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NELSON SANTOS: Okay. I'm going to turn it over to Susan who will moderate this session.

SUSAN HOWLEY: All right. Great. Thanks. This afternoon we're going to have an opportunity to focus on 

another participant with a strong interest in the justice process and a strong interest in the works of 

forensic science, and that's the victim.

As with defendants, victims have a need to have confidence in the justice system, and they can't have 

that confidence if they don't understand the processes at work and if they aren't kept informed of the 

status of the investigation and what happened to the evidence that they provided, and if they don't feel 

that they are respected and heard.

The panel you're about to hear from will remind us of the needs of the victims and survivors for respect 

and transparency, what can be done to help victims and survivors under stand forensic evidence so they 

don't feel so at sea with everything that's going on, and how we can develop trauma-informed procedures 

to provide notice to victims throughout the processing of the forensic evidence.

I am pleased this afternoon to be able to present Natasha Alexenko who is a survivor turned advocate.

She is using her experience and hard-won knowledge to improve the response to other victims through 

her organization, Natasha's Justice Project.

I'm also pleased to welcome Gina Scaramella, who runs the longstanding and well-regarded Boston Area 

Rape Crisis Center, one of the oldest in the country. BARCC recognized the need for victims to have 

basic information about DNA processing and undertook work to provide that information in a way that 

could be understood by victims and their friends and family.

And then Rebecca Campbell, a professor of Psychology at Michigan State University, who has used her 

talents as a researcher to inform change for sexual assault survivors. Her work evaluating Detroit's 

project to resolve the rape kit backlog included an examination of its challenges in locating and identifying 

and notifying victims. Together they illuminate the importance and potential of including the victim in our 

work to make forensic science more transparent. And with that, I'll turn it over to Natasha. 

NATASHA ALEXENKO: Thank you, Susan. It's really an honor to be here, particularly sitting next to these 

two incredible women who work so hard for survivors and to create a safer community, so I'm honored, 

truly.

My name is Natasha. I am a survivor of sexual assault. I was raped, robbed, and sodomized at gunpoint 

while I was a college student. It's a day I will never forget. It's a day that continues to haunt me, and my 

family and friends as well. That's the thing about sexual assault, it's not just the survivor that is affected by 

the crime, it's the people around them that love them and care about them, and then the individuals they 

meet later in life who are also hurt when they find out what's occurred.

After I was sexually assaulted, my immediate desire was to take a shower. I wanted to jump in a hot 

shower and just stay there forever. If it weren't for a roommate of mine who said, "Look, your body is 

basically a crime scene right now, we need to get you to a hospital to do a rape kit exam." It is the last 

thing I wanted to do at that time, absolutely the last thing. It's basically a very invasive gynecological 

exam. And as you can imagine, after that much trauma to once again endure poking and prodding and 

answering a lot of questions to a crime that was just committed that you can't quite absorb yourself in that 

point in time.

But I knew that when it was explained to me that this was how we would eventually find the perpetrator, of 

course, it was something I wanted to do immediately. And, you know, afterwards, I was running under the 

assumption -- and this was in 1993 -- that my kit had been tested, because why else would I go through 

all of that for nothing. And I also was running under the assumption everyone was doing everything they 

could to make certain that this monster was put away.
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And I received a phone call about a year-and-a-half after I was raped and robbed, and I was told that the 

case was cold and that they were closing it. And I remember exactly where I was when I received that 

phone call. I remember every detail of it. But what I remember the most was the profound sense of guilt I 

felt inside. I spent the year dealing in terms of, you know, being a victim of crime and doing my best to 

heal through the trauma, but this was suddenly a new feeling, a feeling of helplessness and a feeling of 

guilt that I couldn't do my part in putting away someone who is no doubt in my mind hurting other people.

And I was not aware my rape kit was not tested, so I went on assuming it was actually my fault, that 

perhaps I didn't do an adequate job in describing my perpetrator. Perhaps they didn't believe me. Maybe I 

didn't give the appropriate details, so I fought really through a lot of guilt. And I felt that any victim, of the 

man that raped me, met up with in this process was my fault as well, and that was really hard. That was a 

really hard thing to deal with.

In 2008 I received a phone call from the Manhattan DA's office, and I was told that my kit had a match in 

the CODIS database to a man named Victor Rondon, and, indeed, in all those years from 1993 to 2008, 

Victor Rondon was on a nationwide crime spree. He committed crimes in seven different states across 

the country. He created additional that victims. He was a burden on law enforcement. He was a burden 

on taxpayers. He was a monster.

But somehow knowing that that DNA contained in my rape kit had, indeed, found this man was something 

I'll never forget, just that feeling of relief. And I was fortunate enough to have my day in court, face my 

perpetrator, and work with incredible, incredible prosecutors, law enforcement, and the team, the forensic 

science team. And I was really grateful to face him in court and to testify as the complaining witness, and 

know that he is presently behind bars until 2057, where he can no longer harm anyone else. And that was 

just such a great feeling.

And I really like to point out the fact that being at trial and putting the man that raped me in jail wasn't 

necessarily what I needed to heal or what I needed to move on. You know, that came in a different way.

That had nothing to do with identifying or putting my perpetrator behind bars. But what it did was it 

created an advocate in me. I became an advocate because, even when I was ready to give up on myself, 

it turned out the prosecutors had not given up on me.

I also became an advocate because the forensic science world really opened their doors to me, and I 

really felt like I was just part of this fantastic team. And I just really found strength in that, and just really 

knowing that each rape kit -- and we're looking at hundreds of thousands nationwide collecting dust --

each rape kit represents a human being whose body was a crime scene, and each rape kit represents 

someone like me who probably wanted to take a shower and instead went and did a rape kit test. And I 

know what that was like, and I don't want anyone else to feel like it again that helpless. I want to help 

empower others.

And, you know, it's certainly been very difficult to continually talk about my story, sometimes in great 

detail. But, you know, one of the reasons I find it so encouraging is because, as I kind of move forward, I 

meet these incredible people working in the field. And we'll get to talking and it feels like, you know, we 

can just kind of solve all the world's problems when we're finished. And I've just always really, really been 

grateful for than opportunity.

And because of that, it's like this multi-disciplinary team approach that's working so well right now. It's 

also working well in terms of advocates, because as a survivor I often have an opportunity to sit next to 

experts in forensics or who are familiar with the legal system, and I think that's a really powerful message.

And I think that it does a really good job in communicating to the general public what we're doing to keep 

them safe from harm; what we're doing to ensure that they -- we're using the tools necessary to put 

people behind -- the appropriate and the right people behind bars and that's really empowering.

And I think one of the most important things right now is for me to continue to share my story in terms of 

my assault, and to be as open about it as I can, and to also share just what creates a victim from going to 

that to a survivor and then finally an advocate, what is that. And I wish I could take credit for becoming an 
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advocate because of some inner strength. But the real truth of the matter is I became an advocate 

because of the people around me that inspired me.

You know, I'm here and I'm looking at certain people I've worked with that I've learned from that I've met, 

seen at different conferences, and I'm just so grateful, because no one has ever really treated me like the 

victim. I'm being treat as a colleague. And as a colleague, I can impart that wisdom to the other survivors 

out there, because it's so important for them to understand the process. Because after you're assaulted it 

your head is just kind of swirling and you're not certain how to appropriately grasp what's occurred, and 

it's hard to know that, you know, a lot of us have never even had anything to do with the criminal justice 

system. So all of a sudden to be thrown into this process and all of a sudden to understand the process of 

DNA and forensics and how some of that works, that's something that's new to so many of us.

But what I do know, as the survivors across this country who have that knowledge and who are 

empowered with that wisdom, not only help move the justice system along but become the biggest 

cheerleaders for the field, because it's important. Because without this amazing scientific work and the 

work of the prosecutors and getting everything ready for court, I mean, we wouldn't have the strength and 

be able to, you know, wake up in the morning and know that the world is a better place. And, you know, 

I'm just so grateful.

It's interesting, Rebecca and I -- Dr. Campbell and I were in this very room. We don't remember when. But 

we were presenting with one another, and I always just enjoy presenting with her because, you know, she 

talks about the neurobiology and what goes on her our brains with trauma. And I'm always like, see, see, 

she's right. She gets me. But I'll never forget, and this is just -- there was someone in attendance at that 

conference -- and I hope I don't embarrass you, Dr. Campbell. But she was sitting there and she was like, 

"Oh, my God, oh, my God, I just met Dr. Campbell. Oh, my God." And it jus goes to show you, I mean --

and this is not someone that was necessarily an expert in the field, it was a woman who just knew the 

great work that Dr. Campbell as done and how things have changed.

People know, it's not just this room. We're all sitting here and we have been working on this for many 

years. The word is getting out. Things are really evolving out there, thanks to, really, everyone's work 

here in the room. And I think the most important thing is just to continue this partnership, to continue to 

work with one another, because oftentimes we're able to kind of communicate to our constituents through 

each other.

I'm not a forensic scientist but I can kind of put things in laymen's terms to explain to survivors, and, you 

know, it's important. Often I'll go to a lab and talk to some of the criminalists that are working there and let 

them know how important their work is to me and how it changed my life.

So I hope that this great work continues. I think that we owe it to the general public. I know from my story 

alone, you know, we talk about public safety issue, and you can just really see real results. So, again, I 

can't tell you how grateful I am to be here and for all of your work through all of the years. And I certainly 

hope our paths will continue to cross. And I will continue to advocate for this work as long as someone 

will give me a microphone. Thank you. 

SUSAN HOWLEY: Thank you so much, Natasha, for sharing. Gina.

GINA SCARAMELLA: Hi everybody. I think I have some slides that are going to come up. Yeah. Great.

Well thank you for inviting me, too, to be on this great panel and to talk with you a little bit about some of 

the great work that's happening in Massachusetts. Oh, sorry, not good.

So I wanted to share with you just a few things, a little bit about the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, a 

little about our role in forensics, and then the development of our access to Forensic Information Project, 

which was our effort at getting out to our communities. So, clicking. Okay.

So a little bit about BARCC. As Susan was saying, we are a long-standing center. We're one of the first in 

the country, and one of the largest and most comprehensive definitely in New England, but probably in 
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the country, and we do a high volume of service, both to survivors directly, their families, as well as 

prevention education in the community, and keep a large circle of partners around us to help continuing to 

improve so that survivors don't have to keep experiencing the not-so-good things that can happen.

So we work on a few different levels around forensics. The individual level, we work most closely when 

we accompany survivors to the hospital, and we do that well over 400 times a year, so that's more than 

once every day. And those are folks who are over the age of 12 and who have been raped within five 

days. And we do that in partnership with a sexual assault nurse examiner program at seven hospitals that 

are designated. But there's another, about 12 hospitals that are non-designated that we also respond to, 

and we do that through our hotline program. The hospital staff calls our hotline directly and we do patch 

somebody.

At the seven hospitals where we have a designation, the same nurse and the advocate get paged at the 

same time, and we both show up within 40 minutes. So that is our individual level. At the state level I'll 

talk more about our forensic project. And at the national level I just want to mention this great OVC 

supported pilot project that we've been on for the last few years, that's testing the ability of the 

telemedicine technology to work for increasing the quality of forensic exams in low volume or high 

turnover areas.

So it's a national project run through the Massachusetts SANE Program, where they're in several sites 

across the country, including military sites, trying to use telemedicine to increase that quality of service so 

that survivors are obviously getting better evidence collected and have a better experience, but also so 

that the clinicians involved start to feel like they can do this work and they can learn how to do a better job 

collecting evidence.

Our role in the project is to focus on the advocacy, so the circle outside of that clinical exam to make sure 

that there are people who are talking about sexual violence in the community, letting people know that the 

service exists, as well as ensuring that there are services for people to get attached to post-exam. So that 

is how we intersect.

So I thought I would just sort of chronologically tell you how we came to this access to Forensic 

Information Project, and it really started in the late '90s, when everything, as those of you who are in the 

field remember -- was about date rape drugs. I mean, date rape drugs, date rape drugs, it was pretty

constant. And we had a case where -- actually, didn't need to go there yet -- where because all of that 

was going on the SANE Program, us, the crime lab, et cetera, had come together to create a toxicology 

kit and a consent form that we started to use, again, in the late '90s, and it was a survivor who taught us 

that we had a gap in our system, which was that if the survivor did not report the case, that those results

from the toxicology kit were unable to be gotten.

So this survivor, Maria, was in a position of having a situation where she was raped by a coworker and 

didn't want to go forward and press charges unless she knew what the result of that toxicology kit said. So 

that was just not a mechanism that existed. So we worked with our partners in the State Crime Lab and 

came up with a strategy to do that, which was our toxicology line, statewide reporting line. And so, again, 

it's only for unreported kits, and it's only about the toxicology kit, not the whole evidence collection kit.

On a monthly basis the crime lab faxes results of the unreported kits to us by kit number, so it's 

anonymous. Survivors are given the information, that number, when they're discharged from the hospital 

and told to call it within 12 weeks if they're interested in finding out the results if they haven't reported by 

then. And so that was sort of our first foray into communicating more directly with survivors about forensic 

issues, and it's a great partnership. It continues. And we get about around seven calls a month to that line 

now.

So the second case, sort of fast-forwarding another five years or so, happened during sort the mid 2000s,

when CODIS and DNA and backlogs and all of that started happening in the news, and we also had in 

Massachusetts a big exposé about problems in our crime lab. So the Boston Globe was pretty well 

smattered with stories about mismanagement at the crime lab, issues where cases weren't handled 
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properly. And so it really stirred up a lot of emotion for people who had, like Natasha, described, trusted 

the system to take care of what the efforts they had put into it.

And this case came to us in our legal advocacy program, and essentially the person, like many other 

people, was stirred up hearing about CODIS, not understanding what it was, what they should do. They 

had been raped probably 25 years prior at their college in another state but someone who had broken 

into their apartment, and they had gone and gotten a rape kit done at the time but had not heard anything 

since. And so we were able to work with her and get her to the right place. But we realized we really didn't 

have a way of talking with people about what they should do if they find themselves in that situation. And 

people are hearing all these words and it's talked about a lot in the media, but there really wasn't a way to 

get correct information.

So we started about a year-long project trying to learn a little bit more about how people were seeing 

what was going on and what was available. And so we did a little gap study to basically identify the 

information gaps between what survivors wanted to know and what they were able to access through the 

people and systems and the Internet. And so we did do surveys of survivors, of advocates. We did key 

informant interviews, and we did an Internet search. And that's the one that's the most interesting to me.

We basically asked this guiding question. It's, "If you were going to go seek information about forensics, 

about DNA, about CODIS, what would you find?" So this is in probably 2008.

And what we found is that things sort of clumped into three groups. The first was that there was 

information out there but it was very technical high-level information. It was for people like you and me to 

understand the concepts, not really because you were asking a question. So it was not very accessible, 

even if it was current.

And then group number two, which was really concerning, because they were better at communicating 

directly to a survivor's needs were like the law firms and other people who basically had some hook to get 

you to want to go into their site. It was commercialized, ask-me sites were popular then. It was, you know, 

ask Mike and you could ask Mike anything and it would come up, things like that. So it was a lot of 

inaccurate information, very, like, inflammatorily presented, not professional, or commercialized.

And then the third thing that would come up was just news about cases. So it was, you know, all the 

newspaper stories, all the shows about it, the whole CSI effect was happening. So that was all coming up, 

but it didn't tell anybody anything about what they should do in terms of their own case.

So we've put together collaboration with these folks who are people we work with a lot. And I won't read 

through them because you can see them. And we've added people to that list since then, but this is skill 

kind of the core group. And we came up with three goal, which was to give survivors and their families 

accurate information, because we knew that our hotline counselor might say one thing to a question, and 

another hotline in the state might say something else. And we felt like if we could all come together and 

put all the information together and communicate it, we could all say the same thing.

The second was to make information available online and by phone in English and in Spanish with a 

survivor-centered feel. So it was for you, asking a question, getting your answer. And that we would 

create additional resources to go along with training, outreach materials, and ways of promoting the site.

So that is what sort of merged the Mass Statewide Access to Forensic Information, the project, which has 

those three parts. And they're managed by my colleague, Katia Santiago-Taylor, who works both to keep 

that partnership going with bi-monthly meetings but also does directly to survivors through these services.

And, again, the services are the toxicology alert line, where people, 12 weeks after their unreported case,

can get information about their toxicology kit results, and we're able to talk with them about what it means 

and what it doesn't mean. You know, we're in good communication with the crime lab. If we have 

questions, we can always ask them. And we could talk with them about possible next steps, depending 

on what is found.
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And what we found is that not that many people actually change their mind at that point about reporting, 

but what they do do is think about -- it just changes how, you know, it's your body, it's your test result. It 

allows you to think about what happened to you with more clarity.

And then we started a surviverape.org website, which I hope you're go check out. It's in English and 

Spanish as a full site, and then also has an abbreviated site in Portuguese and in French. And this is 

where we put our accurate information for survivors and families in an accessible way. It has a frequentlyasked-questions ability, so we have people come in, can ask their questions, and we answer them, and 

those tend to be highly-used pages. And as you can see, since we started in 2013, we went from about 

7,600 sessions now to 116,000, and even in the first quarter of this year we're going to blow that out of 

the water. So it really is information that people want to see. It is going to have a redo, because some 

things have changed in Massachusetts, and just to improve the site as our understanding of how people 

use it improves.

And then because any of us who have been a health crisis or any other crisis know that a website is 

never enough, it has people with it. So these are advocates who answer the forensic information line in 

Spanish and in English. They can answer questions related to the evidence collection kit or the tox kit.

They have all those partnerships. If there's a technical question we can reach out to SANE Program. We 

can reach out to the crime lab. We can reach out to the police, to the DA, and just ask hypothetical 

questions or make a connection for them if it's appropriate. So it really is just a person who can help 

facilitate whatever it is the survivor is needing or asking for.

So I don't know if we're going to do questions at the end, I think. Yeah. So thank you very much for having 

me.

SUSAN HOWLEY: Thank you. Gina, that's so inspiring to hear about that great work that you all are 

continuing to be leaders in the country. Now, with that, we'll turn it over to Dr. Campbell.

REBECCA CAMPBELL: Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. Clicking the mic. There we go. My name 

is Rebecca Campbell. I'm a professor of Psychology at Michigan State University. In that capacity I do 

basic research on trauma and how it affects the brain and the body. Natasha already embarrassed me on 

that. But what we try to do in that body of work is understand from a neurobiological perspective what is 

happening to survivors at the time of the trauma, and the immediate aftermath to help them understand 

and know why they feel the way they do, why they react the way they do, and I share that research now 

in trainings all throughout the country. Natasha and crisscross the country, often together, to talk about,

from the survivor perspective and from the science perspective, about what we know about trauma.

Also in my research, I study how victims experiences with the criminal justice system unfold and how that 

affects their mental health, and the short answer is, not well, which led me to research in the City of 

Detroit in 2009/2010, when they discovered that they had about 11,000 untested rape kits sitting in 

storage. So from that work, I've been able to bring together what we know from basic research in 

psychology and trauma, what we know from applied work on victims' involvement in the criminal justice 

system to try to figure out what do we do about reengaging victims when we find out that their kits have 

not been tested. In many cases in Detroit it was for decades.

So in the brief time that I have with you today, I want to share with you what we know what the state of 

the research is on victim notification on previously untested rape kits and what are some of the issues 

we're trying to do and move forward to promote survivor engagement after what can be a very prolonged 

period of time, where they sat and they waited and they waited and they waited. So, first off, let's begin 

with getting this to click. Let's begin with getting this to click. There we go.

I'm a social scientist, not a forensic scientist, but, like your discipline, we have to start with an operational 

definition. I don't know any other way to begin anything without a definition. So what do we mean by 

victim notification? Hold on two seconds. Okay. So what we mean by victim notification is the process of 

re-contacting sexual assault survivors to inform them that their SAK, their sexual assault kit, has not been 

tested. It wasn't tested when they originally made the report, and now it either will be tested or it has been 
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tested. And here I'm drawing a distinction that in some jurisdictions that they do reach out and try to talk 

to victims before they submit the testing. That's not super common. What's more likely is they've gone 

ahead and done the testing and now they need to reach out and talk to the victim about what that testing 

revealed. There are huge psychological implications of reopening survivor's trauma.

Now the other thing that happens in victim's notification is that survivors are often asked, do you want to 

participate in the reinvestigation and possible prosecution of your case. So in the midst of a very difficult 

psychological situation there's a very complicated legal issues that have to unfold. So there's two key 

things we need to think about in notification, so let's take two seconds to unpack them.

So, from a psychological point of view, what victim notification is, is a reactivation of traumatic memories, 

often completely out of the blue. Natasha told you she got a phone call, years -- how many years --

Years.

Year. A long time. She's going about her life, she gets a phone call. These survivors come home from 

work and there's somebody waiting for them at their doorstep. It is a long time. It is an out-of-the-blue 

notification, and we're reactivating traumatic memories. What does that mean? Well from a psychological 

standpoint, what you're doing is you're triggering a potential flashback by that completely out-of-the-blue 

reactivation of the trauma memory. If they've been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder in the 

past, you're going to re-exacerbate those symptoms and other mental health problems they might have.

After the notification is over, it is not atypical that a survivor might turn to substance abuse because the 

reactivation of that trauma is so severe. And for those who have been struggling with sobriety, victim 

notification can be enough to compromise their sobriety and they will relapse. So we're talking about 

some very, very serious psychological consequences that go with victim notification, so we need to be 

mindful about that.

Now, from a legal standpoint, there is also some very complicated issues that are trying to happen. It's 

not uncommon that law enforcement, when they finally do find the survivor and they talk to him or her, 

there's a lot they want to do all at once. They might want to review the prior statement that the victim 

made. They might want to try to take a new statement. They might have photo lineups. They might want 

to try to discuss the DNA findings, and then they're going to basically put the $6 million question in their 

lap of do you want reengage, do you want to prosecute, and they just came home from work. They just 

picked up the phone, and they've had this huge trauma reactivated, and then the police are like, "and do 

you want to do this." So it is a lot to take in all at once. It is an enormous, enormous ask of survivors.

So given that we have really complicated legal and psychological issues, it stands to reason, then, that 

we want to know what's the best way to do this? What are the best methods for victim notification? The 

problem is, is we don't know. And I want to take a second here to explain why we do not yet have best 

practices for victim notification.

In the context of sexual assault, this awareness of the problem of untested rape kits is still relatively 

recent, so there hasn't been a whole lot of research funding or anything along that way to promote 

research in this area. What limited research we do have comes from two jurisdictions, the one I worked 

with, Detroit, and the other, Houston. Both of these were funded through the National Institute of Justice 

to do action research projects, which were multi-year collaborations between researchers like me,

practitioners like all of you, to focus on just those two cities to see what we could learn from that.

Now I ask you, do you want to make national policy on what happened in Detroit and Houston? Probably 

not; okay? But it's a start, but that's it. You know, when we talk about the state of the state of research, 

we're talking about empirical data from two studies and even in these two projects it was very hard to 

study this issue. For those of you with a social science background and familiar with the fact that we need 

institutional review board ethics approval to do research, IRBs are very skittish about allowing social 

scientists to collect data on active legal cases because maybe the research would somehow interfere with 

the process and the like material, you know, could be subpoenaed, I can explain that, I can't give it. It's 
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complicated. So IRBs do not want us to actually try to do research on this, and yet we very much need 

research on how to do this so that we can be attentive to the psychological and legal issues. It gets a little 

complicated.

This is also hard to figure out because of victim confidentiality. There's some information that can't be 

shared. It was not a good moment in our Detroit research team when I had to sit across the counter port 

to Gina, and I said, "Can you let me know this information," and the advocate said, "I cannot give you that 

information." And I said, "Why the hell not?" And they said, "Because the federal Violence Against 

Women Act protects victim confidentiality absolute." I'm like, "Absolute? I'm Becky. I'm a researcher. I'm

here to help." They're like, "No, you can't have it." And I understand that, and we worked through that.

But there are times as a researcher there's information I want to have that I just can't have. And I get that, 

and I understand that. But it does make it difficult for us to understand how to do notification when 

sometimes, for very valid reasons, we cannot get to the very people who might want to give us that 

information.

And then a final factor of why it's hard for us to know what is best way to do this is the community context.

This is not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution. And I want to talk a little bit more about why victim 

notification and idea of best practices is going to be very challenge for this issue. And I want to do this by 

taking you through a national tour very quickly of all the jurisdictions that have disclosed that they have 

large number of untested kits. So this started in New York City and Los Angeles; okay, number one 

largest city, number two largest city. And I think people are like okay, well this is clearly just a problem of 

the two largest cities. Well then Detroit and Houston also stepped up and said, "Well we have large 

number of kits." Houston is the number four city, and pretty much nothing surprises anybody about Detroit 

anymore in terms of its crime. But then Portland and Salt Lake City and Phoenix and Memphis and 

Dallas, and then more, and then more.

So this is what the map looks like now. This is from based on information from the Bureau of Justice 

Assistance Program that I now work with, the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, SAKI. Once they made some 

resources available to jurisdictions that have large numbers of untested kits to say go ahead and put your 

hand in the air, nobody's going to hurt you. We can give you training and technical assistance. We can 

help you with funding to test the kits, training to work with survivors, this is how many places have now 

put their hand in the air to say we have not tested rape kits. And in some cases you can see there there's 

entire states that have said at the state level we have not been testing rape kits specifically.

So just looking at that map what is going to work for victim notification and engagement in Alaska and 

Jacksonville, Florida, is probably not the same thing because community setting is going to matter in 

terms of how you do victim notification. Are we doing this in an urban area? Are we doing this in a rural 

area where people know each other? Is this a Tribal land where we're going to be dealing with different 

jurisdictional legal issues? Is this a military setting? Is this a campus setting? So the idea that we could 

have best practices on victim notification you've got to take into account all of those different contexts and 

what's best in one city might not be best in another.

We also need to think about how to do victim notification from the survivor perspective, and whether what 

we're doing matters to victims of different culturally specific groups, immigrants, particularly in the current 

age of what their legal status might be. Victims with disabilities, victims from the LGBTQ+ plus 

populations, how you reengage someone matters who they are. And if they are a member of a 

marginalized or vulnerable population, how you do that might be very different.

How you're going to notify victims depends on how many you're trying to do. In Detroit, we were staring 

down about 10,000 notifications. So, if you're thinking about a protocol of trying to notify 10,000 survivors, 

it's a little different than what your protocol might look like if you're trying to identify 200 or 20.

And then, finally, what resources are in the community to help you do this notification? Do you have 

Gina? I mean, everybody wants to have Gina's center, but not every -- not all of us live in Boston. So, do 

you have a local rape crisis center? Many jurisdictions don't have that. Do they have system advocates, 
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someone in the police department or the prosecutor that can help do this notification? Do they have 

multidisciplinary response teams, or a SART, Sexual Assault Response Team? Basically, who do you 

have in your community that might be able to help you do this?

Some communities, Boston has the deluxe version. Detroit had none of these. None of these. They did 

not have a freestanding rape crisis center. At the time we started, they did not have system-based 

advocates and they did not have a SART team. So, there's going to be huge variability in jurisdictions in 

terms of where their readiness is to do this kind of work.

So, that pretty much shoots the idea of best practice kind of out the window, but I hope it gives you a feel 

for why it's going to be hard to get a one-size-fits-all, because we are going to have to tailor this to 

individual communities. So, as a social scientist, that doesn't make me particularly comfortable. How are 

we going to do this? So, what we tried to do in Detroit was think about, okay, if we can't say they're 

empirically-supported, you must do this, can we come up with empirically-supported questions to help you 

create your own victim notification protocol in each community.

So, that's what we did. We created an empirically-supported document, 12 essential questions for victim 

notification. It's now being released through BJA to help other jurisdictions that have large numbers of 

untested kits. I believe it's in your mystical, magical materials that were distributed to you. In the interest 

of time, I'm not going to take you through in detail all of these 12 questions, but I do want to just give you 

a little snapshot of them to give you a little bit deeper understanding of what kinds of complexities 

jurisdictions are wrestling with, and, again, try to highlight where the role of forensic science is going to be 

in many of these.

One of the first questions that a community has to deal with is trying to figure out who should be involved 

in creating the protocol. And I can say now that my work with the BJA-funded project, I see tremendous 

variability across the country, where there's some jurisdictions where the lab has said, "We're going to do 

this," and the advocates are like, "Really? Lab, you're going to do this?" And they're like, "Yeah, we're 

going to do this because we know DNA." And the advocates are like, "That's great. I'm so glad you know 

DNA. Tell me what you know about trauma." And they're like, "I know DNA. I know DNA really well." And 

that kind of conversation gets you very quickly to the need for a multidisciplinary team. Law enforcement, 

prosecution, crime lab, and advocates, and forensic nurses, you need all of those disciplines in the room 

because it is both psychological, legal, and forensic. The victims are going to have very technical 

questions about what this all means, so you need all of the disciplines there.

It's also really important, in the second question, to figure out what the protocol's guiding principles are 

going to be. And the reason why you need that is because there's going to be a lot of borderline calls 

here, and you're going to see some of those in a few seconds, where it's not clear what you ought to do.

So, you're going to need something to fall back on to say what are we trying to do. We're trying to be 

victim-centered, "survivor-centered" was the term Gina used. We're going to try to let victims and 

survivors make their own choices about what they want. We want a principle that says we're traumainformed so that the people interacting with survivors have the current knowledge about trauma and how 

it affects them.

Third key question jurisdictions have to figure out is what the heck kind of protocol do they need to 

develop. Broadly defined, you have two choices. Active outreach, are you trying to write a protocol where 

it says we are trying to find you, survivor, what Natasha experienced. They reached out to Natasha, 

active outreach. Are you trying to create an opt-in program where you create cool materials like Gina's 

folks have done, where survivors can reach out to the service providers to say 1-800-Where-The-Hell-IsMy-Kit? Or do you need both; okay? And jurisdictions need to figure out what they're going to do, is it 

active outreach, is it 1-800-Where's-My-Kit, is it a combination of the two?

The fourth key question that they need to talk about is when are you going to notify victims. Are you going 

to notify them before you send everything out for testing and give them a choice to opt in or opt out, or are 

you going to submit after testing? From a practical point of view, almost every jurisdiction I know is doing 

this after testing. If the survivor released the kit at the time she or he had the exam, and it can be tested, 
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most jurisdictions are saying we're good, survivor consented to release the kit, let's move forward with 

testing. If the survivor did not release the kit, like it's an anonymous kit or some other means, then 

obviously it should not go forward for testing. So, most jurisdictions are saying if there's consent, let's just 

go ahead and get this out for testing.

This fifth question is the one that's going to bring every jurisdiction to their knees. I've seen this in Detroit 

and I've seen this everywhere else. Why? Why are you calling Natasha? Why are you calling survivors?

Why are you making this contact? And most likely this is going to depend on forensic testing results and 

possible legal action. What do I mean by that? Let's consider, very briefly, a couple scenarios.

What do you do if there's no DNA found in the kit and the case is beyond the statute of limitations? What's 

the right thing to do? Do you notify? Do you reopen someone's trauma to say, "I'm sorry your kit wasn't 

tested. There's no DNA. Your case is beyond the statute of limitations, but we thought you'd want to 

know"? Exactly. You're all like, "Uh, I feel kind of uncomfortable with this." Yes, everybody feels 

uncomfortable with this question, because you can be very paternalistic, "maternalistic," and you can also 

really put someone through hell with notification. So, that's one of the things the community has to decide 

on.

What if there's no DNA found in the case, but the case is still within the statute of limitations? So, there's 

no DNA to help you out, but you could go forward, but there's no DNA; what do you do in that situation?

What do you in the situation when DNA is found in the kit, but the case is beyond the statute of 

limitations? So, this, for stranger rape victims, could be the opportunity to say, "We know who did it, but 

there's nothing we can do because your case is beyond the statute of limitations." Is that a fair thing to do 

to survivors?

What about some other quick scenarios to consider? Technology is my friend. What if DNA is found in the 

kit, it has a CODIS-eligible profile, but there's no hit yet? Do you get someone's hope up, do you give 

them the heads up this could be coming, or do you just let sleeping dogs lie? What do you do if DNA is 

found in the kit, there is a hit, but the case is beyond the statute of limitations? What do you do if DNA is 

found in the kit, there's a CODIS hit, and the case is within the statute of limitations?

This also underscores why you need the multidisciplinary team approach, because prosecutors, bless 

you, will have very strong opinions about this, law enforcement will have strong opinions, advocates are 

going to have very strong opinions on this, and this is why, at the national movement, we're very happy to 

have Natasha and Natasha's Justice Project to help us bring survivor perspectives, those who've gone 

through these different scenarios. Like I said, this is going to bring a community to its knees in trying to 

figure out what to do with these situations.

And then who's going to make this decision? Is one person going to do it? Is it a single discipline? In 

Detroit, we decided it was a multidisciplinary team because everybody wanted to be able to sleep at night 

and nobody wanted that one decision on their shoulders. They're like, let's decide together.

What do you hope to happen in this first notification? You have to balance the legal and the psychological 

issues, and the brain's ability to take in complex information. That was a very interesting moment in the 

Detroit Project when the, bless them, the police brought in their list of everything they wanted to do in the 

notification, and I got to put on my psychologist hat and said, "There is no way, under God's green earth, 

that this is going to work." And they're like, "No, no, it will work." I'm like, "No, it won't. It really won't work.

Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. You've just reactivated a traumatic memory. The brain is not processing 

complex information. This is going to take more than one meeting." And then the advocates went, "What?

More than one meeting?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah, you're going to need two meetings." They're like, "Oh, my 

gosh."

So, we had to come up with a process for two different meetings, one was a short, then a long, to get 

everything accomplished. And who's going to do this? Next question. Is it going to be law enforcement? Is 

it going to be a systems-based advocate? Is it going to be a community-based advocate? Is it going to be 

a forensic nurse? Everybody has different ways to do this. Law enforcement's like, "We have to be there."
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And the advocates are like, "Okay. Great. We have to be there, too." And they're like, at least in Detroit, 

they're like, "You can't be there. It's physically not safe." So, who's going to go out?

In other jurisdictions, they're like, "We want a multidisciplinary team approach, which everybody says, 

"That sounds great," and then you think about a team of people showing up on the doorstep after your 

day at work. And you're like -- there's no way, potentially to sort of hide the -- it's like, "Oh, whoops, never 

mind, all of us were wrong. We're going to leave now." So, they have to come up with sort of elaborate 

protocols for what if you show up at the wrong door. What if you show up at the door and the survivor is 

not in a safe place to talk to you, and you have this fleet of people standing there. You know, there's ways 

of -- you have to work through all of these different issues, very complicated things. And, again, what 

works in one place is not going to work in all.

How are you going to do this? Are you going to do it by phone? Are you going to do it in person? Are you 

going to do it in mail? Most survivors say, "Don't send me a letter. It's not safe." Phone sounds pretty 

good, unless you work with mobile-poor populations, like Detroit, where that's not going to be an option.

So, you, very often, are going to be showing up on people's doorsteps. So, you have to think about safety 

and confidentiality and privacy issues.

A community has to grapple with what information they can give. This was a fascinating discussion to 

watch between the advocates saying, "You have to give the survivors all of the information, including the 

forensic testing results." And the prosecutor is saying, "Over my dead body." And the lab is saying, 

"Hmm, I'm not even sure how we would do that in a quick, coherent way." So, you have to think through 

what information you're going to give to victims once you notify them. 

You need very extensive training for your people who are going to do this, on trauma, on the protocol, on 

working with different populations, and, as we learned in Detroit, self-care strategies. It was very hard for 

the people who did these notifications to see survivors yell at them, scream at them, tell them to "Get the -

- off their porch," on the other hand, to cry, to invite them into their home, to ask them to pray with them, 

to have coffee or tea. You can see any number of reactions from survivors, and they had to take whatever 

they got, and then they had to somehow get on with their life the same. So, we had to think about how to 

support the people doing the notifications.

And then, finally, last key question, this is my training as a psychologist, your training as forensic 

scientists, how are we going to monitor and evaluate this to know that it's going well? That was a very odd 

question for everyone. I said, "So, we're going to do some research on this; right?" They're like, "No." I'm 

like, "Yeah, we are," because we need to know how to do this. And, again, that may not -- everybody may 

be so caught up in the prior 11 questions that they don't want to think about evaluation, but you need 

evaluation. 

So, those are the questions. That's what communities have to struggle with. And when you can struggle 

with those and develop a protocol, as we did in Detroit, what does research say? Okay. This is not going 

to be the long part of my talk because there's two studies. So, if you want to think about the sort of state 

of the state of the literature, we have one study out of Detroit that was just published, Houston's still under 

peer review. This isn't going to take long. But it suggests that a trauma-centered -- victim-centered, 

trauma-informed principles will work. Most victims do not have an adverse reaction to notification, even if 

they yell and scream and tell you to get off the porch, it's possible they're going to yell after you, "Wait a 

minute, wait a minute, come back in here." Okay. Most will stay engaged. Most do choose to reengage 

and most do reconnect with services, and most do need extensive services, particularly in mental health 

and substance abuse after they've been notified.

So, it's a hard thing to do, but it can be done. It needs to be done and it has to involve all of the different 

disciplines that have anything to do with survivors and forensic issues. So, I thank you for this opportunity 

to address you today. And how are we doing on time? Did we do it?

MALE SPEAKER: [Inaudible].
3 April 10 DOJ Part 3

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REBECCA CAMPBELL: All right.

SUSAN HOWLEY: All right. That was a lot to take in. We have time for a couple of questions, if anyone 

has a question. And Cecilia, you can be first.

CECILIA CROUSE: First of all, I'd like to thank the panel. Natasha, sharing your journey can't be easy, 

especially as often as you said that you've done that. And I certainly appreciate you doing that. And also 

congratulations on your purpose that you explained so eloquently. I appreciate that. I've read, Dr. 

Campbell, almost everything that you've written. I've kept in very close contact with what's been 

happening up there. It's been -- there's been a lot of instances where we've used and not used, when it 

was suggested, some of the processes.

I have a question for Gina. Is an un-reporter the same -- let me back up. With our new Senate Bill 636 in 

Florida, if we have a non-reporter -- I guess my first question is at the same thing, but a non-reporter is 

someone in which they do not report with regards to law enforcement. So, there's no law enforcement

report. However, sexual assault kit is taken in what we call our Butterfly House, and that is kept for one 

year. But until a report is written by law enforcement, the crime laboratory -- that's not -- we accept it into 

our evidence unit, but we can't go and get it. We can't do anything with it until the non-reporter, which 

have one year, and the victim advocate calls and says, "You know, the one year is coming up." So, I 

guess my question is with regards to the toxicology reporting system that you have, and did I understand 

you to say that they can request for toxicology to be done without having a police report or -- I mean, how 

does that happen?

GINA SCARAMELLA: [Inaudible]. Okay. In Massachusetts, all toxicology kits are tested, whether it's 

reported or non-reported. 

CECILIA CROUSE: So, a victim doesn't request it. You just automatically --.

GINA SCARAMELLA: It's part of the consenting process for the kit. We let them know at the time they're 

consenting to have a toxicology kit done that it will be tested, and that, if they report, it would be part --

something they can get the results of through the jurisdiction where it happened with the prosecutor or 

police that they're working with, or, if it's unreported, we'll give them a number at discharge where they 

can call and get that information in about 12 weeks.

CECILIA CROUSE: And who gives that? Is it -- it's not the scientist, obviously.

GINA SCARAMELLA: No, for that reason that Rebecca was saying. No. So, they have trained us on sort 

of the basics of what typically comes up in the tox kits, which is obviously alcohol, number one. And then 

Xanax and that kind of stuff is probably number two. And I don't think we've had -- if we've had any, it's 

been only a very few of what we were thinking that we were going to find, which I'm sure you already all 

already know, Rohypnol and GHB never. So, yeah, that's the way it works. It's 100 percent testing for tox 

kits.

CECILIA CROUSE: Are you keeping metrics on the results, I mean holistically, not only just results, but 

the victims, if they decide to report?

GINA SCARAMELLA: I was thinking a lot about that as I was preparing for this presentation. And I think 

it's something we just haven't been able to focus on enough. And I think this is the time it's really 

important to go back and see what the impact has been of doing this. Anecdotally, I will, as I mentioned, 

say that it really has not turned cases. Just as extending the length of time for the evidence -- holding the 

evidence collection kit, because that's another function that we do is request an extension. In 

Massachusetts it's six months that they hold kits without reporting, and then you can request an extension 

and go another six. That is the law that's about to change to hold it for the entire statute of limitations of 

15 years.
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So, our local folks are -- our crime lab, we have a Boston crime lab and a state crime lab, are struggling 

with that because we're -- they're concerned that the view from the public is going to be that we have 

untested kits, but what we have is, of course, unreported kits that are being stored. So, we need to do 

those metrics and that work. Our crime lab is excellent and it's just something we haven't focused on 

enough in terms of pushing that information together.

SUSAN HOWLEY: Thank you. Dean.

DEAN GIALAMAS: Ladies, I want to thank you for your presentation. And in particular, Natasha, you 

know, you've taken this tragedy and as a personal story, and you've turned it into really a heroic effort that 

you've been doing all across the United States. It's benefiting groups like us. It benefits the criminal justice 

system. It benefits the survivors, you know, that are struggling as well. So, thank you for that.

I would be remiss in saying that we were one of the "posterchilds" up on your map. I'm from Los Angeles.

And just to provide everyone with a little bit of closure, in case you didn't know, we had about 12,000 

untested sexual assault kits between L.A. City and L.A. County Sheriff that was discovered in the 2006 to 

2007 timeframe. By 2011, we had eliminated that complete backlog and both agencies have been able to 

keep up since then. But to your point about notifications, the Sheriff's department has taken on a 

formalized notification program.

And my question to you is this, we have a policy in the laboratory where we test every sexual assault kit, 

regardless of investigative need, and we've discovered there are some cases that would never have been 

tested, but it provided some pretty substantial information, linking either to suspects or linking other cases 

together. So, we've seen that benefit, but I'm curious on the notification piece. There's multiple ways that 

we can notify. We're currently using a letter format, and that was chosen by, as you mentioned, a 

collective group, but has any research suggested or showed a type of notification that has a, for lack of a 

better term, a better effect or a more positive outcome, and can you elaborate on that just a little bit?

REBECCA CAMPBELL: Two studies, both of which used variations on in-person notification. So, as a 

social scientist, I have to say there's no data to suggest that mail won't work. All I can tell you is that we 

have an unbalanced design where only one method has been evaluated. It goes back to the issue of the 

size and scope of what you're trying to do. So, yeah, you were the posterchild of one of the bigger ones, 

and it's amazing that they've been tested and cleared. And in that situation where you have that many 

survivors that you need to contact, that's when I hear people do talk about mail with a combination of an 

opt-in approach.

The Joyful Heart Foundation has done some survivor focus groups, not sort of peer reviewed research 

but some focus groups. And the mail system was sort of mixed, but there was acknowledgement that if 

the scale is big enough, that might be appropriate, but can you combine that with the 1-800-Where's-MyKit with, you know, good public announcements, and to have, you know, advocates staffing the line, 

working with a multidisciplinary team. 

So, the Houston Project, which is also I think on National Criminal Justice Reference Service, had 

survivors who were not involved in cold cases look at letters and say "I like this, I don't like this." So, I 

could refer you to that. They weren't thrilled, overall, with letters, but they did have some feedback about 

what to put in a letter and what not to put in a letter.

SUSAN HOWLEY: All right. Julia.

JULIA LEIGHTON: Thank you all very, very much, and thank you for taking the time to share your stories 

here, and the research, and the research that needs to be done. I'm struck by some overlapping themes 

between the two panels that we've had, and the issues that we have yet to address here, and that I think 

we've tried to identify as being critical issues. And one of those is the treatment of evidence, how do we 

preserve it, how long do we preserve it, how do we notify people? However you want to define them, how 

do we notify people, whether they be survivors or incarcerated?
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And I think it's just -- you know, it's sort of one of those painful things. It was going to be inevitable. It 

didn't matter which panels we had on our last session, whatever they were. If they had been last 

January's panels, we'd have thought, "Gosh, we should have started there," or these panels, "We should 

have started here." And I think it just goes back to the issue of, while much has been done, a lot remains 

to be done. And these two panels, from what might seem like very disparate perspective, share some 

really common, common threads of what it -- of how lives are destroyed and what efforts need to be 

made about how you communicate with people that have been put in that situation, and what 

responsibilities we have to thinking through the notification, thinking through the preservation of evidence, 

and grappling with what went wrong and coming up with solutions. So, thank you very much.

NELSON SANTOS: Okay. I think that's it. One round of applause. Last final applause. Thank you. Okay.

That takes us to the wrap-up session, which we're a little early on. And considering that we were going to 

wrap up some issues that we kind of voted down, I'm not sure exactly -- I guess I'll open it up to folks on 

any topics that you'd like to discuss at this point in time. And if we don't have any topics to discuss, then 

we'll go into the public comment period. So, I open it to the floor for any comments, questions, on 

anything that's happened today. It's difficult to wrap up when there's no next meeting to talk about. So, 

Jules.

JULES EPSTEIN: Well, I have a comment. In light of the announcement that we received this morning, I 

realize that we voted down two proposals. I'm assuming it was done on merits. In other words, that 

whatever people thought about the overarching issues, reports and what should be in them, science or 

scientific results and how they should be communicated, that the concern was linguistic and not with the 

issue itself as being important to forensic science. I just felt it important to express my chagrin that we are 

going out doubly, not with a bang but a whimper. We were closed down. And being closed down, we went 

out in an ignominious way by voting down two proposals without ever taking an affirmative stand.

A year or so ago, at one of our meetings, Paul said to this group we're not grappling with the fundamental 

issue that every day in court there's testimony still going on that is not necessarily the most accurate. And 

I'm sure I'm understating what Paul said. I don't -- there's probably not a mechanism for doing this, 

because obviously we don't have anything to vote on, but I, for one, want to go on record that, as a 

member for 24 hours more of this commission, I strongly believe and am convinced that the forensic 

disciplines have significant needs on the two issues that we couldn't resolve today. And I hope it's clear 

that the fact that we didn't vote affirmatively on two proposals is not a statement that all is well. I don't 

know how to communicate that otherwise as a sense of the commission, but it's a sense of one 

commissioner.

NELSON SANTOS: Okay. So, seeing no other tents up, John, do you have -- okay. Okay. Yes, Arturo?

ARTURO CASADEVALL: I mean, I totally agree with what has been said. You know, the commission may 

be going away, but the issues that we have discussed are not going away. And I am an optimist. I like to 

think that, despite what many of us feel was not the completion of a lot of work, a lot of the discussions 

that went on here, a lot of the exchanges that went on here will change the future in a way that it will lead 

-- some of this work will have to get done. These problems are not going away. And sadly it's kind of a 

missed opportunity.

On the other hand, I come from the world of science where often dogmas and problems just take a long 

time to bid resolve. So, with something like this that has been going on for a long time, it's likely that it will 

take some time to work itself out. And I think this commission will have made a tremendous -- have been 

a tremendous catalyst in that future that we will one day get to.

NELSON SANTOS: Okay. John, do you want to open it up for public comment?

JONATHAN MCGRATH: Yes. So, there were a few people that registered online in advance of the 

meeting to provide public comments. So, now is the public comment period. Okay. Seeing no hands in 

the room, we will have a second public comment period tomorrow at the end of the day's proceedings. If 
3 April 10 DOJ Part 3

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there's nothing else, I adjourn this meeting. We'll meet -- reconvene at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning here.

Thank you very much.