How are sexual assaults investigated and prosecuted in Alachua County? This is the question being explored by a team of Center faculty and students, in collaboration with Alachua County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center. Dr. Maddy Coy serves on the Advisory Council for the Rape Crisis Center and, when advocates there asked whether it would be possible to track sexual assault cases “from report to court,” she and Dr. Alyssa Zucker designed a project to do just that. The aim is to analyze what factors influence criminal justice attrition of sexual assaults in order to improve judicial processes for victim-survivors. Rape is the most under-reported crime in the U.S. and national statistics suggest that only about 2% of reports end in conviction. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
The project was enabled by a grant from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), permission from Gainesville Police Department (GPD) to access their case files, graduate students Alexandra Weis and Zoe Muzyczka assisting with data collection, and endless support from Rape Crisis Program Manager Brittany Coleman to help navigate the police database. With a plan to analyze five years of cases, in 2019, the team began reading every sexual assault case of adult victim survivors.
In March 2020, the project ground to a halt when Gainesville was locked down due to COVID-19. By Fall 2020, University Scholars Haaniya Ahmed and Asia Barlow and CLAS Scholar Alexandra Quintana joined the project. Still unable to access police data due to COVID-19 restrictions, each student selected an aspect of criminal justice responses to sexual violence and carefully reviewed existing knowledge from other jurisdictions, looking for the implications for the research project.
Asia Barlow analyzed literature on what has been termed “downstream orientation” or how police act as gatekeepers for the criminal justice system. Haaniya Ahmed focused on Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner programs and the experience of reporting for victim-survivors. Alexandra Quintana explored the literature on attrition relating to child sexual abuse.
In Spring 2021, Lanique Griffin joined the team to undertake interviews with local experts about their “practice-based evidence” of criminal justice and sexual violence. One theme that cuts across all the team’s work is the implications of racism in policing practices, especially how this affects reporting by BIPOC victim-survivors and case outcomes. Racial disparities in arrests and prosecution of suspects and in the profile of victim-survivors are key variables for data analysis. By the end of their scholarships, the student team had presented to the Alachua County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center Advisory Council and staff team, the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and Dr. Coy’s Violence Against Women class. Every audience was deeply impacted by the succinct synthesis that the students shared and the questions they raised about local responses.
The team has gained insight into how sexual assaults are investigated and prosecuted in Alachua County. Dr. Zucker and Dr. Coy have resumed data collection from the police files, and Lanique Griffin continues to interview local experts. Next, the team will request data from the State Attorney’s Office to track cases through to court.
This project was designed to address a gap in knowledge recognized by local sexual assault advocates. With support from the Alachua County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center and commitment from GPD, the research is already starting conversations among law enforcement. The team hopes that the completed project will make a real difference to justice for victim survivors.
See editorial for the Independent Florida Alligator written by Haaniya, Asia, Lanique and Alexandra with Drs. Zucker and Coy about ending sexual violence. https://www.alligator.org/article/2021/05/sexual-violence-column