The New Trial by Ordeal: Rape Kits, Police Practices, and the Unintended Effects of Policy Innovation

Abstract

One of the most highly touted improvements in the criminal justice response to rape has been the wide‐scale adoption of sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) programs that provide specialized medical care and forensic evidence collection to victims. Though previous studies have emphasized the benefits of SANE programs in improving criminal case outcomes, this study illustrates how the post‐rape forensic examination can also discourage reporting, investigation, and prosecution. Interviews with local rape care advocates across the United States show how the increasing emphasis on forensic evidence collected through rape kits may provide an opportunity to reflect and enact persistent law enforcement stereotypes toward sexual assault complainants. Unless police resistance to taking rape seriously is confronted and addressed, even well‐intentioned policy reforms such as SANE programs may end up undermining—rather than enhancing—fair and thorough investigation of sexual assault allegations.

The “Bait and Switch” of Sexual Assault Response: Expanded Carceral Power at a Rape Crisis Center

“…Advocates described WERA’s inability to affect the carceral mechanism in meetings and during SANE exams, and provided examples of management being influenced by the system, rather than doing the influencing. These findings extend Corrigan’s (2013a) illustration of SANE exams as a mechanism for law enforcement’s impeachment of victims. In the case of WERA, locations of institutional overlap were sometimes used to diminish the credibility of, or criminalize, rape victims.…”

Suspect Survivors: Police Investigation Practices in Sexual Assault Cases in Ontario, Canada

“…Alongside legal reforms that redefined rape as sexual assault in the Criminal Code of Canada, specialized sexual assault training was instituted for police and sexual assault investigation squads were established. Although hopes were high that these changes would eliminate biases against survivors that pervaded legal responses to sexual assault in the earlier part of the 20th century, contemporary research in Canada and the United States suggests that these hopes have not been realized (Corrigan, 2013a(Corrigan, , 2013bGregory & Lees, 1996;Mulla, 2014;Russell, 2011). …”

“…Contemporary law enforcement's responses to sexual assault, many scholars argue, are influenced by pervasive myths that sexual assaults are predominantly committed by strangers and that women routinely fabricate reports of sexual assault (Bakht, 2012;Corrigan, 2013a;Crew, 2012;Hodgson, 2010;Mack, 1993;Torrey, 1991). Although some scholars have noted that institutional reforms in policing have increased police investigators' sensitivity to survivors' needs (Lord & Rassel, 2008), others have argued that police decision making in sexual assault investigations continues to be shaped by mythologies of rape and sexist and racist views of women and survivors of sexual assault (Flood & Pease, 2009;Johnson, 2012;Page, 2010;Russell, 2011).…”

“…The overwhelming scholarly evidence of survivors being dismissed and doubted in the criminal justice system suggests that survivors' fears of not receiving justice from law enforcement are well grounded (R. Campbell, 2006;R. Campbell & Raja, 1999;Corrigan, 2013aCorrigan, , 2013bMaier, 2008;Martin & Powell, 1994;Mulla, 2014;Patterson, Greeson, & Campbell, 2009;Ullman, 1996Ullman, , 2010.…”

“That's How She Talks”: Animating Text Message Evidence in the Sexual Assault Trial

“…Indeed, jurors’ assessment of witness testimony often does not focus solely on the content of testimony but rather on extralegal factors including complainants’ behavior before the alleged sexual assault (Estrich ; Frohmann ; Konradi ; Matoesian ; Taslitz ) and persuasive cues such as nonverbal behaviors (Chaiken ; Ellison and Munro ). Sexual assault trial practice is particularly reliant on corroborative evidence and credibility assessments (Corrigan , ; Frohmann ), despite feminist legal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s that removed corroborative evidentiary standards from rape statutes (Bevacqua ). Electronic technology (e.g., cellular telephones, the Internet, social networking sites) has created new sites for social interaction and communication across a range of social sectors (Horst and Miller ), providing new forms of evidence that are able to bring previously private scenes and conversations to life in a court of law.…”