During the course of the past semester, The Voyager received a letter from the University administration asking us to spell out our policy regarding publishing names of individuals in the University of West Florida Police Department reports.
The administration’s concern was that students, faculty or staff would hesitate to report an incident to University police for fear of having their name published in a way that would embarrass them.
We at The Voyager feel this is a valid concern, and we want to make our policies clear so that no one hesitates to report a crime. First, we do not publish names of victims in UWFPD, and we will not publish them in a news story without the person’s explicit consent.
Especially in the case of a crime that is already a violation of someone’s privacy and dignity — such as a sexual battery, a robbery or an assault — we would never want any survivor of such a crime to feel that he or she couldn’t report it.
Such crimes deprive a survivor of their free will, and part of regaining a sense of independence is choosing when to talk about the incident and to whom.
Readers will have noticed, though, that sometimes names do appear in UWFPD. The guidance for whose names are printed is simple: If you are arrested by the University of West Florida police, your name will be printed in UWFPD.
Printing the names of individuals who are arrested on campus is a safeguard for the rest of the UWF community, and we will continue to implement that policy.
— The Voyager
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