SATI e-News:  January 16,2006

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In this issue:
 
Legislative News

• Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Renewed

• GPS Tracks Sex Offenders, Allows Crime Scene Correlation

Promising Practices: From the Desk of the Training Director

• VAWA 2005 Restricts the Use of Polygraphs with Victims of Sexual Assault

Legislative News

 
Violence Against Women Act Renewed
Just hours before adjourning in 2005 Congress reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which supports efforts to combat domestic violence, sexual assault and dating violence across the country. President Bush signed VAWA into law on January 5. This is the second reauthorization since VAWA was originally enacted in 1994.
 
The legislation authorizes $3.9 billion over the next five years. In addition to funding existing programs, VAWA also creates new programs, policies and protections for victims in response to requests from the field.[read more]
 
While VAWA has always funded domestic violence programs and shelters, the 2005 reauthorization for the first time extends to agencies, which provide direct services to victims of sexual assault, up to $250 million over five years. $45 to $55 million (depending on appropriation levels) is earmarked to address sexual assault in rural communities.
 
Other highlights include:

• An increase in funding for the STOP grant program from $185 million/year to $225 million/year.

• A new condition that prohibits recipients of STOP grants from asking or requiring victims of sexual offenses to submit to a polygraph exam as a condition of proceeding with an investigation (see promising practices article, below);

• A new grant program to train school personnel to recognize signs of violence in schools and establish policies for intervention ($25 million over five years).

• New protections for domestic violence victims threatened with eviction from public housing or with losing housing subsidies as a result of the criminal acts of their abusers.

• Expansion of the federal stalking law to cover surveillance of victims by technology (this is in response to reports from the field that stalkers were using newly available GPS devices to track their victims).

• Creates three new grant programs aimed at strengthening the healthcare system’s response to violence against women ($65 million over 5 years);

• Withholds some federal funding from states that do not have laws allowing victims of rape and sexual assault to learn the HIV status of their attacker within 48 hours of an indictment.

• VAWA 2005 will clarify that in order for state and tribal governments to use STOP grant funds to pay for forensic medical exams for sexual assault victims, victims shall not be required to seek reimbursement from their insurance company. It also ensures that the victim must not be required to participate in the criminal justice system or cooperate with law enforcement in order to be provided with a forensic medical exam or reimbursement for such exam.

Susan Howley of the National Center for Victims of Crime is clearly pleased with funding levels, but she cautions that at this point the amounts are only authorized, not appropriated. It’s important for advocates and others in the field to stay tuned to developments and be prepared to act quickly to urge Congress to appropriate these funds.
 
Source:
H.R. 3402.ENR (Enrolled as Agreed to or passed by both House and Senate).

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GPS Tracks Sex Offenders, Allows Crime Scene Correlation
Within the past year nine states – Alabama, California, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma and Tennessee -- have passed laws to employ Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology to track the movements of sex offenders. These laws were passed largely in response to high profile cases in which sex offenders on parole continued to commit heinous crimes. A recent study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that nationwide, one-fourth of registered sex offenders cannot be located.
 
The National Conference of State Legislatures expects GPS surveillance to be one of the top 10 legislative issues of 2006. [read more]
 
There are two types of GPS surveillance: active and passive. Active GPS allows the offender to be tracked in “real time” on a computer that depicts the offender’s location on a city map. The technology also allows authorities to set parameters that restrict an offender from being in certain areas such as a victim’s neighborhood or a school. If the offender violates the boundaries, an alert is registered at the monitoring center and relayed to authorities. The system can also notify the victim automatically by beeper.
 
Passive GPS technology has many of the same features as Active GPS, but it does not report the offender’s movements in real time. Instead, the system maintains a log of his location through daily transmissions via phone. Passive technology is less expensive, but it requires more human resources to analyze the downloaded data.
 
Florida has been experimenting with equipment that integrates electronic monitoring devices with crime scene mapping in a Web-based application for law enforcement agencies and crime scene analysts. Florida’s recidivism rate has declined to less than 5% in the three years since the technology has been in operation in the state according to Hoyt Layson Jr., designer of the GPS system.
 
Sources:

“Electronic Monitoring Should be Better Targeted to the Most Dangerous Offenders,” Report No. 05-19, National Institute of Justice, April 2005.
 
“States Move on Sex Offender GPS Tracking,” Associated Press, July 30, 2005.
 
“Sex Offender GPS Tracking Proposed,” Times-Picayune, August 27, 2005.
 
“Annual Meeting Sessions Summary: Crime Technology: Science Meets Law & Order,” National Conference of State Legislatures, August 18, 2005.

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Sexual Assault News

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Update on Katrina Disaster Relief and Sexual Assaults
Thanks to those who responded to EVAW International’s appeal in September for assistance to Louisiana law enforcement with donations of equipment and supplies.
 
EVAW International also reported about emerging news reports of rapes of hurricane victims in the aftermath. Information was spotty at that time and even now victims are still dispersed around the country.
 
EVAW International collaborated with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault to create a database to accept reports from hurricane victims. This database was recently featured in a story on National Public Radio, which indicated that 42 such reports of sexual assault had been recorded in the database as of December 21, 2005. [read more]
 
Meanwhile Lt. Dave Benelli, Commander of the Sex Crimes Unit of the New Orleans Police Department, told NPR that his team investigated two attempted rapes inside the Superdome and two rape reports that happened elsewhere in the city. “I admit that rapes are underreported,” Benelli says. “I know more sexual assaults took place. I’ve expressed many times that we’re willing to investigate any sexual assaults that happened in this city at any time. We can only deal with what we know.”
 
Source:

“More Stories Emerge of Rapes in Post-Katrina Chaos,” National Public Radio, December 21, 2005.

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Forensic News

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Independent Probe Highlights Major Deficiencies at Houston Crime Lab
The crisis in Houston deepened with the release of a report from an independent investigator citing “severe and pervasive problems” with the serology and DNA profiling work performed in the Houston Crime Lab over a 15 year period from 1987 until December 2002 when the DNA section of the Lab was closed. [read more]
 
The report found that analysts in two divisions failed to report evidence that might have helped criminal suspects, and they made errors in almost one-third of the cases reviewed in a test sample. Major issues were identified in 27 DNA cases analyzed by the Crime Lab in the 1990s and early 2000s including deficiencies in the cases of three death row inmates.
 
The investigation did find that certain divisions of the Crime Lab such as firearms, toxicology and documents examination performed highly competent work. Michael Bromwich, a former U.S. Department of Justice inspector general, was contracted by the city of Houston in February 2005 to conduct the independent investigation.
 
In other Texas forensic news, only one-third of the state’s crime labs met the criteria for new accreditation requirements when the state law went into effect in August 2005. The accreditation legislation was prompted by reports of deficiencies at the Houston crime lab. Accreditation can take up to a year to prepare and cost as much as $50,000 according to the Houston Chronicle.
 
Of the 18 accredited labs in the state, 13 are operated by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Without accreditation, the labs are unable to introduce evidence in criminal trials. 28 labs remain unaccredited, most of them in rural areas. The Associated Press reported that at least one private lab closed down because it could not afford accreditation. Officials are concerned that the accredited labs, which have their own backlogs, will be forced to pick up the work load for the other jurisdictions.
 
Sources:
- “HPD Analysts Avoided Serious Penalty Before,” Houston Chronicle, January 8, 2006.

“Commission That is to Monitor State Crime Labs Short by 7,” Houston Chronicle, January 3, 2006.

“HPD Lab Probe Details More Lapses,” Houston Chronicle, January 5, 2006.

“Three More Dubious Cases Found in HPD Lab Probe,” Houston Chronicle, January 6, 2006.

“HPD Analysts Avoided Serious Penalty Before,” Houston Chronicle, June 8, 2006.

“Many Crime Labs Won’t Meet State’s Accreditation Rules,” Associated Press, August 28, 2005.

Background of the Investigation of the Houston Crime Lab

Reports of the Houston Crime Lab Independent Investigation

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Promising Practices: From the Desk of the Training Director

VAWA 2005 Restricts the Use of Polygraphs with Victims of Sexual Assault  By Joanne Archambault, SATI Training Director and Founder of EVAW International and Dr. Kim Lonsway, EVAW International Director of Research 
 
One of the provisions of the recently enacted VAWA 2005 is that jurisdictions will no longer be eligible for STOP funding if their policy or practice is to ask or require adult, youth or child victims of sexual assault to submit to a polygraph examination or other truth telling device as a condition for proceeding with the investigation of the crime.  In addition, the refusal of a victim to submit to such an examination must not prevent the investigation of the crime.  Jurisdictions have until January 5, 2009 to comply with the law.
 
Over the last few years, I have trained and written articles generally discouraging the use of polygraphs, Voice Stress Analysis and Other Methods for “Lie Detection” during the course of an investigation.  This provision may cause some concern and so I hope this Promising Practices article will help to alleviate resistance to change in departmental policies and procedures as jurisdictions rethink their policies in response to the new law. To further support your efforts to meet this new requirement, we have provided guidance from the International Association of Chiefs of Police and provisions from model laws at the conclusion of this article.
 
First, I often find that polygraphs, like some release waivers, are used to shut down an investigation while providing a perception of immunity, rather than being used to build an investigation.  I also find that these interrogation tactics can sometimes create a “false report” by intimidating victims into withdrawing their cooperation or even recanting their report.  These methods can include the use – or threat of using – polygraph examinations, voice stress analysis, handwriting analysis, statement validity analysis, and other means to determine whether the victim is telling the truth.  Unfortunately, such methods are routinely used with sexual assault victims in some areas of the country, often times as a way of screening cases so that we do not “waste our time” doing an investigation of a report we suspect is false.  [read more]
 
These screening methods are particularly likely to be used with certain types of sexual assault cases -- those that raise some of the “red flags” listed below:

• The victim and suspect know each other.

• The victim and suspect have had sex before.

• The victim is an adolescent.

• No weapon was used.

• No physical violence was reported.

• There is no sign of physical injury.

• The victim is calm

• The victim didn’t report to law enforcement for days, weeks, or even months.

• The victim reported to someone other than law enforcement.

• The victim is difficult to locate.

• There is little or no evidence to corroborate the allegation.

• The victim does not follow through or participate with the investigation.

• The victim changes his or her account of what happened.

• The victim is uncertain or vague about the details of the sexual assault.

• The victim recants.

• The victim later recalls additional information.

• Details in the victim’s account are provably false.

• The victim is not seen as credible.

• The victim is elderly, disabled, or unattractive.

• The victim was drunk and/or voluntarily used drugs at the time of the assault.

• The victim is suspected of being a prostitute or drug addict

• The victim is thought to be involved in previous criminal behavior.The victim is belligerent.

• The victim is homeless

• The victim has a physical or mental impairment

• The victim fails a polygraph examination.

• The victim has reported sexual assault(s) in the past.

• No suspect can be identified.

• The suspect seems sincerely upset and confused by the allegations.

• The suspect seems respectable, credible, or even likeable.

• The suspect is attractive and has an active, consensual sex life.

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