Friday, March 29, 2024

Professor, researcher work on response system for sexual assault victims

July 14, 2011

Systemic problems within the Detroit Police Department have led MSU professor and sexual assault researcher Rebecca Campbell to work with authorities on a new system of increased efficiency for response to sexual assault.

After 10,559 untested sexual assault kits, also known as rape kits, dating back to the 1980s were discovered, the Department of Justice funded a project in which Campbell is serving as an independent evaluator of the kits with the hopes of forming a new protocol for sexual assault response that could become the national standard.

The current process involves the victim meeting with a medical professional from the Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner’s program, also known as SAFE, in which evidence is taken and the kit is turned over to the police, who take it to the crime lab for investigation.

The Wayne County SAFE program began in January of 2006 and currently is utilized by every health system in Wayne County, physician assistant Kimberly Hurst said.

Hurst, who serves as the program’s executive director, said they see 40-70 cases a month and hope to meet with a victim within an hour of being contacted in an effort to obtain the best evidence possible.

“There has been limited support systems for victims of sexual assault, and studies have shown (victims) have less of a tendency to follow through when they feel less supported,” she said. “There wasn’t the type of supportive sources there are now.”

The limited support was exemplified when rape kits frequently were put into storage instead of being taken to the crime lab, Campbell said. Often, the only kits tested were one’s directly requested by the prosecuting attorney on a case-by-case basis.

“I don’t think people noticed how many were accumulating,” Campbell said. “Once they (realized), it was obviously a tremendous shock. … The Detroit Police Department didn’t have enough (resources) to investigate (the kits), but there were probably other causes.”

Although there are financial limitations on the Detroit Police Department, Paul Wells, deputy chief of the department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, said those obstacles aren’t different from those in other police departments around the country.

Ultimately, the police have to find a way to deliver justice, even with a decreased budget, he said.

“I know the case load is large, but I would never hide behind being overwhelmed,” he said. “It is definitely a major concern, and, moving forward, we have to look at this one victim at a time. We can’t allow this to happen again.”

Although the law for criminal sexual conduct was changed in 2005 — eliminating a statute of limitations for a first-degree offense — some of the untested rape kits are more than 20 years old and were conducted when there was a statute of limitations, leaving Campbell and others to work against the clock to get justice for as many as possible.

There are appropriate circumstances for a kit not to be tested, Wells said.

These include when a person admits to committing the offense, or if the victim doesn’t seek the help of the police.

However, there are improvements that can be made when handling sexual assault cases, such as offering victims chances to meet with trained advocates, as opposed to the police, and Wells said he’s confident these improvements will be made.

“When we’re done with this, we will set the new standard for best practices for sexual assault (response),” he said. “We’re not hiding from this. We acknowledge it’s a problem, and people from across the country will look at what we’ve done and say, ‘We need to adopt those practices.’ I’m confident in that.”

Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.

Discussion

Share and discuss “Professor, researcher work on response system for sexual assault victims ” on social media.