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Collecting and Analyzing Carjacking Data: Challenges and Solutions

As violent crime increases nationwide, reports of increases in carjackings has become a concern in many communities. However, because jurisdictions often include carjackings under a general category of robbery, it is difficult to accurately identify the number of carjackings occurring separately from those robberies. This webinar spotlights the experiences of an IPS grantee’s efforts to tackle this issue from a data collection and analysis perspective. Ryan Bokoch of the Cuyahoga County Office of the Prosecutor in Cleveland, OH discusses his Crime Strategy Unit’s effort to collect and analyze data concerning carjackings in the Cleveland area so that the Office of the Prosecutor and their partners would have an accurate understanding of the numbers, location and perpetrator/victim demographics associated with this violent and potentially deadly crime.

Upon completion of this session, participants will be better able to:

-Assess current data collection efforts regarding carjacking crime.
-Analyze data to create an accurate picture of carjacking crime within your jurisdiction.
-Utilize data to inform the response to carjacking crime.

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Coercive ‘Love’: The Intersection between Intimate Partner Violence and Human Trafficking

Human traffickers control their victims through force, fraud, and coercion. In the case of intimate partner sex trafficking, these methods of control are uniquely manipulative and difficult to identify. Understanding the historical and circumstantial factors that lead to vulnerabilities exploited by traffickers in these relationships allows law enforcement and prosecutors to more successfully address and minimize harm to victims while effectively investigating and prosecuting human trafficking cases.

This presentation describes how, in addition to violence and threats, traffickers exploit feelings of love and loyalty to maintain power over their victims and perpetrate sex trafficking and related crimes. The presenters discuss the importance of identifying victims of intimate partner human trafficking to ensure victim safety and provide access to services and support, while at the same time articulating offender conduct to ensure they are held accountable for their actions.

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First, Do No Harm: Facilitating a Trauma-Informed Response

Trauma is a direct result of the abuse and exploitation that offenders inflict on victims of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. This acute trauma, often compounded with historical trauma, impacts survivor’s ability to fully participate in the criminal justice process. As a result, a collaborative, trauma-informed response that takes historical context into consideration is essential to ensuring survivor access to justice while improving community safety.

This presentation describes various forms of trauma that victims may experience throughout their lives and as a result of an offender’s victimization. Presenters define cultural humility as a key element of a successful trauma-informed response that improves our individual, collective, and systematic responses to survivors. Additionally, the presenters provide strategies to identify, document, and introduce evidence of trauma to improve case outcomes and community safety by holding offenders accountable.

At the conclusion of this training, participants will be better able to:

• Identify signs and symptoms of trauma, and implement trauma-informed practices

• Enhance victim safety, privacy, autonomy, and participation through collaboration with allied professionals

• Practice cultural humility while preparing cases to proceed, regardless of a victim’s ability to participate in the process

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Writing it Right: Documenting Human Trafficking

One specific responsibility of law enforcement and prosecutors working on human trafficking cases is to write various reports, affidavits, and briefs that effectively document incidents of sex and labor trafficking. It is crucial for these documents to accurately reflect complex trafficking dynamics and case-specific facts to establish probable cause and effectively litigate issues at trial. When law enforcement and prosecutors collaborate with others, including those with lived experience, they are better equipped to successfully articulate how traffickers use a variety of overt and subtle tactics to exploit victims—thus establishing the element(s) of force, fraud, and/or coercion necessary for cases involving adult victims.

This presentation focuses on the core competencies needed by law enforcement and prosecutors to establish the elements of human trafficking. Additionally, facilitators discuss the necessity of protecting victim privacy and ensuring that public records and press releases accurately describe trafficking dynamics. In combination with other external messaging, this documentation can help educate the public—and potential jurors—about the realities of trafficking.

At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be better able to:

• Effectively document traffickers’ actions to establish the elements of force, fraud, or coercion;

• Articulate the realities of human trafficking when communicating with the media and the public; and

• Ethically protect victim and witness safety in the public record.

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Transparency in Prosecution

This webinar spotlights Yolo County’s new criminal justice transparency portal, an innovative website created by the District Attorney’s Office, the Yolo County Multi-Cultural Council, and Measures for Justice (an organization that uses accurate criminal justice data to spur reform). The portal was developed to help the office analyze prosecution data and enhance trust with the community through transparency and accountability. It allows citizens an intimate glimpse into the prosecutorial process in Yolo County—including crime trends that are affecting their community; law enforcement resources in the area; and detailed case statistics pertaining to referrals, charging, diversion, and sentencing decisions. During this webinar, presenters give a live walkthrough of the portal, chronicle the process behind publicizing this data, and discuss their aspirations and policy goals driving this project.

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Advancing Justice: Interviewing and Presenting Testimony of Witnesses to Violent Crimes

Presenters: Patricia D. Powers, AEquitas Attorney Advisor and Dr. Rebecca Campbell, Professor of Psychology at Michigan State

This presentation discusses the impact of trauma on victims of violent crimes in cold and current cases, and explore practice-based research to assist allied professional in helping victims access and describe their experience. Emphasis is placed on integrating a trauma-informed response from the first contact with a victim or renewed contact in a cold case, through the conclusion of the case.

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Advancing Justice: Interviewing and Presenting Testimony of Victims of Violent Crimes

Victims are impacted by violent crimes in a myriad of ways. Although there are commonalities, each victim’s response to trauma is unique to that individual. In order to support victim engagement throughout the criminal justice process, allied professionals must interact with victims in ways that consider the physical and emotional effects of trauma as well as the impact of COVID-19.  Interviewers and prosecutors presenting victim testimony at trial must understand common responses to trauma and how they may affect a victim’s ability to recall and recount details of their experience of a violent crime.
 
This presentation discusses the impact of trauma on victims of violent crimes in cold and current cases and explore research and practice-based information to assist allied professionals in helping victims to access and describe their experience. Emphasis is placed on integrating a trauma-informed response from the first contact with a victim or renewed contact in a cold case, through the conclusion of the case.

This webinar is presented by Patricia D. Powers, Attorney Advisor with AEquitas, and Dr. Rebecca Campbell, Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University. 

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Advancing Justice With DNA Technologies

Advancing Justice With DNA Technologies will be presented by Patricia D. Powers, Attorney Advisor with AEquitas, and Misty Marra Williamson, DNA Analyst and DNA Laboratory Coordinator at the Marshall University Forensic Science Center on Wednesday, July 28th from 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM ET. Doors will open at 1:55 PM ET. 

This webinar explores the capabilities of STR and Y-STR testing, the use of CODIS for familial searching when authorized, and the use of public databases for FGG searches. The presenters also explore legal issues with collecting abandoned DNA to compare with extant DNA in FGG searches, as well as the effective presentation of investigatory evidence at trial.

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Q&A Session with USCIS U Visa Policy Experts

Join the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) for a Question and Answer Session with USCIS U visa Policy Experts , including AEquitas Attorney Advisor Jane Anderson, as they answer questions about the current state of the U Visa program and certification.

Please note, this roundtable is exclusively available to law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim advocates that work with these agencies and you must register in advance.