College Students In England Are A Tiny Bit Upset With The Message These Campus Safety Pamphlets Send

Metro-  Students at a Bristol college were left disgusted after police handed them leaflets titled ‘R U ASKING FOR IT?’

The leaflets were handed out by Avon and Somerset police officers during a police talk at North Bristol Post 16 Centre last week.

It showed the question ‘R U ASKING 4 IT?’ on the front page, along with the slogan ‘Your essential guide to student safety’ and the force’s website.

Kizzie Tims, 16, who attended the talk along with 50 other students said: ‘The leaflet was about personal safety – robberies and muggings – but was not appropriate when talking about rape.

‘It was not the most professional talk and at this age we are very sensitive about these sorts of issues. A lot of people began shouting and others got teary about it.’

Police have since apologised for the brochure and admitted it was ‘nearly ten years out of date’.

​They are said to have been printed in 2008 following a number of attacks on Clifton Down.




​Okay, I can buy that excuse. I'm a little uneasy that blatant victim blaming was still an acceptable response to campus crimes as late as 2008, but I don't think there's any doubt that these flyers were simply outdated pieces of information that happened to accidentally get disseminated prior to editing. I don't think that Bristol College employees and the local law enforcement held a powwow to discuss the appropriateness of the content and gave the collective thumbs up before passing these out around school grounds. However, that hardly frees them from criticism here.

I don't know what else they had on the docket this semester, but revising the pamphlet that basically says the non-consenting party is responsible for non-consensual sex seems like it should have been more of a priority. I find it rather strange that that wasn't higher on the 'To Do' list after EIGHT years. Seems pretty negligent that fixing the incredibly offensive brochure on safety precautions was the one chore that annually got passed along to someone else. That's like forgetting to take the "Whites Only" sign off the good water fountain for damn near a decade after 'Brown V. The Board Of Education'. It's like failing to put a 'Female' bubble on the voter registration paperwork for two full Presidential terms after women achieved suffrage. Hey Bristol College, I am not saying you guys still believe that the raped and pillaged are responsible for their own misfortune, but you are responsible for a lack of timeliness reminiscent of a homeless person paying their bills.