Prosecution for Adult Sexual Assaults

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office began an initiative in 2019 to address Adult Sexual Assaults and improve the success rate of taking those cases to trial.The goal: Create a better path to prosecution, beginning with how police officers file cases and deal with victims, to how prosecutors handle and prosecute cases.The effort was developed after Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson became aware in July 2018 that rape crisis counselors were called to more than 100 hospital visits in that month. All those hospital visits led to only five cases being filed with the office.The Adult Sexual Assault team was created on November 1, 2019, and a new approach – the vertical prosecution of sexual assaults – was adopted.Law enforcement officers were retrained in handling trauma cases and told to call our prosecutors any time. Prosecutors conferred with agencies, advocacy groups and victims about our efforts to change how we prosecute sexual assault cases.As a result of creating a dedicated team which specializes in adult sexual assault cases, there has been significant improvement on how cases are filed and how victims feel about the criminal justice process.