No

by Joy Mosenfelder

Created on: March 09, 2008

While it is true that rape survivors are often at their most vulnerable when they first choose to come forward after the crime assuming that a survivors ability to give testimony about what happened to him or her is dependent upon the gender of the law enforcement officer conducting the interview is problematic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, not all communities are large enough to support a law enforcement agency with enough detectives on staff to ensure that one of the "correct" gender will always be available when an interview needs to be conducted; secondly, not all rapes happen between members of the opposing sexes. While male on female rape is still by far the most common version of the crime, implying that every survivor needs to be interviewed by someone of the same gender ignores those victims who have been assaulted by someone of the same gender.

In reality the gender of the interviewer is far less important than ensuring that the interviewer has the proper training, strength of character, and experience to be able to conduct and effective interview and remain sensitive to the survivor's needs. It is also essential to provide support for the survivor during the interview by allowing him or her to have friends and family present during the interview. If a community has the resources to do so, providing the survivor with an advocate who can provide emotional support, insight into the interview and exam process and additional resources is also invaluable. Most advocacy agencies have better resources for providing staff of the same gender as the survivor and this is a more reasonable expectation for support services to meet than it is for law enforcement.

I have been a volunteer victim advocate for the sexual assault crisis center in my community for more than three years now. I've had the privilege of sitting in on interviews with some amazingly strong survivors who have been through the trauma of rape and been brave enough to come forward, tough out a rather invasive medical exam and follow that up by recounting, detail by detail, the events leading up to and contributing to the assault. Every interview I have participated in has been conducted by a male detective. I can assure you, speaking from personal experience, if the interviewer is professional, courteous, sensitive and empathetic then the survivor will open up enough to talk about her experience. An insensitive interviewer, regardless of his or her gender, is going to shut a victim down and exacerbate and already traumatic experience. It's important that the interviewer be able to establish a rapport with the survivor. That he or she takes the time to help the survivor understand that the situation really is under his or her control.

Every survivor needs different things to help him or her feel comfortable. Some respond better if they can have family and friends sit in on the interview. Some need to take frequent breaks and distract themselves with other thoughts. Some just want to get the story out and be done with it. The best interviewers I've worked with are flexible enough to work with the survivor and take the time to explain to the survivor why they have to ask the questions they ask and how the information provided can help the legal system to work and keep the victim and other members of the community safe. Good interviewers also know how to use the survivors support system, friends and family if they are present and advocates when we are there as a buffer and a safety net so that if the survivor is starting to get overwhelmed by the interview process she or he has someone else, besides the interviewer, to turn to for support.

In a perfect world we wouldn't need to make rape victims relive the details of their trauma in a blow by blow account of events after the fact. In a perfect world the victim could give an account of his or her story to whomever he or she was most comfortable with if it had to be done. In this world, however, for our legal system to work we can't just lock people up without having evidence against them and in the case of rape most of that evidence is going to come from the rape examination and a detailed account given by the victim of the events that led up to and occurred during the crime. A police interview can't always wait until the victim is ready to talk or someone he or she will be comfortable with is on hand.

When a perpetrator is in custody law enforcement officials only have a limited amount of time they can hold that individual without cause. Survivor testimony is critical in establishing the evidence required to detain new apprehended perpetrators for a longer period of time and prevent them from becoming a greater danger to the victim or other members of the community. They can't wait to bring in a detective of the "correct" gender to interview the victim, nor can they have an unauthorized individual conduct the interview instead. Most police departments would be benefit rape victims in the community more by channeling additional resources towards training existing staff members about awareness issues and special procedures for handling rape interviews than they would from hiring additional staff to cover arbitrary gender rules in these cases.

Communities that feel strongly about providing emotional support for victims should channel more resources into advocacy programs that provide emotional support for the survivor during the initial crisis and can provide long term counseling and additional resources for the survivor as they start to adjust and move beyond the crisis. Most states have organizations in place that provide some degree of support for victims when they first report and additional resources on follow up. Many of these programs would be able to do much more with stronger support for community members and local governments. Crisis centers and shelters would also benefit from a greater degree of exposure and education about what services they provide and the role they play in victim intervention after the crime. When these organizations have a strong working relationship with law enforcement and the medical community everyone involved is able to do their job well and make certain that the recovery process is as easy and gentle as possible on the victim.

I have focused mainly on the point that many law enforcement agencies don't have the resources to ensure that rape victims always get a detective of the same gender for the interview and the fact that there are advocacy groups most places that are better able to provide comfort and support during the interview process, however, I would like to circle back for a moment on the gender issue as it relates to instances of same sex rape. A significant subset of these crimes are between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, especially in prison populations or in cases of child abuse. Assuming that the victim will always be more comfortable with an interviewer of the same gender as he or she is ignores any of a number of things that could complicate the situation and actually rob the survivor of his or her feelings of safety and comfort.

Again, I want to stress the point that an experienced interviewer, someone with training and an ability to project empathy while maintaining a professional attitude and keeping the interview on track will win the day and set the survivor at is nearly every single time. There are exceptions of course, sometimes a survivor is too overcome by trauma to differentiate between the circumstances of the interview and those of the attack. In these exceptional cases it would be appropriate to bring in an alternative interviewer the survivor may be more comfortable with if time and circumstance allow.

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