[SystemSafety] Risk .... again

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

On 2022-09-30 04:18 , mahonybp at tpg.com.au wrote:
> 
> It seems several of the issues that might be of interest in defining risk and risk 
> management are raised in Les’ post.

They sure are.

I think a main issue which has not been raised is that there are important political issues here, 
and risk calculation in itself is one of them. It is not socially neutral. It is seen by some (with 
justification) as a contributor to maintaining the social status quo ante, when what many are aiming 
for is to change the status quo.

Let me spell that out, with regard to sexual violence, and then with another example.

First, sexual violence against (mainly but not exclusively) women is prevalent even in so-called 
"developed" countries. Most (but not all) perpetrators are men. Sexual violence perpetrated by men 
against women is a lasting social problem.

Second, the characterisation of that violence. Courts have sometimes held that it is "not really". A 
Stanford frat boy on the swim team avoids serious punishment and a jail term because, amongst other 
things, he just happened to come across a drunken semi-comatose woman and decided to "take 
advantage". That was not regarded by the court as if he had pulled a gun on a woman walking down the 
street and coerced her. (I note there was considerable pushback; I think the judge was recalled - 
judges in California at some levels are elected.)

Third, calculations such as one would apply (as Les might have applied) in assessing risk have 
explicitly been used by courts (in GB and the US) for many decades to reduce the culpability of the 
perpetrator. "You were wearing "provocative" clothing"; "that is known to be an unsafe place"; "you 
were inebriated". The general scheme here is that the victim should have performed a risk 
calculation and behaved according to that calculation; if she did not then the perpetrator was 
somehow less culpable.

In trying to handle sexual violence, people are pushing back against all these three.

Ad the first: more subtle and better-designed handling of the situations by police forces and by 
third parties: bartenders and bouncers at bars and clubs; self-defence for women (e.g., getting 
people to shout and scream and make a fuss, rather than being intimidated into silence).

Ad the second: societies such as Sweden have introduced simple decision criteria. She must be asked; 
she must say "yes". (And, of course, not just "she".) If that happened, it was consensual. If it 
didn't happen, it was rape. Some Anglo-Saxon countries are on the way to that. For example, that 
rule applies in certain universities (the sanction is that the perpetrator is thrown out).

Ad the third: there is a considerable movement (which, to make my moral view clear, I think 
appropriate) to explicitly discount any "risk assessment" by victims, or the lack of such, in the 
evaluation of crimes of sexual violence. It is so prevalent in legal judgements (they are public in 
the UK; you can read them) that it needs to be strongly countered. In order to counter it in formal 
contexts such as courts, you also need to ensure that juries are not inclined to it also, and to do 
that you need to change the population-level way of thinking. Certain groups concerned with sexual 
violence have realised this for decades and tried/are trying for change along those lines, and I 
think (I hope) we are beginning to see signs of that in the general population. I don't think Les 
should be at all surprised that he came across such pushback. (Indeed, I am glad to see he did, and 
so, I think, should he be. There was little of that thirty years ago.)

I don't think you can just "step back" from such things and be "realist", as Les seemed to be trying 
to do (to be clear: I am not criticising Les, neither am I saying that such risk calculations are 
invalid). Because, if all do that, then social behaviour can reach a statis which is not necessarily 
where one aims to be. Where we (most of us) want to be is in a society with little to no sexual 
violence against women. Encouraging women to perform "risk management" is essentially what has been 
tried for decades and obviously does not reach the place we (most of us) want to be.

A similar situation arises with road traffic. I live in a 30kph zone, quite a large one, in fact, 
which covers the village centre and one housing estate 500m-1km up a dead-end road which passes my 
house. There are countless children around, some of them very young, and they play constantly on the 
footpaths and on quieter streets. And old people who take time to cross the road. And people with 
older dogs similarly.
Pedestrians continually have to adapt to drivers ignoring the speed limit. People with children 
under the age of five or six don't let them play with their older siblings and friends unsupervised 
near my street or the main through road. They could, in a different traffic-behavioural situation. 
In my view, they should be able to, as I did when three or four. But they don't and can't. It is a 
considerable restriction.

It is a stasis which we don't want to be in. We want to be in the position where it is safe for 
small kids to ride their bikes around without adult supervision. (And it is not just kids; it is 
household pets -- we have at least 8 cats around, and one at least is mobility-limited but still 
crossed the road. And bicyclists. I don't want to start off and suddenly have to perform an 
emergency manoeuvre because of somebody rounding the corner at 60kph.) And the legal situation is 
indeed set up to enable this very social situation. But drivers ignore the restrictions.

I was talking to a neighbour whom I have seen around walking her dog for a decade and a half, wave 
at but have never talked to before. This issue came up within 5 minutes (she had an older dog until 
recently). In other words, it is a pervasive concern of us all. We have all adapted, to the 
detriment of our quality of life. But where we want to be at is rather that drivers stick to the 
posted limit. We won't get there without the limit being enforced more rigorously than it is. We 
have talked with the district government about this; they are concerned, and we have had lengthy 
discussions with specific politicians about how it can happen, including road redesign and so on.

And with all that, we still have friendly, pleasant neighbours who (a) walk their dog around about 
my house once or twice a day and (b) barrel past it at 50kph (waving). They *obviously* do not 
consider that regularly breaking traffic law is a big deal (cf. she was just lying there drunk, your 
honour). A social rethink must be part of reaching where we (and the district government) want to be.

So, enforcing the speed limit; possible road modification; changing how people view their driving 
habits. All a big ask.

As I said at the beginning, in both the sexual violence and the speeding situations, risk assessment 
and management is part of what maintains the status quo, when we are really are looking for ways to 
change the status quo. That is the dilemma.

PBL

Prof. i.R. Dr. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de




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