Shattering Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring Assailants to Justice
“Shattering Silences offers solid evidence that meaningful rape reform is occurring throughout the U.S.”
Statistics on sexual assault are grim. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, someone is attacked every two minutes in our country, with far too many of the cases not resolved by the criminal justice system. A great number of sexual assaults, in fact, go unreported by victims.
The reasons that sex crimes are not reported are all too familiar: Victims may feel shame and guilt about the experience, or they fear reprisal by their attackers. In many cases, they are afraid that their reports will be viewed indifferently or even skeptically by law enforcement and medical personnel.
The systemic mishandling of sexual assault crimes has given many victims little reason to believe they will see justice. However, in Shattering Silences, Christopher Johnston reports that there is a growing movement across the U.S. to take a more compassionate, victim-centered approach to rape and sexual assault cases.
The product of eight years of research, Johnston’s book spotlights today’s best practices in the areas of victim treatment, criminal investigation, and the use of DNA evidence. Johnston, a journalist based in Cleveland, Ohio, deftly melds profiles of sex crimes professionals and rape survivors with examinations of the new technologies used to solve crimes.
He begins his narrative in his hometown where he profiles what he calls the “solution providers.” These are the social workers, counselors, sexual assault nurse examiners, and law enforcement officers who are collaboratively working to improve the way victims and their cases are handled.
Citing statistics that show one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives, Johnston notes that two-thirds of those assaults will never be reported to law enforcement. For sexual assault victims, the ability to seek treatment, report the crime to police, and cooperate in the prosecution requires a great deal of courage, particularly when police can seem insensitive during their interviews.
At the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, a program director tells Johnston that the shock and trauma caused by a sexual assault triggers the release of stress hormones that can blunt the victim’s emotions and impair their ability to recall details of the attack. When that happens, police can misinterpret victims as being uncooperative. Officers can then become discouraged from investigating cases, which ultimately results in offenders not being held accountable for their crimes.
Now though, reports Johnston, Cleveland Police and many other law enforcement agencies are incorporating a more respectful and patient approach with victims, with a goal of understanding the trauma they’ve experienced.
Johnston also focuses on the increasing importance of DNA testing in the criminal investigation process. The development of the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database in 1999 has been an invaluable tool in the identification of sexual assault suspects. However, the critical factor in the rape reform movement has been, in large part, the launching of the federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) in 2014.
The SAKI program provides funding to budget-strapped state and local law enforcement agencies to address their backlogs of untested rape kits. (A rape kit contains DNA and other forensic evidence collected from a sexual assault victim.) Reports show that, at one point, an estimated 400,000 untested rape kits were stored in police evidence rooms and warehouses across the country.
By processing those kits, police have been able to use the DNA analysis to link suspects to unsolved crimes committed decades earlier. In empathetic detail, Johnston recounts the torment of a Cleveland woman who was raped in 1993 when she was 14. When her rape kit was finally processed in 2013, police were able to use the DNA results to identify her attacker, although they were unsuccessful in prosecuting him.
Throughout Johnston’s eight-year research journey, he sought out dedicated rape reform advocates in various cities. In Detroit, he learns that Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy faced stiff budgetary and bureaucratic challenges in her to quest to submit 11,000 untested rape kits for analysis. Cobbling together public and private donations, Worthy led fundraising efforts to process the rape kits and bring justice to victims. As of June 2017, analysis of Detroit’s rape kits resulted in the identification of 797 suspected serial rapists and convictions of 95 offenders.
In New York City, Johnston chronicles the efforts of Ilse Knecht of the Joyful Heart Foundation, who is committed to ensuring that DNA evidence is used to bring justice to crime survivors and accountability to offenders. Knecht focuses her efforts on monitoring the testing and investigation of backlogged rape kits across the U.S., while also promoting legislation that would require mandatory processing and tracking of the kits.
Published auspiciously in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood celebrities and the #MeToo phenomenon, Shattering Silences offers solid evidence that meaningful rape reform is occurring throughout the U.S. Further progress, notes Johnston, will be fueled by a multidisciplinary, concerted effort by the public and private sectors, and the work of dedicated nonprofit organizations.