NCJ Number
126589
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 57 Issue: 10 Dated: (October 1990) Pages: 76,80-81,86
Date Published
1990
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article describes how law enforcement, crime prevention specialists, and other community-based professionals organized without special financial funds or grants a task force on sexual assault in Richmond (VA) as well as how that task force affected the community-wide problem of sexual assaults.
Abstract
Statistics show that college students are vulnerable to rape; yet, there is generally little organizational or structural motivation in college communities to bring together those involved in law enforcement, sexual assault crisis centers, mental health hospitals, counseling or other settings to develop better educational and prevention strategies for this high-risk target group. Richmond has developed a task force involving just such agencies as well as the YWCA. The task force started by analyzing the city's rape reports to determine whether (1) any pattern of rapes and their incidence could be established; (2) gaps in current services could be identified; and (3) further prevention strategies could be established from these data. The task force then organized and continues to present a workshop on sexual assault for professional and student leaders on all college campuses in central Virginia. As a result, services received by sexual assault survivors and programs for prevention in the greater Richmond area have greatly improved due to the increased viability of interagency cooperation.