Rape Investigation Handbook

John O. Savino, Brent E. Turvey

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780123860309
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Forensic Science
• Index: Law

Rape Investigation Handbook details specific investigative and forensic processes related to sex crimes casework invaluable to those in law enforcement, the legal community, and the private sector. It takes the reader through these processes in a logical sequence, showing how investigations of rape and sexual assault can and should be conducted from start to finish. The second edition is reorganized to flow from the alleged assault to a courtroom trial. Section heads have been introduced and it includes six new chapters on sex crimes, sex trafficking, forensic victimology, eyewitness reports, rape trauma syndrome and rapist motivations. The remaining 12 chapters are entirely overhauled and in some cases completely rewritten by new, highly qualified contributors, such as "Sexual Assault Examination and Reconstruction" by Brent E. Turvey and Charla Jamerson and "Rapist Motivations" by Brent E. Turvey and Jodi Freeman. An additional appendix was added to provide current case studies.

• Includes six new chapters on sex crimes, sex trafficking, forensic victimology, eyewitness reports, rape trauma syndrome and rapist motivations
• Written in a clear, practical style, ideal for sex crime investigators including: professionals in forensic nursing, forensic laboratories, law enforcement and the legal community
• Authored by qualified investigators and forensic professionals with over 30 years of collective experience working cases, preparing them for court and offering testimony

Chapter 1. Sex Crimes

An Overview

Brent E. Turvey¹

¹This chapter has been adapted from Turvey (2011).

Among the primary responsibilities of the sex crime investigator is the determination of whether or not a crime has actually occurred. Not every complaint is founded or necessarily results in a criminal charge. This determination requires a thorough investigation, as well as the ability to distinguish between criminal and noncriminal sexual behavior. In other words, investigators must actually investigate whether a sex crime has occurred, and to do this competently they must know what sex crimes are. The term sex crime generally refers to any confluence of criminal and sexual acts. As outlined in this chapter, the sex crimes investigator should be familiar with the following sex crimes: rape and sexual assault; child molestation; sexual coercion; bestiality; voyeurism; fetish burglary; necrophilia; prostitution, soliciting: and sex trafficking.

Key Terms: Bestiality, Child molestation, Consent, Fetish burglary, Fixated (or preferential), Necrophilia, Physical or mental disability, Regressed, Sexual coercion, Rape, Sexual assault, Sex crime, Sex offenders, Sexting, Sexual fetish, Sodomy, Voyeurism

Among the primary responsibilities of the sex crime investigator is the determination of whether or not a crime has occurred. Many complaints will have the appearance of a crime, but not every complaint is founded or necessarily results in a criminal charge. This determination requires a thorough investigation, as well as the ability to distinguish between criminal and noncriminal sexual behavior. In other words, investigators must be capable of distinguishing whether a crime has actually occurred, and to do this competently they must know what sex crimes are.

Sex crime investigators must therefore develop a broad understanding of the prevalence, nature, and variety of sexual behavior that may be encountered in their caseload. Those who are ignorant in this area should not be working cases without guidance, and those who avoid educating themselves risk a miscarriage of justice. This is generally not a problem in larger jurisdictions with dedicated sex crimes units. A steady volume of varied complaints will quickly educate even the most naïve investigator as to the scope and breadth of human sexual activity. However, the author has encountered many smaller jurisdictions where a few detectives serve to catch every case that walks through the door. In many of these stations, the low volume of reported sex crimes, combined with conservative local culture, provides insufficient experience to develop competent investigative skills.

This is also a good place to mention that sex crime investigators should not allow personal sexual habits, values, morals, or beliefs to prejudice their investigations. They must keep an open mind and remain nonjudgmental when dealing with complaints. It is not their place to judge the lifestyles that victims lead or the decisions they have made.

The purpose of this chapter is to begin filling the knowledge and experience gap that tends to exist prior to starting casework—to create awareness about the kinds of subjects that should be studied and understood before a sex crime can be comprehensively investigated.

What is a Sex Crime?

The term sex crime generally refers to any confluence of criminal and sexual acts. In some cases, sexual activity is inherently criminal, such as that involving a lack of consent. In other cases, sexual activity occurs between “consenting” parties but still involves a crime, as with prostitution. As explained in Torres and van der Walt (2009, p. 450), “the law not only defines who can be a ‘victim’ of sexual assault, but also which specific sexual behaviors can be criminalized, even between consenting adults.” Consider the description provided in Griffin and West (2006, pp. 143–144):

“Sex crime” is a term that identifies a multitude of possible offenses toward an individual or community that either directly or indirectly relates to sex. A few of the most common sex crimes include child molestation, exhibitionism, incest, rape, and voyeurism. There are many manifestations of each of these crimes. For example, rape is often categorized in one of two ways: acquaintance rape and stranger rape…. However, it should be noted that sex crimes are not the same as sexual disorders.

Those who commit sex crimes are accurately referred to as sex offenders. However, not all sex offenders are alike. They are varied, each with their own constellation of behaviors, motives, and capabilities existing on a broad continuum of intensity and severity.

Unfortunately, there is a public and professional tendency to regard all of those who commit sex crimes as essentially the same. A perspective, which remains true to this day, was offered in East (1946, p. 529):

Sexual offenders are perhaps more liable to be misjudged by prejudice and ignorance than the majority of criminals. Bias is almost inevitable if their conduct is reviewed solely in the light of narrow personal experience and the tastes and distastes of the assessor. Many persons of both sexes are grossly ignorant on sexual matters in spite of the modern tendency to discuss the subject with a considerable amount of freedom. Some husbands, in effect, commit rape upon their wives because they do not understand the art of married life and do not realize that a woman is at a disadvantage unless a psychical approach precedes each physical contact. Such sexually unaesthetic men and women, manifestly incompetent to pass judgment upon the inter-relationships of the sexes, may be called upon as members of a jury to assess the guilt of a sexual offender.

Currently, the primary cause of this same general lack of accurate knowledge is the uncritical acceptance of film, television, and media accounts of crime—fiction and nonfiction alike. In particular, the author is continually amazed at the extent to which film and television are viewed as reliable sources of information, even among those who absolutely know better. This has resulted in uninformed education, uninformed legislation, uninformed investigative and adjudication efforts, and even uninformed ideas about treatment.

The Historical View

Throughout history, each culture has sought to define criminal sexual behavior in ways that best reflect prevailing attitudes and beliefs. These determinations and related penalties are by no means uniform or static, differing and evolving radically across cultures and generations. As explained in East (1946, p. 528):

Ideas change with the times. The Mosaic Law imposed the penalty of death on both parties when a married woman committed adultery. The old Roman Law punished adultery on the part of the wife but not on the part of the husband. Although under Roman Law a father had the right to kill both his married daughter and the accomplice if she was taken in adultery either in his house or her husband's, a husband had no such right as to his wife in any case, and no such right as to her accomplice unless he was an infamous person or a slave taken in his own home. By a law of Cnut's a woman was to forfeit both nose and ears for adultery, and in the seventeenth century the ecclesiastical law punished both adulterous accomplices with extreme severity.

Torres and van der Walt (2009) make a direct link between ownership and the concept of sexual violation, arguing how modern sex crime statutes originated from laws related to property crime (p. 445):

Interestingly, it is property law that has shaped and defined who can be a victim of a criminal sexual act. Historically, children, slaves, animals, and other similarly classed groups have been considered the property of white, land-owning men. Until fairly recently, women in particular were viewed as the property of their fathers and subsequently of their husbands after marriage. Such beliefs are the basis for modern marriage traditions, such as the father “giving away the bride” at her wedding. In a legal sense, this often exempted husbands from being charged with rape related to any sexual acts they committed with their wives, whether she agreed to them or not.

They also point out that marital rape did not become illegal in all 50 of the United States until 1993 (Woolley, 2007).

More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized sodomy, also described in Torres and van der Walt (2009, p. 450):

Sodomy may be defined as any sexual act that does not involve a penis penetrating a vagina. It can include behaviors such as manual stimulation of a partner (e.g., mutual masturbation), oral sex, anal sex, and the use of sexual toys (e.g., vibrators, dildos). Anti-sodomy laws originally served to punish people for engaging in sexual behavior for the sake of pleasure only, that is, sexual behavior that does not lead to the potential conception of a child. More recently, sodomy laws were used to criminalize acts between consenting gay and lesbian people.

In the deciding case, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court held that (p. 585):

A law branding one class of persons as criminal based solely on the State's moral disapproval of that class and the conduct associated with that class runs contrary to the values of the Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause, under any standard of review. I therefore concur in the Court's judgment that Texas’ sodomy law banning “deviate sexual intercourse” between consenting adults of the same sex, but not between consenting adults of different sexes, is unconstitutional.

Hough (2004) offers the following historical context for Lawrence (pp. 105–106):

References to sodomy can be traced back to biblical times. Historically, the definition of sodomy has often been confusing, but the courts have almost always defined sodomy as an act done by men. In fact, in the late twentieth century, courts and theorists found sodomy between women to be a legal impossibility….

In colonial times, laws against sodomy were often not directed at homosexual conduct, but were focused on sexual acts between men and children, men raping women, or men engaging in bestiality.

These laws were created on the grounds that sodomy was immoral and unchristian. It has only been in recent history that sodomy has been attached to a certain type of person, rather than just to a particular sexual activity. In today's society, sodomy laws have defined the place of gay people in American society. Even in cases where sodomy is referred to in a gender-neutral way, the assumption is that it refers to homosexual acts only, not to sodomy in other contexts. The existence of sodomy laws has limited homos...

Table of contents

• Cover Image
• Table of Contents
• Front Matter
• Copyright
• Preface
• Foreword to the First Edition
• Preface to the First Edition: The Role of the Sex Crimes Investigator
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Chapter 1. Sex Crimes
• Chapter 2. Rape and Sexual Assault
• Chapter 3. Sex Trafficking
• Chapter 4. The First Investigative Response
• Chapter 5. Investigative Crime Scene Management
• Chapter 6. Crime Scene Investigation in Sexual Assaults
• Chapter 7. Interviewing Suspects and Victims
• Chapter 8. Forensic Victimology in Cases of Sexual Assault
• Chapter 9. Eyewitness Reports, Identifications, and Testimony
• Chapter 10. Rape Trauma Syndrome and the Investigation of Sexual Assault
• Chapter 11. False Allegations of Sexual Assault
• Chapter 12. Sexual Assault Examination and Reconstruction
• Chapter 13. Investigating Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault
• Chapter 14. DNA
• Chapter 15. Rapist Motivations
• Chapter 16. Rapist Modus Operandi and Signature
• Chapter 17. Investigating Serial Rape
• Chapter 18. Sex Crimes on Trial
• Appendix I: OCJP 923: Forensic Medical Report
• Appendix II: OCJP 950: Forensic Medical Report
• Appendix III: People v. Oliver Jovanovic: From Cybersex to Sexual Assault Allegations
• Appendix IV: Forensic Case Studies: False Reports of Sexual Assault
• Glossary
• Subject Index