Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault in Colorado

Conviction in the criminal justice system is controlled by juries’ perspectives and therefore community attitudes. This fact combined with the finding that most prosecutor’s did not believe in rape myths tells activist groups and other interested parties that their efforts should be directed towards changing community attitudes like: conducting research on jurors, creating awareness campaigns, employing expert witnesses, and pushing for state-wide training for law enforcement.

Background

The occurrence of sexual assault in the United States is frequent and far-reaching: a sexual assault or rape occurs every 2 minutes in the United States totaling to 207, 754 victims a year and thousands of secondary victims; over 1 million Coloradans have been sexually assaulted, and 1 in 2 women in Colorado have experienced sexually violent crimes. Law enforcement has a responsibility to bring these perpetrators to justice; however, the criminal justice system falls short when holding offenders accountable: 32% of rapes or sexual assaults are reported to the police, 7% of rapes or sexual assaults result in an arrest, and 2% of rapes and sexual assaults lead to a conviction.

The purpose of my study, Law Enforcement Respondents and Sexual Assault and Rape: The Thought Process behind Arresting and Prosecuting in Colorado was to discover the reasons behind such low arrest and conviction rates. I interviewed 7 District Attorneys and 1 Sergeant from 3 different jurisdictions in Central Colorado. The sample size and sampling method does not permit making generalizations to all law enforcement in Colorado. The results are mainly qualitative and will be used in to guide future research and activist initiatives.