More likely than not, this will begin with a call from the victim to police headquarters. So, police patrol probably won’t prevent rape.įrom a law enforcement perspective, we want to quickly arrest the perpetrator using investigative techniques that ensure a conviction and a process that causes the least amount of psychological trauma to the victim. However, according to Bureau of Justice statistics, almost 80 percent of forcible rapes occur in an indoor location and feature some relationship between the victim and offender. Most police administrators plan police assignments under the theory of police omnipresence: the police are everywhere, and if you commit a crime you will be rapidly apprehended. The central theme behind the latest in computer-aided dispatching is a patrol strategy, which focuses on preventing crime and initiates rapid response if it does occur. This column will discuss dispatcher and first responder duties. What may be lacking is the coordinated skill set in investigation rape from organizational (administration to management), supervisory and line perspectives.
This may be true in isolated instances, but in my 30 years of investigative experience, the police officers I’ve worked with fully understand the psychological trauma experienced by rape victims and go to great lengths to treat the victim with compassion and professionalism. Other textbooks on criminal investigation posit insensitive treatment by law enforcement personnel is the primary cause rape is not reported. Embarrassment about publicity, however limited and.Fear of further victimization by court proceedings (a result of television programs or newspaper reports).Lack of belief in the police’s ability to apprehend the suspect.Worries of unsympathetic treatment from police and discomforting procedures.
Police omnipresence definition series#
In Criminal investigation (McGraw Hill, 2006), the authors cite a series of studies indicating why women do not report being raped: Although we don’t know exactly how many people are raped each year, according to a 1999 FBI law enforcement bulletin, up to 84 percent of all sexual assaults go unreported. Note: These figures represent only reported forcible rapes. Scope of the Crime – Why Rape Often Goes UnreportedĪccording to the UCR, 94,635 persons were raped in the United States in 2004. The entire case may hinge on whether consent was present or forensic evidence links a suspect to the crime. Investigators must establish that the required elements of a rape crime can be proven under the court standard of not just probable cause, but beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, many jurisdictions divide sexual assault into a series of graded offenses depending on the perceived legal seriousness of the crime and aggravating conditions, and they may range from sexual assault, first degree, through sexual assault in the fourth degree.ĭue to the significant physical and psychological impact to the victim and prevailing social attitudes toward rape crimes, establishing a criminal act has in fact occurred (“corpus delicti” is more complex than in other cases. These factors may include the age of the victim, the perpetrator’s age, mental capacity, the ability under law to give consent, the use or threat of a weapon, physical injury to the victim, spousal or another legal relationship and so on.
Many states now use the term “sexual assault” rather than rape in order to differentiate between a variety of legal variables regarding severity of punishment and the significance of the physical and psychological threat to the victim and/or the public. Social stigma remains a strong force in the underreporting of all forcible rapes, and studies indicate the crime is substantially underreported when it involves persons of the same gender. However, the number of reported rapes among persons of the same sex is steadily rising. Rape is usually thought of as a male-on-female crime, and this column will lean that way as well.
Responding to a rape victim: Best practices for officers