The Justice Department released a new guide Tuesday aimed at discouraging gender-based police responses to women who are victims of sexual assault or domestic violence.
The new guidelines come less than a week after an ex-Oklahoma City police department was found guilty of rape and other crimes against eight of the 13 women who accused him. Prosecutors say he deliberately preyed on these women because they were lower-class, black and had likely had a criminal record.
“Sexual and domestic violence is a heinous crime, inflicting physical and emotional trauma that can linger for years, with grave consequences for survivors and their loved ones, for neighborhoods and communities and for our country as a whole,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a Tuesday press conference. “While the brunt of sexual and domestic violence is borne disproportionately by women and LGBT individuals, make no mistake: It is an affront to us all.”
In the eight guidelines, the department recommends that police officers receive more training to combat biases, assumptions and stereotypes about sexual assault and domestic violence victims. This training should include ways to ensure interviews are done in a way that helps victims provide the facts in the case, and ensuring that sexual assault reports are classified properly.
Officers who commit sexual assault or domestic violence must be held accountable by police departments, the guidelines stress.
“Domestic violence-related calls constitute the single largest category of calls received by police departments, so how police officers respond to domestic violence and sexual assault has a huge impact on the lives of women, families, and communities across the United States,” Sandra Park, senior staff attorney in the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, said in a statement. “Police practices can either help end the cycle of violence or they can perpetuate it.”
The guidelines also call on police departments to “treat all victims with respect and employ interviewing tactics that encourage a victim to participate and provide facts about the incident,” while also urging officers to properly classify reports of sexual assault and domestic violence.
“In order to collectively advance the type of victim-centered and trauma-informed response to sexual violence so vital to protecting public safety, we need to proactively identify and address harmful stereotypes based on one’s gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or race,” Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said Tuesday.
A November investigation by the Associated Press found nearly 1,000 U.S. police officers have lost their jobs over a six-year period for rape and sexual assault.
