Multimedia Listing

The COVID-19 pandemic had a detrimental impact on communities across the nation and significantly affected various aspects of individuals’ lives. One of the negative impacts was an increase in gender-based violence accompanied by shifting barriers to accessing services and support. Victims and victim service providers faced various challenges dealing with the increase in need for services, navigating barriers to help-seeking, and addressing logistical issues.

This workshop explores approaches for engaging survivors of sexual assault from a trauma-informed, victim-centered perspective thus supporting recommendations #2 and #22 of the NIJ’s National Best Practices for Sexual Assault Kits: A Multidisciplinary Approach.

This workshop explores approaches for engaging survivors of sexual assault from a trauma-informed, victim-centered perspective thus supporting recommendations #2 and #22 of the NIJ’s National Best Practices for Sexual Assault Kits: A Multidisciplinary Approach.

This webinar features a discussion of previously published research on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Booker decision - which effectively transformed the United States Sentencing Guidelines from a mandatory, to an advisory, system. The presentation will address selected research findings from the last 15 years. Individual participants will briefly review their previous research findings with particular attention paid to the analytic methods used.

The Houston Area Women’s Center’s & Houston Police Department’s experiences will provide attendees greater insight into how collaboration across community- and systems-based advocacy can enhance law enforcement’s response to sexual assault survivors.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on April 25, 2019.

Listening to the experiences of sexual assault survivors is an important step to fully understand how the criminal justice system plays a pivotal role in a survivor’s journey to recovery from the mental and physical impact of sexual assault.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on May 2, 2019.

A deeper understanding of the trauma experienced by people of color and its impact on their experience in the criminal justice system provides the ability to improve sexual assault investigations and victim services for survivors of color.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on November 29, 2018.

This seminar provides the first set of estimates from a national large-scale survey of violence against women and men who identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native using detailed behaviorally specific questions on psychological aggression, coercive control and entrapment, physical violence, stalking, and sexual violence. These results are expected to raise awareness and understanding of violence experienced by American Indian and Alaska Native people.

Interview with Dr. Noël Busch-Armendariz, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Watch Dr. Noël Busch-Armendariz discuss what Houston is learning about the role of notifying sexual assault victims when their rape kits are DNA-tested. In talking about the nationwide implications of the Houston action-research project, Dr. Busch-Armendariz says that the nation is ready to move beyond a focus solely on kit-testing to the larger discussion of how to tackle the complicated issue of sexual assault.

Watch Caitlin Sulley discuss how action-research team in Houston went about making the action-research project investigating unsubmitted sexual assault kits in Houston as victim-oriented as possible. Ms. Sulley talks about the creation of a hotline for sexual assault victims to call and the police department's hiring of a justice advocate.

Interview with Dr. Bill Wells, Ph.D., Sam Houston State University

Watch Bill Wells discuss the problem of unsubmitted sexual assault kits in Houston, including some lessons learned to-date. Dr. Wells also talks about the crucial role of victim cooperation in solving sexual assault cases and the Houston Police Department's hiring of a justice advocate to improve investigations.

Dr. Campbell brings together research on the neurobiology of trauma and the criminal justice response to sexual assault. She explains the underlying neurobiology of traumatic events, its emotional and physical manifestation, and how these processes can impact the investigation and prosecution of sexual assaults. Real-world, practical implications are examined for first responders, such as law enforcement, nurses, prosecutors, and advocates.

Watch two experts talk about developing a computerized system that successfully predicts — with a high degree of accuracy — which probationers are likely to violently reoffend within two years of returning to the community.

Drs. Barnes and Hyatt teamed up with the Philadelphia Adult Probation & Parole Department in an NIJ-funded project. Here they discuss:

NIJ Conference
Interview
June 2012
Amy Farrell, Northeastern University

NIJ has funded a study looking at the barriers that local communities face identifying, investigating and prosecuting human trafficking cases under new state human trafficking laws.

In this interview, Amy Farrell discusses that study.

NIJ has funded a study examining the impact of wrongful convictions on crime victims. The study is looking at the impact on the original victim of the crime to get a better understanding of what their service needs are, and how we can better serve them both in terms of policy and practice.

Research tells us that a relatively small fraction of individuals experience a large proportion of violent victimizations. Thus, focusing on reducing repeat victimization might have a large impact on total rates of violence. However, research also tells us that most violent crime victims do not experience more than one incident during a six-month or one-year time period. As a result, special policies to prevent repeat violence may not be cost-effective for most victims.