APSA Hackathon

Of possible interest to readers (either to participate in this event or as a model for their own professional associations), the APSA is holding a “hackathon” next month to help men support women’s equality in political science. The hackathon is being organized by Jessica Preece and Macartan Humphreys and being held as part of the APSA’s 2018 annual meeting, Democracy and its Discontents.

Here is a partial description of the hackathon from the conference website:

Hackathons are events where communities of scholars, activists, programmers, and others come together to exchange ideas about and work collaboratively to provide solutions to a common problem. Hackathons may produce multiple outcomes, including the analysis and visualization of new data, websites, apps, research designs, consensus documents, policy proposals, and plans for social interventions. […] Our main goal to build on past and present efforts by APSA and its component organizations to promote diversity and inclusion by creating a collaborative, diverse, and inclusive space for annual meeting participants to come together. At the hackathon, teams will develop strategies that address key challenges facing the profession, build partnerships, and plans to move forward.

In preparation for the hackathon, organizers conducted an open-ended survey of women in the profession, which resulted in this list of suggestions.

Read more about the hackathon here.

(Thanks to JW for the heads up.)

 

UK prosecutions for “false rape accusations”

Quite unlike other jurisdictions, the UK has a habit of prosecuting women for “false rape accusations” (and then wondering why women won’t report the crime). Buzzfeed has an important expose out that finds (among other things):

At least 200 women in the UK have been prosecuted for lying about being raped in the past decade, according to a BuzzFeed News analysis of press reports. Most of these women were sent to prison, dozens of them with sentences of two or more years.

Prosecutors went after teenagers, and women who reportedly had mental health issues, had experienced past physical and sexual assault, or were grappling with drug and alcohol addiction.

Women were prosecuted even when they reportedly went to police only under pressure, quickly recanted, or never named their attacker at all.

The CPS has prosecuted women who police were not sure had lied. In one instance detectives declined to charge the woman for making a false complaint. Prosecutors went ahead anyway.

Read more here.