transport has been identified internationally as a potential barrier to travel.Unwanted sexual behaviour (USB) on public transport can negatively impact on passenger’s future transit choice through inciting fear (Herbel & Gaines, 2010)
We want to look at three main outcomes: the impact on perceptions of the target audience, the impact on fear of crime in the target audience, and the impact on volume of reported unwanted sexual behaviour (USB) incidents
While we observed no difference in attitudes towards reporting UBS incidents to the police between those who have seen the campaign and those who have not from the follow-up surveys, the findings from the time series analysis of reported USB incidents suggest the Report It to Stop It media campaign (RITSI) media campaign waves are followed by an increase in crime reporting which is not explained by an increase in the prevalence of sexual assaults

Summary

Introduction

Sexual harassment and fear of sexual harassment on public transport (mass transit) has been identified internationally as a potential barrier to travel.Unwanted sexual behaviour (USB) on public transport can negatively impact on passenger’s future transit choice through inciting fear (Herbel & Gaines, 2010). In the United Kingdom, London’s transport authority, Transport for London (TfL), the British Transport Police (BTP), and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) launched an initiative called Project Guardian, in response to findings from the TfL Safety and Security This multi-pronged operation was aimed at tackling USB on London transport, and involved the deployment of specially trained police officers and police community support officers (Bates, 2013; Gekoski et al, 2015). Guardian used findings from police-based research and surveys to develop a series of interventions to tackle USB and raise awareness These included working alongside the Everyday Sexism Project to launch a twitter hashtag and setting up the 61016 text number for reporting sexual offences to BTP. The aim of RITSI was to encourage women aged 17-34, who were identified by police recorded crime data as the most victimised demographic for USB, to report experiences of sexual offences on the transport network

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