Many victims of sexual crimes live the remainder of their lives, or a good portion of it, in fear that they will be victimized again. They often want to see their attacker locked up forever as punishment for the torment they experienced.

 Some states actually do have laws on their books to do just that. Most people dont even know such laws exist. They are called civil commitment laws and basically say that when a person becomes and has repeatly shown to be an emminent threat to the community as a whole, the govenment has the ability to incarcerate that individual indefinately.   

“The primary goal is incapacitation, that is, protecting society from people who are predicted to be dangerous in the future,” said Eric Janus, author of “Failure to Protect” and dean at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. “The second goal is to provide treatment to these individuals.”

In 1990, Washington state became the first state to pass a civil commitment law specifically for violent sex offenders. Twenty states now have civil commitment laws.

Indefinate confinement of individuals to mental hospitals or treatment centers for those with severe mental illness has been acceptable in the United States since its close to its birth as a nation. Around turn of the 20th century many laws dealing with sexual psychopaths were passed as women gained more and more rights. But as the century progressed the laws were either repealed or rarely applied.

This week the United States Supreme Court is re-evaluating its position on civil commitment based on an appeal. They have upheld the use of such laws in the past when the goal has been rehabilitation and not further punishment. These laws can mandate indefinate treatment even after their criminal time behind bars has ended. Some argue that these treatments could happen while the person is incarcerated rather than after their sentancing.

The case being heard by the Supreme Court this week centers around a lay that has been used in as many as 77 cases where inmates were held in a federal prison in North Carolina under indefinate commitment.  “The justices will decide whether the program enacted under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 is constitutional by infringing on a traditional state function”.

Alan DuBois, attorney for the federal prisoners, said it was wrong for the United States to claim a public safety argument when justifying continued incarceration.

“This statute is not written constitutionally,” he added. “It effectively does require no connection between the underlying criminal charge and the subsequent commitment. You can be in custody for any crime whatsoever. ”

Lawyer David Hargett convinced the Virginia Supreme Court that his client had a constitutional right to contest his civil commitment.

“I have found talking with people they are shocked to hear somebody can be sentenced by a judge, serve out that entire sentence and then say, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not going to let you go,’ ” Hargett said, calling it a legal “black hole.”

The full story can be viewed on cnn.com

Trying to

Police in Hollywood Florida today announced that Ottis Toole who had long been the primary suspect in the murder of Adam Walsh. John Walsh the boy’s father came to nation attention back in 1981 as he pleaded and worked with police to find his son.

Fisherman discovered the decapitated head of Adam walsh in a river over 120 miles away from where the boy was abducted. The remains of his body have still not been found to this day.

Police were riduculed for their repeated bungling of the case and the case evidence. The bloodstained carpeting found in Toole’s car that would have provided DNA evidence to tie him to the case was lost.

Following his son’s death, John walsh became obsessed with finding his son’s murderer and helping to be sure that other children and families didnt have to endure what he had gone through. 

He gained national attention when he starred in the America’s Most Wanted television show in the 1980s’. After serveral years of hosting the show and testifying to congress, the Adam Walsh Child Protecion Act was passed.

Finding inspiration as a survivor, or as a healthcare provider to victims of sexual assualt or domestic violence can be difficult in times. Sometimes we can lose sight of the ever simple and often tough task of getting up when you are knocked down.

Take a look at this video, and see if you can gather the strength to get back up off the floor and move on with your life to better things.

Watch Video

Forensic Odontology employs the use of several different descriptions to help clearly identify the type, depth, and severity of a bite mark on a victim. These types of descriptions may include:

Hemorrhage - Small Bleeding Spot

Abrasion - non damaging mark on the skin

Contusion - ruptured blood vessel, bruise

Laceration - punctured or torn skin

Incision - neat puncture of the skin

Avulsion - removal of skin

Artifact - bitten off piece of the body.

Using accurate terms to depict the severity of a victims injuries is import part of documentation. Failure to accurately show what level of injury was sustained can lead to a jury thinking that you are unqualified or that your professional opinion is just wrong. It could even lead to your entire testimony being stricken from the record if the court finds that you are not a qualified expert medical witness.

I was recently asked about a case in which an adult male was raped and during the sexual assault had an ejaculation. Often the topic of male rape is forgotten when we talk about sexual assaults.

While rarely reported, male rapes do actually occur.  Perhaps it is male pride or ego, but reporting statistics for survivors of male sexual assault are even lower than that of women. One FBI statistic estimated that close to 3% of adult males will be raped at some point in their lives.

As for why the reporting statistics are so low, it may be due to the fact that this type of event may be even more shameful and traumatic to men than it is to women. Society in general tells men that in order to be respected and seen as desirable that they must be seen as strong, tough, and powerful.

All the experts agree that rape is almost never about the sex. Its about power and control. Excercising your will over someone elses. Essentially proving that you are the one in control. That you are stronger than the other person.

Bringing this type of shame to a man can be exceptionally devastating to their emotional self concienience. By not being able to fend off an attackers the victim may view himself as weak, undesireable, or even homosexual. 

These feelings of homosexuality can be even more confusing if the victim experiences an erection or even ejaculates. Both of these situations are very common and are often used as tools of shame by an attacker to make the victim think that they wanted or enjoyed being raped. In reality these types of reactions are more physiological than anything.

Often people believe that an erection equals sexual arousal. There are many reasons why a man may experience an erection during a sexual assault. The simple friction of touching the millions of tiny nerve endings on the penis could cause an erection, even if the touch was unwanted or unpleasant.

Being penetrated anally can also cause an involuntary erection. The application of pressure on to the prostate gland from digital, penile, or foreign object insertion to the anus can often cause an erection. Any proctologist will tell you that this type of reaction is very typical while performing a Digital Rectal Exam for prostate screening.  

Bringing the victim to the point of ejaculation is also quite common. Rapists will often make every effort possible to ensure that the victim does ejaculate to add the the feelings of guilt, shame, and homosexuality. This can add another layer of power, and dominance, and even increased pleasure for the rapist for having such control over the other person. Remember in most cases its about power not the actual sex.

Often I hear the question, “how do I become a forensic nurse?”. There are many sexual assault centers around the country, and even around the world. But not all of them offer the same standards of care.

Lets say you wanted to remodel your basement. You could open the phone book and find a wide array of contractors who would happily come and try to meet your needs. Some of them are licensed, bonded, and insured….and others…..well they try their best.

When it comes to sexual assault victims services you may find yourself in a similar situation. Depending on where you live, there may be a full service facility with fully trained and certified SANE’s, counciling services, advocates and more. 

It is also quite possible that you have no formalized services at all. in several areas (counties, cities, etc) of the country do not recognize SANE expertise. A lot of this has to do with the expierence that local district attorneys and law enforcement have had with others who may or may not have had any formalized training at all.

Although the IAFN has served as an example of standards of care, there is no regulating body that makes sure these standards are taught and  mandated for nursing sexual assault practice. Forensic Nursing is now recognized by the ANA as a specific dicipline these days, but the formalized standards of care vary greatly from facility to facility. 

There are many facilities that allow nurses without any forensic nursing credientials or formalized training to practice as a sexual assault nurse.  This variance in education and training often leads to botched cases, misleading or inaccurate collection of data, and is detremental to the SANE cause. 

Part of what makes a forensic nurse such a valuable tool for law enforcement, district attorneys, and their patients is adhering to a standard of care. Allowing nurses to practice as a SANE, without giving them the tools they need to succeed is harmful to SANEs everywhere, and worse yet to the patient.

Failure to properly follow a standard of care, and the established rules of evidence collection could very easily lead to the rapist going free or even the wrong person being arrested. Rape and Sexual Assault touches lives forever.

Over the last few years more and more convictions are being overturned because of faulty evidence collection or DNA. We owe it to our patients, and we owe it to the accused to make sure that we get it right.

Suspected pedophile and international fugitive Wayne Nelson Corliss was arrested last night in an apartment in Union City, New Jersey last night.

Corliss, age 57 was arrested by US immigration and customs agents stemming from a request from Interpol. Interpol announced that they were looking for the man on tuesday in relation to child pornography charges. Corliss was featured in over 100 photographs depicting him sexually abusing at least three boys between the ages of 6 and 10 years of age.

Norwegian officials originally discovered the photographs in 2006, but were unable to ascertain the identity of the man at the time. The photos were believed to have been taken somewhere in southeast asia.

Interpol released 6 photographs on its website on tuesday in an attempt to get a positive id on the man. Within 24 hours they received hundreds of tips and more than a 10 fold increase in internet traffic to its website.

This was not the first time that such tactics have been used by Interpol. Last october, they posted photos of an unknown individual wanted for child sexual abuse in veitnam and cambodia.

The GCFV was created in 1992 by the state legislature to develop a comprehensive state plan for ending family violence in Georgia.

Georgia Commission on Family Violence Position Statement on Alternatives to TPOs

Introduction

The Georgia Commission on Family Violence issues this statement with two goals in mind: increasing the safety of victims of family violence, and increasing accountability for perpetrators of family violence. The Commission believes that judicial practices that replace Temporary Protection Orders (TPOs) with alternative orders, such as mediation or consent agreements, do not adequately address the safety needs of petitioners and often have the potential to increase danger.  We believe that petitions for Temporary Protection should be judged on the merits and either ordered or dismissed, based on the evidence and likelihood of abuse.  As evidenced below, these alternative orders can have unforeseen consequences for both of the parties involved.  

Mediation

While court-ordered mediation may be appropriate for some situations, it is not appropriate as an alternative to or an element of the TPO process. Families in which violence is present have significant power imbalances. Batterers can and do use the mediation process to control their victims. For this reason, the philosophy of mediation between two equal parties is inconsistent with the realities of violence in intimate relationships. Given the past abuse, the victim may feel (often, quite correctly) that any rejection of the abuser’s proposals during this process will result in greater danger. The presence of a mediator and attorneys in the room does not ensure an equal playing field, or that a victim will feel safe to speak freely and without fear of reprisal by the abuser. The role of a mediator is only to find common agreement, not to review evidence or advocate one position over another. In cases of domestic violence, in which the parties inherently disagree with regard to the victim’s personal safety, safety concerns that might be addressed in the courtroom cannot survive the mediation process. If a TPO petitioner and respondent reach an agreement via mediation, this agreement does not afford the protections that the victim sought when filing for a TPO; namely, an order enforceable by law enforcement that carries criminal penalties.    

Consent Agreements

Likewise, petitioners seeking relief through a TPO who end up with a consent agreement often find that they did not get the protection they were seeking. Consent agreements, unlike TPOs, are not enforceable by law enforcement and do not carry the threat of criminal penalties.  Instead, a victim in danger who wishes to report a violation of a consent agreement must file a Motion for Contempt, a difficult, often prohibitively expensive process that may not be heard for several weeks. Perpetrators may thus feel emboldened by law enforcement’s inability to enforce the agreement, which only increases danger for the victim.

 Additionally, many of the safety provisions built into TPOs do not apply to consent agreements, e.g.:          ·            Consent agreements are not given full faith and credit and are thus unenforceable across state lines.·            They do not mandate the federal restrictions on gun ownership that TPOs do.·            They do not mandate that the respondent attend a certified Family Violence Intervention Program to be held accountable for the violence. Furthermore, in these cases, if the court asks the parties to negotiate the terms of the consent agreement themselves, all of the dangers of mediation are present, and further heightened if the victim is unrepresented. If, alternatively, the court suggests from the bench the terms of the agreement, the victim may face increased danger upon voicing an objection in front of the perpetrator.  

Mutual Consent Agreements

Consent agreements that are mutual in nature send a message to victims and perpetrators that the violence is equally the fault of both parties. Victims who hear this message from the court are less likely to seek legal relief in the future, and perpetrators who hear this message may believe that their violence is justified in the eyes of the court.  In addition, ordering a mutual consent agreement is tantamount to issuing a Mutual Protective Order without complying with the necessary statutory requirements that the Answer and Counterclaim be filed three days prior to the hearing. In such a case, due process is denied to any victim who appears in court for one TPO hearing, but must suddenly and without notice defend against allegations by the respondent.   

Consent Agreements with TPO Dismissal

Finally, those consent agreements accompanied by a specific dismissal of a TPO present additional problems. A petitioner who comes to court for a TPO hearing but instead receives a dismissal and, simultaneously, a consent agreement, is in a legal limbo. Such an agreement is a legal fiction, for once the underlying action is dismissed, the court is without the authority to approve or enforce any additional agreement in the matter. As a result, consent agreements arising from such proceedings are not only unenforceable, but entirely meaningless.  

Conclusion

In relationships with a history and/or threat of violence, negotiations between victims and perpetrators will not yield fair outcomes. The Georgia Commission on Family Violence therefore opposes the practice of responding to requests for TPOs with other processes or orders, such as mediation and consent agreements. TPOs, enforceable immediately by law enforcement and carrying criminal and civil penalties, better ensure the safety of victims of family violence.