Report Offers Recommendations for Responding to Sexual Assault Cases

National Best Practices for Sexual Assault Kits: A Multidisciplinary Approach, a new report from the National Institute of Justice, includes 35 recommendations that were designed to assist medical professionals, law enforcement, victim advocates, prosecutors and laboratories in implementing coordinated, collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to sexual assault investigations.

The recommendations are rooted in a victim-centric, multi-disciplinary approach that encourages victim engagement and increases the potential for legal resolutions. They provide a roadmap for collecting, transferring, preserving, storing and analyzing sexual assault kits to help improve practices and protocols related to evidence inventory, tracking and audits, and communication systems.

To read the report, go to https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/250384.pdf.