Abstract:
[CVRL Note: See also project summary NCJ 226498 and toolkit 226499.] The purpose of this project 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. Informed by a systems change theoretical model, the interrelationships between SANEs, legal professionals, victim advocates, and victims/survivors were examined as it is these linkages that may be instrumental to increased prosecution rates. The design of this project combined quasi-experimentental quantitative methods to measure objective indices of change with qualitative methods to capture the processes that produce those changes. Police and court records, in addition to in-depth interviews with police, prosecutors, victims/survivor s, and forensic nurses, were the primary data sources for this project. The first goal of this study was to examine whether adult sexual assault cases were more likely to be investigated and prosecuted after the implementation of a SANE program within the focal county…The second goal of this study was to understand why there was an increase in criminal justice system case progression after the implementation of the SANE program: what are the mediating mechanisms that contributed to these changes?....In conclusion, this twelve year analysis of criminal justice system ca se outcomes revealed that more cases were moving through the system to higher levels of disposition (i.e., guilty pleas or guilty convictions) after the implementation of a SANE program. The quasi-experimental design and supplemental data collection used in this project allow us to conclude that these effects are reasonably attributable to the efforts of the SANE program and not due to other changes over time in this community. The SANE programs’ work with law enforcement and their patients, though separate and philosophically distinct, is mutually reinforcing and provides instrumental resources for successful case prosecution. (Author Text)