Educating the Courts About Sexual Violence in Unexpected Areas

Judges, court personnel and other justice system professionals tend to think of cases involving adult victims of sexual assault as reaching the courts under the labels "Rape" or "Sexual Assault" and thus of concern to felony-level criminal courts only.  In reality, these cases arise across the spectrum of civil, criminal and family law, but their diverse aspects and complex intersections are often ignored. For example, court-related education about domestic violence is ubiquitous, but the prevalence of sexual abuse in these cases, and its critical implications for risk assessment, are all but invisible.

In this article for the Sexual Assault Report, National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) Director Lynn Hecht Schafran and NJEP Program Associate Tracy Vris describe the importance of educating judges and court-related personnel about the presence and impact of sexual violence in these often unexpected areas. The article describes NJEP's new series of ready-to-use modules and resources for in-person judicial and multidisciplinary education on these rarely addressed topics and cases.

For the full article, click on the link below.

What Do Elder Abuse, Drug Treatment Courts, and Domestic Violence Risk Assessment Have in Common? Educating the Courts and Others About Sexual Violence in Unexpected Areas

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Publication Highlight

Risk Assessment and Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: The Hidden Dimension of Domestic violence
Article by Lynn Hecht Schafran for Judicature Magazine. Risk assessment is of critical concern to judges in every kind fo domestic violence case. Recent research documents the importance of a largely ignored sign of risk and potential lethality in these cases: intimate partner sexual abuse. More »