200 on-demand webinars to choose from!
Who Do You Work For: An Exploration of Ethics for Victim-Serving Professionals
It is often difficult for victim-serving professionals to balance the ethics of their profession with an ethical response to crime victims. The conflicts of these ethical codes, and the misunderstandings that exist among our colleagues, create tension and mistrust across disciplines. While our roles may be different and our ethical obligations may vary, collaborating with victim service professionals is possible. This session will compare and contrast the ethical responsibilities of health care workers, law enforcement, prosecutors, corrections, therapists, and victim advocates towards the goal of fostering understanding among colleagues and increasing ethical behavior and communication toward victims.
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Investigating and Prosecuting Sexual Assault by Intoxication
This presentation will address the issues investigators, prosecutors, victim advocates, and medical personal often encounter in alcohol-facilitated sexual assaults. Hurdles in these cases typically include the consent defense, perceptions about “he said/she said” cases, and victims suffering from memory loss, as well as challenges related to victim shame, embarrassment, and lack of trust in law enforcement.
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The Sexual Assault Survivors’ Task Force: Transforming Texas’ Response to Sexual Violence
This presentation will highlight the outcomes of a bipartisan legislation designed to improve Texas’ response to sexual assault, culminating in the creation and implementation of a statewide Sexual Assault Survivors’ Task Force (SASTF) in Texas in 2019. This was a pivotal moment for sexual assault survivors in Texas, a state that has witnessed the passage of key legislation prioritizing survivors’ needs. This legislation includes newly mandated requirements for increased system accountability and transparency; the collection of multiple data sets illuminating critical aspects of how the system is functioning; and the creation of a statewide task force that includes survivors along with some of Texas’ foremost experts and practitioners in the field of sexual assault.
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Where Science Compliments Justice: Forensic Nurses at Trial
Forensic nurses must be prepared to interact competently and knowledgeably with the legal system, and testify in courts of law, typically as experts, regarding their examinations and findings. Prosecutors utilizing such expertise must understand the role of the forensic nurse and how best to elicit an expert opinion on the witness stand. This workshop will address preparation and interaction from both perspectives (prosecutor and forensic nurse), proper interaction with adverse attorneys, how to develop and prepare compelling testimony, and tips for testifying.
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Stalking: Slow Motion Homicide
Anna highlights the positive and lifesaving work of these individuals through-out her case study and gives concrete examples for all victim service providers when working with victims of stalking or other crimes. She educates on the importance of victim-centered responses for all victims of stalking and shares the success and outcome of these practices in her case and life.
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Sexually Assaulted, Disbelieved, Prosecuted and Acquitted: Lessons from Virginia
Imagine that someone in your community is sexually assaulted and tells the police. Initially the investigator appears to take them seriously, but the case stalls. The victim interview turns into an interrogation, and police pressure the victim to retract their allegations. Desperate to end this ordeal, the victim recants. But to their surprise, the investigator and prosecutor use the recantation to charge them with false reporting.
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What You Focus On Grows: Stop Justifying Victims’ Behavior and Focus on Offenders’ Predatory Conduct
All too often investigators and prosecutors seek to justify a victim’s behavior, instead of focusing on the offender’s conduct. This session re-imagines offender focused investigations in a meaningful way and gives participants concrete ideas to create system changes within their own community. In this session, Dr. David Lisak, who has spent his career interviewing ‘undetected rapists’ will highlight some of his findings and help participants better understand the predatory nature of sexual violence.
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When Victims of Crime Become Defendants: Should Context Matter?
What does justice look like when a victim of a crime becomes a defendant? This session will inspire every kind of professional to consider context in their response in these cases. Incarcerated women experience staggering rates of sexual assault and domestic violence across the life span leading up to the offenses for which they are charged or convicted.
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Survivors Justice Project: A Radical Collaboration to Decarcerate Survivors of Domestic Violence
The Survivors Justice Project (SJP) is a collective of survivors of domestic violence, currently and formerly incarcerated women, activists, lawyers, and students working for the decarceration of domestic violence survivors through the implementation of the New York State Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA).
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DNA and Sexual Assault Kits: A Great Forensic Tool
When sexual assault victims/survivors consent to a forensic sexual assault examination, they fully expect that the completed Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) will be submitted by law enforcement to a crime lab to be tested. Sadly, that is not always the case.