It is not unusual for victims to find it difficult to engage with the police after experiencing an assault. Often, victims fear they will not be believed or that reporting the crime will not have any effect.

How can the police best help victims engage with the system after an assault? The answer lies in creating best practices for victim contact. Three Department of Justice–funded research projects are looking at this from a variety of new perspectives.

Victim Engagement Can Be Traumatic

Sexual assault kits contain crucial evidence. Unfortunately, collecting the evidence contained in them can be intrusive and re-traumatizing for victims who must undergo medical forensic exams soon after their assault, at a time when they may not be ready to report the crime to the police. Despite the importance of collecting semen, blood, saliva, and hair samples contained in sexual assault kits for criminal investigations and prosecutions, evidence is not routinely sent for testing and forensic DNA analysis. Police and crime labs can have large backlogs of untested kits. Delays in testing not only hinder the pursuit of justice but also can perpetuate or exacerbate victim trauma.

Influxes of public money, coupled with persistent public outcry, have prompted many jurisdictions to expedite the processing of their backlogged kits, resulting in the identification of thousands of perpetrators through hits in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). But reopening these cases often happens months or even years after the original crime. Police and prosecutors must contact victims to inform them that their evidence had never been analyzed and that their cases may be reopened, a process that can be deeply re-traumatizing.

Dr. Rebecca Campbell, professor of psychology at Michigan State University, focuses on understanding the consequences of unprocessed sexual assault kits on victims. Her work studies the prolonged psychological distress and sense of injustice of survivors who have been denied prompt case resolution and closure.