Safer Pennsylvania Project
Together, we can create a Safer Pennsylvania.
Sexual Harm is Preventable.
Sexual Harm is Preventable.
We believe that all sexual abuse is unacceptable and that prevention, treatment, and healing are possible. Survivors of sexual harm, their loved ones, and all Pennsylvanians deserve policies that work, not policies that only sound tough. People who commit sexual offenses must be held accountable. Accountability matters, and so does stopping harm before it happens.
Guided by the Safer Pennsylvania Team, the pillars below are advanced through multidisciplinary collaboration. Together, voices from government, healthcare, education, law enforcement, community organizations, and nonprofits unite to build innovative, unified approaches to prevention and response, ensuring a Safer Pennsylvania for everyone.
The Safer Pennsylvania Plan
Prevention as public health.
Treat child sexual abuse as a public-health issue, with coordinated prevention in schools, families, and communities.
Accessible, prevention-focused care.
Make confidential, clinically appropriate care available to people who are struggling with problematic sexual urges.
Evidence-based practice in every system.
Apply primary prevention practices across public health, education, human services, and the law.
Modernized policy.
Update policies, procedures, and guidance that conflict with the research, so our systems are effective, fair, and just.
What We’re Working On
Prevention
Sexual Harm is Preventable, not Inevitable.
Pennsylvania must champion a bold shift from solely reacting to sexual harm after it occurs to proactively preventing it before it begins. By prioritizing primary prevention—through accessible education, robust resources, and inclusive programs for everyone at risk of experiencing or causing harm— we must build safer, healthier communities for all.
01
Public Policy
Modernizing Laws and Ensuring Evidence-Based Policies
Pennsylvania must modernize laws and policies using evidence-based strategies that actively prevent sexual harm, ensure effective treatment for those who have caused harm, and foster comprehensive healing for survivors. By embracing proven practices and keeping pace with emerging challenges, Safer Pennsylvania pledges to build a safer, more just, and more resilient future for all.
02
Transformation
Healing, Responsibility, and Safety
Pennsylvania must envision a future where every person affected by sexual harm can pursue healing, responsibility, and safety. Survivors deserve support and justice. People who have caused harm must be held accountable, and those who are willing to do the work should have access to treatment and the tools to live safely in their communities. When harm is acknowledged, wounds can heal and communities can move forward with hope and dignity.
03
Responsibility
Ethical, Effective, and Efficient Use of Resources
Pennsylvania must invest its resources responsibly, where they will have the most significant impact in preventing harm. By continually reimagining and modernizing traditional approaches, Safer Pennsylvania aims to ensure that every dollar is used wisely, advancing the most innovative, efficient, and evidence-based solutions to protect communities and foster lasting safety for all.
04
View Projects
We’re committed to creating a Safer Pennsylvania.
Our goal is to help communities and families prevent sexual harm before it happens, and to make sure that people who cause sexual harm are held accountable and given the tools to remain safe, contributing members of society.
Get Involved
Join our mission to ensure that survivors of sexual harm can heal, that people at risk of causing harm receive best-practice, evidence-based treatment, and that Pennsylvania becomes safer for everyone.
Partner Groups
There are several ways individuals, companies, organizations can partner with the Safer Pennsylvania Project including:
- The Safer Pennsylvania Legislative Caucus is a bipartisan group of state senators and representatives who are committed to supporting our core values.
- The Safer Pennsylvania Reentry Council (SPARC) is a group of community and nonprofit organizations working to ensure Safer PA's core values are included in reentry programming including parole, probabtion, treatment, and peer support.
- The Safer Pennsylvania Policy Advancement Team (SPAPAT) works to implement public safety measures with a trauma-informed, sexual harm prevention focus across Pennsylvania's agencies, bureaus, and commissions.
- The Safer Pennsylvania Concerned Citizens Council (SPACCC) ensures that everyone who fully supports Safer PA's pillars has a place at the table.
Volunteer
Lend your time and skills to make a difference. Whether it's helping in the field, supporting education programs, or assisting online, your efforts directly support safe, healthy families and communities across Pennsylvania.
Recommend Safer PA Project to a Friend
Do you know an individual, organization, or agency that would be a "perfect fit" to work with the Safer PA project? Use this form (Coming Soon) to send them an e-mail about the Safer PA project and encourage them to get involved. Safer PA supports an attraction model of involvement. We encourage those with interest to reach out to us to get involved.
"Society needs prevention, healing, and justice. Yet governments continue to focus more heavily on reactive measures."
“People who are willing to do the work, get better, learn from their mistakes, make amends, and pay their debt to society deserve the opportunity to be a full member of it if we are willing as legislators to be bold, take a stand, and ensure we are making evidence-based policies. There are common-sense reforms from thirty years of understanding what works and what doesn’t."
“[We must] ensure that schools adopt age-appropriate curriculums on preventing child abuse so students are provided with the necessary information to recognize the signs of child abuse and report such abuse...”
“Sexual assault is a frequent and serious problem today. By starting young and teaching consent as a fundamental value in human interaction, we will develop and strengthen the importance of this value in adolescence and adulthood.”
We're on a mission to create a Pennsylvania where sexual harm is preventable, not inevitable, and where people who cause harm are both held accountable and given the support and tools they need to keep our communities safe.
About Us
Mission Statement
We're on a mission to create a Pennsylvania where sexual harm is preventable, not inevitable, and where people who cause harm are both held accountable and given the support and tools they need to keep our communities safe.
How We Work
We collaborate with local groups, educators, grassroots organizations, policy makers, elected officials, and experts across the country to design and implement solutions that support our core values.
Why It Matters
In 1995, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge signed "PA Megan's Law," creating a registry of people convicted of or adjudicated for certain sexual offenses. After thirty years of research, the evidence points toward a better model of harm prevention.
- Over 95% of arrests for sexual offenses are of people who are not on the registry. [V2]
- RAINN reports that 93% of child victims of sexual abuse know the person who abused them. [V3]A registry responds after harm has occurred. Prevention works before it.
By the numbers...
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