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Sexual assault continues to be a major criminal problem. Sexual assault kits (SAK) are one way to preserve evidence to use to pursue justice in sexual assault cases. In recent years, it has become clear that very often these SAKs are never sent to the crime lab to be processed. In an effort to deal with these unsubmitted kits and to research their impact, the Bureau of Justice Assistance funded various grants, known as the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) nationwide to create multidisciplinary teams to both improve the process and response to sexual assault and to provide research on this issue. This paper aims to explore a process created by one of the multidisciplinary teams in one SAKI site – the case review. Ultimately, the goal is to explore how different participants in the case review process perceive and experience the case review and provide implications of these findings.

Using surveys of case review participants, participant observation and key stakeholder interviews findings indicate that case reviews are beneficial in terms of training, collaboration and overall response to sexual assault.

Using all methods, the participants of case reviews found them beneficial. Both new information was gleaned from almost every case review and decisions on particular cases were potentially changed, particularly among the key stakeholders with the ability to impact decisions in sexual assault cases – law enforcement and prosecutors. Issues were raised through the case review process that might not have been without this process. Thus, case reviews have the potential to affect policy and practice and improve future reporting, investigations and prosecutions of sexual assault cases.

Multidisciplinary responses to sexual assault cases, specifically the case review process, are beneficial. Issues for training, opportunities for collaboration and general issues for a particular jurisdiction are all potentially raised during a case review. The case reviews need to be organized, preparation work completed and properly facilitated to be effective. Participants in the case review process themselves perceive case reviews to be beneficial.

This paper presents findings from one of the SAKI sites. A specific process, the case review process, that was developed and implemented at this site was explored. The findings on this process have implications for both practice and policy.

Sexual assault investigations present uniquely challenging circumstances to detectives, and a small proportion result in arrest. Improving sexual assault investigations requires expanding the evidence base to improve our understanding of how these investigations unfold and the factors associated with positive case outcomes, including the likelihood that an offender is arrested.

The authors abstracted data on 491 adult sexual assaults investigated by five large and midsized law enforcement agencies to describe the characteristics of sexual assault investigations and to explain the relationships between these characteristics and the likelihood that a suspect is arrested.

Overall, detectives move swiftly to investigate sexual assaults but tend to miss investigative opportunities that increase the likelihood of an arrest, like locating and processing the crime scene or pursuing interviews with key witnesses and leads. Sexual assaults typically lack physical evidence that can be used to identify and lead to an arrest of a suspected offender; when this evidence is present, the case is more likely to result in an arrest. Delayed reporting of the crime to law enforcement decreases the likelihood of a suspect being arrested, but the mechanisms are unclear.

Few studies have used a detailed data abstraction process for a large sample of cases from multiple law enforcement agencies to understand sexual assault investigations and their case outcomes. The results can improve practitioners' and researchers' understanding of sexual assault investigations, including those factors that increase the likelihood of a suspect's arrest.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine if and how victim credibility affects investigative decision-making and case outcomes in domestic violence and sexual assault reports through the use of the US Department of Justice's Gender Bias Principles (GBPs).

The authors conducted a content analysis of 370 DVSA police reports from one agency in the western US. Multivariate regression models were estimated to examine the relationships among victim credibility and investigative activities, victim cooperation and case clearance.

Victim credibility significantly predicts specific investigative actions and case clearance, but not victim cooperation. Multiple aspects of DVSA investigations significantly impact victim cooperation as well as case clearance, regardless of victim credibility issues. The GBPs are an effective framework for disaggregating investigative activities and identifying specific areas for improvement in policing response to DVSA.

Further study is needed to determine the temporal ordering of officer assessment of victim credibility and investigative activities, the stability of such assessments during investigations, and if credibility problems noted in police reports are valid indicators of myth acceptance among officers or represent a downstream orientation of information requested by prosecutors. Victim service referral as a part of policing response is vastly under-researched given referral's strong effects on victim cooperation and case clearance. Crime-specific differences exist in many cases, yet not in others, suggesting separate and combined DVSA analyses are warranted.

A more complex analysis of investigative actions offers a targeted approach to officer training and administrative rule-making that may be more efficient and effective than current generalized approaches.

The study is the first to empirically test the utility of the GBP framework, as well as individual aspects of DVSA investigations, and from a gender-based crime rather than crime-specific approach.

According to statistics by the US National Sexual Violence Resource Center, more than 50% of women claim they have been raped by an intimate partner or an acquaintance. In this experiment, the authors test whether exposing individuals to different types of images portraying the victim and their perpetrator influences individuals' perception of (1) the perpetrator's deserved punishment and (2) the role played by the victim in her rape.

In an experimental survey, the authors randomly treat groups of individuals with manipulated facial and physical expressions of the same photographs.

The authors find that news about rape are more or less effective in uncovering the seriousness of the crime independent of the pictures accompanying them, suggesting media should avoid their misusage.

While the role of the narrative of rape has been extensively discussed in the literature from a theoretical perspective, this research provides original evidence based on actual behavioural response.

Undertaking qualitative research exploring experiences of trauma can be challenging for all members of a research team. The aim of this article is to document the key challenges faced by researchers and to provide an overview of the key guidelines and processes that have been developed.

Drawing on a range of empirical and published reflective accounts over the past 20 years, this article documents the key challenges researchers undertaking qualitative research face. These accounts are synthesized for the reader and an overview of research guidelines provided.

Qualitative researchers and members of the research team (including research assistants, transcriptionists and research supervisors) undertaking trauma research face many challenges including physical and emotional manifestations. Despite the development of a range of guidelines and protocols, formalized processes are still lacking. Researchers need to be supported to consider the impact of the research on themselves and others within the research team and include these assessments in their ethics and funding applications.

Researching trauma (like many other topics) can be challenging for researchers and it is important that we ensure researchers are not harmed in the research process. Adopting guidelines like those presented in this paper and encouraging formalized processes for researcher risk assessments are paramount.

Discussions about risk to researchers when undertaking qualitative research have existed for many years but they have not always resulted in acknowledgement of development of supportive processes. By bringing together empirical research and reflective accounts from a range of disciplines the issues researchers face can become more visible.

Campus sexual assault has received a great deal of media attention in recent years, with much focus being placed on the factors unique to universities that enable these crimes to occur. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the circumstances under which these crimes take place and examine the policies of institutions across the USA and Canada to determine whether legislation from various governmental levels impacts the prevalence and incidence rates of sexual assault.

A review of the literature on sexual assault is conducted to gain an understanding of the contributory factors in campus sexual assault, and fields outside of psychology are included in the search to capture phenomena outside the perpetrator-victim dyad.

The findings suggest that unique variables exist in campus culture including prevention and intervention strategies put in place by governments and individual universities. Some of these policies are aimed at providing victim services, while others engage faculty, staff, and students in taking action from a bystander standpoint.

This paper also investigates the impacts that mandatory policies would have across North America, and suggests future policy initiatives to reduce the deleterious effects of sexual assault for students and universities alike.