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Trauma Informed Practices for Law Enforcement and Prosecutors
December 13, 2018 @ 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm
| A principal duty of law enforcement officers who work on cases of sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence, dating violence, and/or trafficking is to gather evidence of crimes experienced by survivors. It is the prosecutor’s duty to review that evidence, make charging decisions, and when charges are filed, to present that evidence in court. Evidence includes statements and testimony of the victim-witness, which can be instrumental in building a case and prosecuting offenders. Trauma experienced by survivors can impact how they act during and after the experience, their recall of it, and how they appear and sound when describing what they experienced. Trauma can also reoccur in survivors who experienced sexual assault years earlier, but who are contacted after a jurisdiction addresses the sexual assault evidence kit backlog and identifies a match for the evidence collected. Learning that law enforcement has identified a suspect, and the prospect of testifying in court, can retraumatize survivors and impact their ability to participate in the case. Learning about the signs of trauma and how they can best work with survivors who experience the effects of trauma can help law enforcement and prosecutors work more effectively with survivors and build stronger cases. STOP Administrators can strive to incorporate statewide and territory-wide trauma-informed training and practices, which will help disciplines understand what trauma is, learn about promising practices for working with survivors who live with its effects, and use trauma-informed approaches to help avoid retraumatizing survivors. |
