This article by Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, and Maryjo Webster recently published in the Star Tribune. It is part 8 of a series entitled, Denied Justice: When rape is reported and nothing happens. How Minnesota's criminal justice system has failed victims of sexual assault.
To read this entire article, go here and find an excerpt below. To read the entire series, go here.
West Valley City, Utah — Detective Justin Boardman had a reliable way of clearing many of the rape cases that crossed his desk.
When the only witness was the victim, he would call her, warn that it was a “he said, she said” case that would be tough to investigate, and hope that she would drop it.
Usually, she did.
Then one day, Boardman ducked into a class on the trauma caused by rape. He heard scientific explanations for why rape victims could not scream or fight back, and why they often initially struggled to remember details of the crime.
Soon he realized that he had closed dozens of cases in which the victim likely was telling the truth. It shook him to the point of tears.
“I did a lot of damage,” he said.
Chastened, the veteran detective helped the police department in Utah’s second largest city transform the way it investigated sex crimes. Within a year, the number of cases sent to prosecutors by West Valley City police doubled. Convictions tripled. Inspired in part by that success, Utah’s Republican-led Legislature adopted reforms last year that will require all new officers to be trained in brain trauma, and make available more specialized three-day training to all detectives who investigate sex assault cases.
Again, to read this article by Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, and Maryjo Webster, go here and for the rest of the series, go here.
Cissy's note: Justin Boardman, the former detective interviewed says he is "on a quest, yes, a quest to change police culture. But the culture in the justice system, from the trauma awareness perspective - we've been doing a lot of damage." I met him last month in MA where he was doing a trauma-informed training geared towards law enforcement and others. He's also a member of ACEs Connection and will hopefully be posting more about his work.
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