Good morning -- This article on Trauma-Informed just came out. The real question, is the Department of Justice paying attention?
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http://www.ifeminists.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.1456
ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND JUSTICE: DOJ PROMOTES 'TRAUMA-INFORMED' TECHNIQUES TO LAW ENFORCEMENT
By Margaret Valois, Esq. and E. Everett Bartlett, PhD
June 21, 2019
‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’ -- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
The City of Charleston, South Carolina recently settled a lawsuit with a college student wrongfully charged with rape. Following the canons of trauma-informed techniques, the prosecutor accepted the poorly investigated claims of the purported victim at face value, at the expense of the rights of the accused.i The student was later acquitted by a jury after only a few minutes’ deliberation.
Sadly, this case is but one of many examples exposing how a trauma-informed approach to criminal investigations is unethical and reckless. Similar tactics have been used on college campuses for years, leading sexual misconduct disciplinary proceedings to be ridiculed as “kangaroo courts.” These biased investigations often have resulted in accused students filing over 200 lawsuits against their schools - lawsuits they are winning more often than not.ii
What exactly is meant by “trauma-informed”? The basic idea appears reasonable, to create “an atmosphere in which victims feel more comfortable and willing to report an assault and provide law enforcement the information necessary to investigate the case.”iii
However in practice, trauma-informed investigative methods teach law enforcement to ignore inconsistencies in a complainant’s story so as to avoid re-traumatizing the “victim.” This results in “ignoring investigative paths that might demonstrate that no crime was committed or that it was committed by someone other than the defendant,” according to criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield.iv
In its recent report, Trauma Informed Theories Disguised as Evidence, Families Advocating for Campus Equality charged trauma-informed policies have led to “untoward presumptions about guilt and innocence” that are “antithetical to any fair and impartial adjudicatory process.”v
But succumbing to the #MeToo movement, police forces across the country are now participating in trauma-informed training.vi Even the U.S. Department of Justice has jumped on the ideological bandwagon.
On May 29, 2019, the Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center presented an online training session titled, Law Enforcement Response: Approaching Your Work with a Trauma–Informed Lens.vii The session was conducted by retired sheriff’s deputy Marcus Bruning, a self-styled “nationally recognized expert, a 28 year veteran of public safety, and a professional educator.”
According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police ethics code, “The law enforcement officer shall be concerned equally in the prosecution of the wrong-doer and the defense of the innocent. He shall ascertain what constitutes evidence and shall present such evidence impartially and without malice.viii Likewise, investigative expert Arthur Aubry has written that the ethical investigator must “concentrate all of his skills and energies towards securing the truth of the matter under investigation.”ix
But Marcus Bruning views things differently. Bruning stated that the main objective of a criminal investigation is not to obtain the facts and details of the alleged incident. Instead, the investigator’s main job is to avoid re-traumatizing the “victim” -- skirting the fact that in the event of a false allegation, the real “victim” is the person who is wrongfully accused.
Bruning emphasized that an investigator’s duty is to be empathetic and offer support to the “victim.” He advocated that reporting witnesses should be told (these are direct quotes from his recorded presentation):x
“What happened is not OK and not your fault. In no way, shape, or form are you responsible for what occurred;” and
“My job as a police officer is to get you the help you need and make sure the person responsible is held accountable.”
Bruning advised law enforcement to take a “conviction-oriented approach,” which means investigations should be carried out with an eye to “determining what elements of the crime must be proven and what will be challenged in court.” In essence, he argues to work the case from the position that a crime has been committed (because the “victim” says it did) and that the suspect committed that crime.
No surprise, the main focus of courtroom testimony should be the feelings of the “victim” before, during, and after the alleged incident. This provides the prosecutor, jury, and judge “an opportunity to experience a traumatic event with understanding and without blaming the victim,” Bruning proclaimed, apparently not realizing his non-sequitur logic.
Bruning’s declamations reveal how trauma-informed ideology seeks to radically redefine the role of the investigator as that of an advocate for the reporting witness. This, of course, creates confirmation bias which compromises the reliability of sexual assault determinations and discredits the integrity of our entire legal system. The presumption of innocence is eliminated and lives are ruined.xi
America's criminal justice system now stands at a cross-roads. Either we acquiesce to an Alice-in-Wonderland social justice ideology that insists an accusation should be tantamount to a conviction. Or we return to the constitutionally rooted principles of due process and the presumption of innocence: “Impartial and fair investigations first, verdict afterwards.”
Citations:
i. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/quick-not-guilty-verdict-for-ex-college-of-charleston-student/article_bc40e27e-e500-11e7-88a4-1b8b1c49ad0f.html
ii. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CsFhy86oxh26SgTkTq9GV_BBrv5NAA5z9cv178Fjk3o/edit#gid
iii. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/12/15/dont-start-by-believing/?utm_term=.9f34cd76a24a
iv. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/scott-greenfield/575707/
v. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5941656f2e69cffcdb5210aa/t/5ccbd3c153450a492767c70d/1556861890771/Trauma-Informed+Theories+Disguised+as+Evidence+5-2.pdf
vi. https://www.theiacp.org/projects/trauma-informed-sexual-assault-investigation-training
vii. https://www.ovcttac.gov/
viii http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/3352
IX. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5097&context=jclc
x. https://www.ovcttac.gov/expert-qa/
xi. http://www.ifeminists.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.1451