Posts Tagged: Rape

Sexual assault evidence in California: a slow moving story

Image by BonnieJ via iStock

by BY CLAIRE MCCARVILLE posted 05.10.2023

California has only recently begun to take a legislative approach to dealing with its backlog of rape kits

Victim of a violent crime? California may have money for you.

Crime scene photo

by CAPITOL WEEKLY STAFF posted 01.30.2023

CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: In the wake of the horrific January 21 shooting that killed 11 people in Monterey Park, Gov. Newsom visited hospitalized survivors.  His conversation with one patient revealed an added stress for survivors of gun violence and other violent crime: the inability to cover expenses incurred or wages lost due to the incident.

A rape crisis detailed, step by step

A traumatized woman alone in her room. (Photo: ChameleonsEye, via Shutterstock)

by SCOTT SORIANO posted 12.23.2019

At 10 p.m., Jane Doe is sexually assaulted in Springville, a small town of 1,100 in Tulare County, forty-five miles west of Visalia, at the edge of Sequoia National Forest. After a night working through shock and trying to process what happened, Jane calls the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office, who dispatch an officer from Porterville. It is 10 a.m. The officer arrives 30 minutes later.

CA ‘rape kit’ backlog under fire

A posed image of a rape victim in a dark tunnel, with the shadow of the rapist in the background. (Photo: ChameleonsEye, via Shutterstock)

by JESSICA HICE posted 04.11.2018

Thousands of  California women who said they were raped gave details of their assaults to investigators and provided critical data in “rape kits” — DNA, wounds, semen, hair, fibers — to identify their attackers. But many of the rape kits were not examined in a timely way, caught in a backlog that has angered some lawmakers and women’s groups.

*UC Berkeley’s handling of rape complaints draws fire

Students walk across the campus at UC Berkeley. (Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman, Christian Science Monitor, via AP)

by MIA SHAW posted 07.25.2014

UC Berkeley – under federal investigation for its handling of sexual assault complaints and the target of a critical state audit – has a flawed system for dealing with rape allegations and an internal procedure that critics say shields assailants from criminal charges. The school is one of 55 campuses across the country being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for allegedly mishandling cases of sexual assault.