scholarly journals INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT, DATA GOVERNANCE AND THE TEMPORAL CONSTRUCTION OF FORENSIC EVIDENCE: THE MAKING OF THE FIRST STATEWIDE RAPE KIT TRACKING PLATFORM

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renee Shelby
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
State Level ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Data Governance ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Police Decision Making ◽  
Forensic Practice ◽  
Trauma Informed

Police management of sexual assault kits (SAKs) has led to systemic disorganization resulting in lost and forgotten forensic evidence. In response, advocates champion 'sexual assault kit tracking platforms' as a pillar of survivor-centered and trauma-informed approaches to rape kit reform at the state level and to create independent oversight over forensic processes. In 2017, Idaho became the first state to implement a statewide tracking platform. The Idaho Sexual Assault Kit Tracking System (IKTS) allows the public to track kits from distribution to collection, and testing at law enforcement facilities. The emergence of tracking platforms raises questions about what governance paradigms, data relations, and discourses these systems enable. I find concerns about "timeliness" and the temporal life of forensic evidence structured the creation, deployment, and maintenance of IKTS. I argue timeliness is a data governance paradigm with multiple and shifting meanings of temporality that comprise various legal, social, and data relationships. I show how the discourse of tardy, slow, and untimely forensic evidence is a mechanism to codify consistent statewide forensic practice and centralize legal decision-making. The legislature's treatment of SAK disorganization as a problem of unmanaged "temporality" assumes a view of evidence processing as merely and neutrally unmechanized. On one hand, this treatment obscures how racialized rape myths shape police decision-making; on the other, IKTS protocols offer some intervention. I argue this should not be read as signs of a racial justice technofix, but as indications of the limits and possibilities of a "technolegal" response to violence.

Focal Concerns and Police Decision Making in Sexual Assault Cases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 152483802199128
Author(s):  
David S. Lapsey ◽  
Bradley A. Campbell ◽  
Bryant T. Plumlee
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Campbell Collaboration ◽  
Focal Concerns ◽  
Police Decision Making ◽  
The Impact

Sexual assault and case attrition at the arrest stage are serious problems in the United States. Focal concerns have increasingly been used to explain police decision making in sexual assault cases. Because of the popularity of the focal concerns perspective and potential to inform evidence-based training, a systematic review and meta-analysis are needed to condense the literature. In this study, we assess the overall strength of the relationship between focal concerns variables and police decisions to arrest in cases of sexual assault. Our assessment of the effects of focal concerns variables on arrest decision making in sexual assault cases followed the systematic review protocols provided by the Campbell Collaboration of Systematic Reviews. Specifically, we used the Campbell Collaboration recommendations to search empirical literature and used meta-analysis to evaluate the size, direction, and strength of the impact of focal concerns variables on arrest decisions. Our search strategy detected 14 eligible studies and 79 effect sizes. The meta-analysis found several robust and statistically significant correlates of arrest. In fact, each focal concerns concept produced at least one robust arrest correlate. Overall, focal concerns offers a strong approach for explaining police decisions in sexual assault cases. Although practical concerns and resource constraints produced the strongest arrest correlates, results show the importance of additional case characteristics in officers’ decision to arrest.

Unfounded, Cleared, or Cleared by Exceptional Means: Sexual Assault Case Outcomes From 1999 to 2014

2019 ◽  
pp. 088626051987671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel M. Venema ◽  
Katherine Lorenz ◽  
Nicole Sweda
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Police Decision Making ◽  
Case Files ◽  
Extralegal Factors ◽  
Assault Victims ◽  
Sexual Assault Case

Sexual assault is a highly underreported crime with even fewer cases proceeding to the point of charges and prosecution, suggesting that sexual assault victims have less opportunity for legal justice than other crime victims. Case attrition may, in part, be due to negative attitudes and rape myth acceptance (RMA) in police decision making. Yet, little attention has been paid to examining the evidentiary and extralegal factors surrounding the case that contribute to police decision making and case outcomes through examination of police case files. This examination is necessary to address the issue of differential processing of sexual assault cases in the criminal justice system. This study uses police data of sexual assault case files from 1999 to 2014 ( N = 23,525) to examine the assault, victim, and detective characteristics that contribute to case outcomes of unfounded, cleared, and exceptionally cleared through arrest and victim refusal to prosecute. Logistic regression models tested 15 years of reported sexual assault data from one large police department and found that elements that correspond with RMA were predictive of unfounded, cleared, and exceptionally cleared case decisions, providing further indication that officers consider evidentiary but also extralegal factors in decision making. Overall, results support previous contentions that sexual assault victims have unequal access to legal justice, particularly victims possessing demographic and assault characteristics that do not align with stereotypical notions of rape. Implications for future research and policing practices are discussed.

It All Just Piles Up: Challenges to Victim Credibility Accumulate to Influence Sexual Assault Case Processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (15) ◽  
pp. 3151-3170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Schaefer Morabito ◽  
April Pattavina ◽  
Linda M. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Decision Point ◽  
Case Processing ◽  
Police Decision Making ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Sexual Assault Case ◽  
Sheriff's Department

The underreporting of sexual assault is well known to researchers, practitioners, and victims. When victims do report, their complaints are unlikely to end in arrest or prosecution. Existing research on police discretion suggests that the police decision to arrest for sexual assault offenses can be influenced by a variety of legal and extra-legal factors particularly challenges to victim credibility. Although extant literature examines the effects of individual behaviors on police outcomes, less is known about how the accumulation of these behaviors, attributions, and characteristics affects police decision making. Using data collected from the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department, we examine one police decision point—the arrest to fill this gap in the literature. First, we examine the extent to which the effects of potential challenges to victim credibility, based on victim characteristics and behaviors, influence the arrest decision, and next, how these predictors vary across circumstances. Specifically, we examine how factors that challenge victim credibility affect the likelihood of arrest in sexual assault cases where the victim and offender are strangers, acquaintances, and intimate partners.

Police Decision Making in Sexual Assault Cases

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1157-1177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Tasca ◽  
Nancy Rodriguez ◽  
Cassia Spohn ◽  
Mary P. Koss
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Police Decision Making
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