The purpose of this study was to determine whether adult sexual assault cases in a Midwestern community were more likely to be investigated and prosecuted after the implementation of a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program, and to identify the 'critical ingredients' that contributed to that increase. Part 1 (Study 1: Case Records Quantitative Data) used a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent comparison group cohort design to compare criminal justice systems outcomes for adult sexual assault cases treated in county hospitals five years prior to the implementation of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program (January 1994 to August 1999) (the comparison group, n=156) to cases treated in the focal SANE program during its first seven years of operation (September 1999 to December 2005) (the intervention group, n=137). Variables include focus on case outcome, law enforcement agency that handled the case, DNA findings, and county-level factors, including prosecutor elections and the emergence of the focal SANE program. Part 2 (Study 2: Case Characteristics Quantitative Data) used the adult sexual assault cases from the Study 1 intervention group (post-SANE) (n=137) to examine whether victim characteristics, assault characteristics, and the presence and type of medical forensic evidence predicted case progression outcomes. Part 3 (Study 3: Police and Prosecutors Interview Qualitative Data) used in-depth interviews in April and May of 2007 with law enforcement supervisors (n=9) and prosecutors (n=6) in the focal county responsible for the prosecution of adult sexual assault crimes to explore if and how the SANEs affect the way in which police and prosecutors approach such cases. The interviews focused on four main topics: (1) whether they perceived a change in investigations and prosecution of adult sexual assault cases in post-SANE, (2) their assessment of the quality and utility of the forensic evidence provided by SANEs, (3) their perceptions regarding whether inter-agency training has improved the quality of police investigations and reports post-SANE, and (4) their perceptions regarding if and how the SANE program increased communication and collaboration among legal and medical personnel, and if such changes have influenced law enforcement investigational practices or prosecutor charging decisions.Part 4 (Study 4: Police Reports Quantitative Data) examined police reports written before and after the implementation of the SANE program to determine whether there had been substantive changes in ways sexual assaults cases were investigated since the emergence of the SANE program. Variables include whether the police had referred the case to the prosecutor, indicators of SANE involvement, and indicators of law enforcement effort. Part 5 (Study 5: Survivor Interview Qualitative Data) focused on understanding how victims characterized the care they received at the focal SANE program as well as their expriences with the criminal justices system. Using prospective sampling and community-based retrospective purposive sampling, twenty adult sexual assault vicitims were identified and interviewed between January 2006 and May 2007. Interviews covered four topics: (1) the rape itself and initial disclosures, (2) victims' experiences with SANE program staff including nurses and victim support advocates, (3) the specific role forensic evidence played in victims' decisions to participate in prosecution, and (4) victims' experiences with law enforcement, prosecutors, and judicial proceedings, and if/how the forensic nurses and advocates influenced those interactions. Part 6 (Study 6: Forensic Nurse Interview Qualitative Data) examined forensic nurses' perspectives on how the SANE program could affect survivor participation with prosecution indirectly and how the interactions between SANEs and law enforcement could be contributing to increased investigational effort. Between July and August of 2008, six Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners

The study examined adolescent sexual assault survivors' help-seeking experiences with the legal and medical systems in two Midwestern communities that have different models of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE)/Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) interventions. In Dataset 1 (Qualitative Victim Interviews), investigators conducted qualitative interviews with N=20 adolescent sexual assault victims 14-17 years old. From these interviews, investigators identified three distinct patterns of survivors' post-assault disclosures and their pathways to seeking help from SANE programs and the criminal justice system: voluntary (survivors' contact with the legal and medical system was by their choice), involuntary (system contact was not by choice), and situational (circumstances of the assault itself prompted involuntary disclosure). Interviews included responses that described the assault, their experience with both the SANE/SART programs and the criminal justice system, and victim and offender demographic information. In Dataset 2 (SANE Programs Quantitative Data), investigators obtained SANE program records, police and prosecutor records, and crime lab findings for a sample of N=395 (ages 13-17) adolescent sexual assault victims who sought services from the local SANE programs in two different counties. The data collected examined victim's progress through the criminal justice system. Factors that could potentially affect case progression were also examined; age of victim, relationship to offender, assault characteristics, number of assaults on victim, and evidence collected. Differences between the two different counties' programs were also examined for their effect on the case progression.

This study was an evidence-based review of sexual assault preventive intervention (SAPI) programs. A total of 67 publications including articles, government reports, and book chapters (excluding dissertations) representing 59 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the data abstraction process. In order to be included in the review, the resource had to be an English-language publication, published between 1990 and June 2003, of a SAPI evaluation of a primary or secondary preventive intervention program that targeted people who were adolescent-age or older, and which included outcome measures and a pre-test/post-test or between-group differences design. The findings for the article reviews are presented in evidence tables, for the general population in Part 1 and the evidence tables for individuals with disabilities in Part 2.

The goal of the study was to develop an intervention that would be analogous to safety planning for battered women, and one that could be used by sexual assault counselors as an adjunct to psychological counseling. The project was conducted at Safe Horizon in New York City and at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle from August 2003 to May 2005. The client populations of the two programs were complementary. Safe Horizon's clients were primarily Black (36 percent) and Latina (26 percent). In contrast, a majority of Harborview clients were White (59 percent), although Harborview also had many non-White, non-Hispanic clients. Approximately half of the eligible candidates were randomly assigned to participate in a four-hour workshop on avoiding sexual assault while the others were assigned to a control condition that did not receive the training. Both groups participated in a baseline assessment battery administered in person. After completion of the assessment, those assigned to the experimental condition began the workshop. Researchers contacted women in both groups six months later for a second assessment, this time conducted over the phone. The 14 data files contain information related to alcohol consumption, tonic immobility, knowledge of sexual assault risk factors, attributions for the most recent sexual assault, self-efficacy, risky behaviors, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology, and sexual victimization. The data also contain one file with demographic information. Each data file contains 84 cases. Across all parts, the data collection has 612 variables.

The purpose of this evaluation was to assess whether the STOP (Services/Training/Officers/Prosecution) Violence Against Women Formula Grants Program's financial support for direct victim services offered through private nonprofit victim service agencies helped victims of domestic violence and sexual assault improve their safety and well-being, and work successfully with the legal system and other relevant agencies. Researchers selected eight states whose state STOP agency had different levels of emphasis on creating collaborative structures in local service networks to help victims. Researchers collected information, as of November 15, 1999, about 201 nonprofit victim service agencies receiving STOP funding to deliver direct services, their services, and their community linkages. A Program Survey, Part 1 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Fax to Subgrantees Data) and Part 2 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Telephone Interview with Subgrantees Data) completed in spring 2000 used telephone interviews with the person most knowledgeable about STOP-funded activities to obtain this information. The sample included 201 nonprofit victim service agencies that were nationally representative of all private nonprofit victim service agencies receiving STOP funds for direct services. Among the purposes of the Program Survey data was selecting the communities in the eight focal states to include in the final stage of the study design -- the Help Seeker and the Community sample (Parts 3 and 4, respectively). The Help Seeker (Part 3) sample consisted of 958 women recruited from nonprofit victim service and legal system agencies who had contacted those agencies for assistance related to experiences of domestic violence and/or sexual assault. They were interviewed between June and October 2001. The Community sample (Part 4) was a random sample of 673 women in their communities who were 18 to 35 years of age. The sample was selected using random digit dialing (RDD), screening for women aged 18 to 35 in the victim service program catchment area from which researchers drew the Help Seeker sample. The women in the Community sample were interviewed between November 2001 and February 2002. The women's data were then linked to Program Survey data from their own community. Across the 4 data files there are 2,947 variables. Part 1 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Fax to Subgrantees Data) contains information related to the role of the agency which received STOP funding, the characteristics of employees and volunteers of the agency, and the characteristics of victims the agency served. The data also include how many victims of domestic violence the agency assisted with obtaining protective/restraining orders and the number of victims helped through criminal justice advocacy activities. The agency approximated how many referrals they received from other sources and how many referrals they made to other agencies/organizations. There were also questions related to the STOP grant(s) received by the agencies and the agencies were asked about their data collection and evaluation efforts and in what form this information was maintained. Part 2 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Telephone Interview with Subgrantees Data) contains background information regarding the agency and the respondent answering questions on behalf of the agency. Respondents were also asked whether their agency conducted needs assessments to identify community needs with respect to violence against women, to identify service solutions to meet those needs, and to summarize their STOP project goals and activities. The data file also includes questions about referrals and how their agency's STOP project related to other activities of the agency. Additionally, the respondent answered questions related to the coordination and communication between their agency, law enforcement, prosecution, and victim service agencies. There were also general community questions, and the respondent provided outreach

This project examined the role of sexual assault medical forensic exams (sexual assault kits) and other case characteristics in achieving investigative and prosecutorial outcomes in sexual assault cases. The study team conducted comprehensive reviews of over 500 sexual assault cases based on reports to police to identify evidence and case characteristics as they progress through case processing. Using statistical models, the study team predicted case outcomes using a variety of case, suspect, and victim characteristics, with a focus on the role of sexual assault exams and kits. Additionally, the study team interviewed key stakeholders in each site to supplement the case-level information, including law enforcement, prosecutors, representatives from victim service agencies, and sexual assault nurse examiners.

This study documented women's experience of enhanced services and advocacy in the context of the three special session domestic violence courts in Connecticut. The study conducted 60 in-depth interviews with women whose current or former partners were arrested for domestic violence and who appeared in one of the three special session courts. The questions were designed to elicit information from women about the meaning and context of intimate violence in their lives generally, their assessments of the risks and options available to them and their children from family, friends, and other institutions, their strategies for maximizing safety for themselves and their children, the meaning of the arrest incident in their overall experience of their relationship with their abusive partner, and the impact of the court experience on their plans, sense of options, and understanding of the abuse they had experienced.

This study focused on an evaluation of EVOLVE, a newly developed 26-week, 52-session skill building, culturally competent, psycho-educational curriculum-based intervention for male domestic violence offenders with female victims. The curriculum was implemented in three large urban courts that have specialized domestic violence court sessions, judicial monitoring, specialized court staff throughout the judicial process, enhanced advocacy for victims, a collaborative team approach to case processing, and collaboration with networks of involved community service providers. The comparison site (called Explore), also a large urban court, had some specialized court staff and enhanced victim advocacy, as well. It was selected as the comparison because of these court features, the use of a more traditional 26-week intervention (that met just once each week), its high volume, and the high rate of involvement of men of color, which was similar to rates found at the EVOLVE sites at the time the evaluation was proposed. The data file contains 545 cases and 872 variables.

The purpose of this study was to provide a definitive test of whether batterer programs and varying intensities of judicial monitoring reduce reoffending among domestic violence offenders. Study enrollment took place between July 23, 2002, through February 27, 2004. In Part 1, Batterer Program Experiment Data, convicted male domestic violence offenders from court parts AP10 (Pretrial Appearances) or TAP2 (Trials) of the Bronx Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Court were randomly assigned into one of four experimental conditions. The four conditions were batterer program plus monthly judicial monitoring (n = 102), batterer program plus graduated monitoring (n = 100), monthly monitoring only (n = 109), and graduated monitoring only (n = 109). Defendants assigned to a batterer program completed either the Domestic Violence Accountability Program (DVAP) run by Safe Horizon or the Men's Choices Program run by the Fordham Tremont Community Mental Health Center. The offenders were tracked for at least 12 months after sentencing, and for up to 18 months for most of the men, to determine whether they fulfilled the conditions of their sentence, were rearrested for domestic violence, or were reported by the victim to have engaged in new incidents of abuse. Using each offender's New York State criminal identification number, complete criminal record files, including prior criminal history and recidivism, were obtained from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). Victims were interviewed about new domestic incidents committed within one year of sentencing. In Part 2, Monitoring Experiment Data, a quasi-experimental study using propensity score matching compared recidivism outcomes between the randomized offenders in Part 1 and a control group of conditional discharge (CD) offenders convicted of identical offenses, but who, as a result of the normal sentencing process, received neither a batterer program nor any form of monitoring. The propensity score predicted the probability of inclusion in the randomized trial (Part 1) sample, based not on actual membership in that sample, but on the statistical probability of membership in it, as computed from the observed set of background characteristics. Each offender in the randomized trial was then matched to the offender in the CD only group with the nearest propensity score. Sometimes multiple offenders from the the initial trial were matched to the same CD only offender. Variables in both Part 1 and Part 2 of the data set include demographic variables for both the defendants and victims, defendant arrest history, current sentence, assignment to a batterer program, type of judicial monitoring, and victim reports of new incidents of violence after sentencing.

Despite the fact that most states enacted rape reform legislation by the mid-1980s, empirical research on the effect of these laws was conducted in only four states and for a limited time span following the reform. The purpose of this study was to provide both increased breadth and depth of information about the effect of the rape law changes and the legal issues that surround them. Statistical data on all rape cases between 1970 and 1985 in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, were collected from court records. Monthly time-series analyses were used to assess the impact of the reforms on rape reporting, indictments, convictions, incarcerations, and sentences. The study also sought to determine if particular changes, or particular combinations of changes, affected the case processing and disposition of sexual assault cases and whether the effect of the reforms varied with the comprehensiveness of the changes. In each jurisdiction, data were collected on all forcible rape cases for which an indictment or information was filed. In addition to forcible rape, other felony sexual assaults that did not involve children were included. The names and definitions of these crimes varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. To compare the pattern of rape reports with general crime trends, reports of robbery and felony assaults during the same general time period were also obtained from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation when available. For the adjudicated case data (Parts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11), variables include month and year of offense, indictment, disposition, four most serious offenses charged, total number of charges indicted, four most serious conviction charges, total number of conviction charges, type of disposition, type of sentence, and maximum jail or prison sentence. The time series data (Parts 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12) provide year and month of indictment, total indictments for rape only and for all sex offenses, total convictions and incarcerations for all rape cases in the month, for those on the original rape charge, for all sex offenses in the month, and for those on the original sex offense charge, percents for each indictment, conviction, and incarceration category, the average maximum sentence for each incarceration category, and total police reports of forcible rape in the month. Interviews were also conducted in each site with judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and this information is presented in Part 13. These interviewees were asked to rate the importance of various types of evidence in sexual assault cases and to respond to a series of six hypothetical cases in which evidence of the victim's past sexual history was at issue. Respondents were also presented with a hypothetical case for which some factors were varied to create 12 different scenarios, and they were asked to make a set of judgments about each. Interview data also include respondent's title, sex, race, age, number of years in office, and whether the respondent was in office before and/or after the reform.