The Prosecutors’ Resource on Sexual Violence Cases Involving Victims with Intellectual Disabilities
Combating Witness Intimidation
Too Much of a Good Thing? State Civil Asset Forfeiture in Timbs v. Indiana
Investigating and Prosecuting Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses: Part 3
This portion provides an overview of how trauma impacts victims of IMBs and discusses practical trauma-informed interviewing techniques that help us build rapport with victims, investigate crimes, and develop stronger victim narratives. The presenters discuss making appropriate charging decisions, litigating pretrial motions to protect victim privacy, establishing the elements of the charges with or without victim participation, and educating the jury through voir dire, expert testimony, and effective witness examinations.
Investigating and Prosecuting Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses: Part 2
This portion provides practical investigative strategies to build successful prosecutions of the owners, operators, and accomplices of IMBs. The presenters discuss enhancing investigations through partnerships with civil and criminal allied investigative agencies and service providers. They also provide an analytical framework for developing investigative strategies designed to identify and preserve evidence supporting a wide range of charges that can be prosecuted with or without victim participation.
Investigating and Prosecuting Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses: Part 1
IMBs are venues disguised as legitimate massage or bodywork businesses in which women are forced, coerced, and defrauded into performing countless sex acts with strangers on a daily basis. This portion of the three-part series provides an overview of the illicit massage business (IMB) organizational model, which typically exists within one of many nationwide networks. The presenters discuss how women are recruited, harbored, and exploited within those networks. They also explore the challenges facing law enforcement and prosecutors, demonstrating the need for strategies to build evidence-based cases that can ensure that offenders are held accountable for their wide-ranging criminal activity.
Presence of Victim Advocate in Forensic Examination
This resource is a statutory compilation on the presence of victim advocates during forensic examinations in sexual assault cases.
Model Policy for Prosecutors and Judges on Imposing, Modifying and Lifting Criminal No Contact Orders
The goals of the criminal justice system in a domestic violence case are to seek justice, protect the victim and the community, hold the offender accountable, prevent and deter future crime, and rehabilitate the abuser. Criminal no-contact orders are an effective tool to help protect victims of domestic violence during the pendency of criminal prosecution. This resource outlines what a no-contact order is, how it is obtained, and the complexities around whether to impose or maintain them when taking the victim’s wishes and safety into account. The authors discuss how to implement processes to gather timely and accurate information about risk and lethality, a particular victim’s wishes and motivations, and possible negative consequences in order to best determine when to impose or maintain a no contact order in the face of a victim’s opposition.
In God’s Shadow: Unveiling the Hidden World of Domestic Violence Victims in Religious Communities
Domestic violence has been elevated to a global epidemic in recent years. Domestic violence victims of closely knit and observant religious communities face a distinct set of barriers, which affects their ability and willingness to report and to cooperate with law enforcement, as well as their ability to escape the abuse. This article provides a unique window into the hidden world of domestic violence victims in communities of faith and tackles some of the complexities associated with this sensitive issue.