This issue of STRATEGIES should serve as the first step toward improving sexual assault prosecution practices in a sustainable way by explaining how to implement performance measures to more accurately measures effective practices.

Offers guidance for individuals involved in the collection, examination, tracking, packaging, storing, and disposition of biological evidence. This may include crime scene technicians, law enforcement officers, health care professionals, forensic scientists, forensic laboratory managers, evidence supervisors, property managers, storage facility personnel, lawyers, testifying experts, court staff members, and anyone else who may come in contact with biological evidence. While many of the recommendations relate to the physical storage, preservation, and tracking of evidence at the storage facility, this Handbook also covers the transfer of material between the storage facility and other locations and discusses how evidence should be handled at these other locations.

This fact sheet reviews the rates of sexual assault among Black women and related dynamics, such as non-reporting and the role of stereotypic expectations.

This report provides valuable recommendations to service providers and criminal justice professionals, so that they may be better equipped to provide the specialized services and resources needed by LGBTQ trafficking victims and survivors. If the basic needs of LGBTQ youth continue to go unmet, these young people face a greater risk of returning to their trafficking situations.

This publication is a chapter update to the Support for Survivors Training Manual, which was first published in 2001 by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA). This chapter seeks to identify some of the critical issues affecting immigrant victims of sexual violence and to provide advocates with information, resources, and tools to address them. Immigration law is complex and always changing; therefore, it is crucial that advocates develop partnerships with immigration experts and attorneys.

This OnLine Training Institute (OLTI) module begins in with a discussion of the origins of victim advocacy and the general role of victim advocates, before going into more concrete discussion about the specific strategies that advocates use to successfully work on behalf of sexual assault within the criminal justice system.  The training is especially focused on clarifying the similarities and differences between community-based victim advocates and system-based victim advocates, terms that are defined in the module.

The report is organized in eight sections. Each section begins by identifying a promising practice and then describes how programs at different police agencies illustrate that practice. For example, under Promising Practice #3, “Maximize Resources,” readers will find that the Oklahoma City Police Department evaluates officers’ language skills and then assigns them to tasks that match their abilities. Some agencies’ programs will appear in more than one section because different aspects of the program are good examples of more than one promising practice.

The purpose of this document is to explain the need for Start by Believing and other victim-centered and trauma-informed approaches, based on the barriers sexual assault victims have long faced when they disclose to loved ones and when they report the crime or reach out for services. These problems have constituted large-scale failures, and therefore the efforts to fix them have also been on a national scale. We review the research documenting these failures, and the movement to reform our systems to become victim-centered and trauma-informed. Start by Believing is best understood within the historical and cultural context of these larger movements.

This video was developed to expand IACP’s law enforcement educational efforts on the crime of sexual assault and accompany the IACP Sexual Assault Investigative Strategies guidance and Supplemental Report Form.

This 3-page guide highlights key points related to accidental and abuse-related bruising among older adults, including helpful body diagrams.

A Manual for Rape Crisis Programs and Communities in Texas for Developing Sexual Assault Coalitions.

This document summarizes how the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services (as part of the Office for Victims of Crime’s “Victim Services 2000 Demonstration Project”), established and sustained relationships with the faith community to improve victim services. It specifically addresses: the need for collaboration, victim needs from a faith-based perspective, elements of collaboration, lessons learned, and issues unique to faith-based victim assistance.

Collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.

This no-nonsense handbook surveys the most used and abused drugs from caffeine to heroin to methamphetamine. In both quick-reference summaries and in-depth analysis, it reports on how these drugs enter the body, how they manipulate the brain, their short-term and long-term effects, the different “highs” they produce, and the circumstances in which they can be deadly. Neither a “just say no” treatise nor a “how-to” manual, Buzzed is based on the conviction that people make better decisions with accurate information in hand.

Presents the results of a 9-school pilot test conducted to develop a campus climate survey that collects school-level data on sexual victimization of undergraduate students. The report describes the development of the survey instrument and procedures for data collection, non-response bias analysis, weighting, and validity assessment. It presents estimates for each school on the prevalence and incidence of sexual assault, rape, and sexual battery during the 2014-2015 academic year, as well as characteristics of the victims and incidents. It also provides estimates of the prevalence of sexual assault since entering college and during the student’s lifetime. In addition, the report examines the relationship between measures of campus climate and rates of sexual victimization.

Medical forensic exams are difficult for anyone. Trans survivors face additional social, legal, and medical barriers to pursuing justice. This webinar explores how forensic nurse examiners and medical advocates can help trans survivors pursue evidence collection, minimizing barriers and increasing both physical and emotional comfort.

This training provides clinicians with a greater understanding of the needs of patients that have been sexually assaulted or abused while improving the overall care and exam process for these patients. With the guidance conducted within this training, clinicians are more equipped to provide their patients with trauma-informed, patient-centered approach, affording the clinician an increased level of comfort with caring for this patient population.

This Guidebook offers step-by-step recommendations to lead SART Coordinators through the process of reviewing law enforcement case files. It is designed to help identify areas where a SART is successful in its response to victims, and other areas where it can improve. Information is provided for each of the core agencies in the SART: Law Enforcement, Medical, Prosecution, Advocacy, and Probation. The Guidebook provides insights into how to make connections that help improve the criminal justice process for victims and agencies while also helping teams discover a multitude of opportunities and best practices to explore.

Rape Shield statutes have been enacted across the country to protect sexual assault victims from unnecessary embarrassment, and to help overcome their reluctance to testify based on the risk that their entire lives will be placed in judgment by the jury. Courts and legislatures have sought to consider the balance between the inflammatory or prejudicial nature of the evidence and the probative value of the evidence.

Promotes, develops, and disseminates information to improve the health and expand the life choices of women with disabilities.

A national clearinghouse and technical assistance center that supports state and local jurisdictions in the effective management of sex offenders.

Conducts research, creates and evaluates the effectiveness of violence prevention programs, and helps state and local partners plan, implement, and evaluate prevention programs.

This STRATEGIES In Brief describes the remaining legal exemptions to prosecuting marital rape and sets forth key considerations necessary to making accurate charging decisions in marital rape cases.

In a first-of-its-kind study, the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK released this research report and the accompanying recommendations on cases where someone is prosecuted for filing a false report of sexual assault, domestic violence, or both. (This charge is called “Perverting the Course of Justice” in the UK.) The report also outlines steps the Crown Prosecution planned to put in place as a result of the findings. This report shows that any such charge must be considered in the context of the total number of prosecutions brought for those offences. It also highlights the complex nature of these cases.

The IACP, the FBI, and the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, developed this training series to educate frontline officers on how to recognize and respond to victims of child sex trafficking.

The Family Violence Council and Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department adapted the Power/Control and Equality Wheels to include Christian scriptural references for the use of congregations. The two resulting Christian-specific wheels are entitled: “Power and Control of Women in Patriarchal Society” and “Women Created in God’s Image as Equal to Men.”