U. S. Department of Justice

This guide is intended to assist State and local law enforce- ment and other first responders who may be responsible for preserving an electronic crime scene and for recognizing, col- lecting, and safeguarding digital evidence. It is not all inclusive but addresses situations encountered with electronic crime scenes and digital evidence. All crime scenes are unique and the judgment of the first responder, agency protocols, and prevailing technology should all be considered when imple- menting the information in this guide. First responders to electronic crime scenes should adjust their practices as cir- cumstances-including level of experience, conditions, and available equipment-warrant. The circumstances of individual crime scenes and Federal, State, and local laws may dictate actions or a particular order of actions other than those described in this guide. First responders should be familiar with all the information in this guide and perform their duties and responsibilities as circumstances dictate.

Few criminal offenses are more despised than the sexual abuse of children, and few are so little understood in terms of incidence (the number of offenses committed), prevalence (the proportion of the population who commit offenses), and reoffense risk. Despite longstanding public concern over the medical, emotional, and monetary costs associated with child sexual victimization, rigorous programs to enhance the accuracy of predictive decisions involving sexual offenders are of fairly recent origin. Because of inadequate methodologies, studies on the psychology, behavior, treatment, and recidivismrates of child molesters have often yielded inconsistent findings. The uncertainty of information about sexual offenders raises questions about the effectiveness of special commitment statutes and ad hoc discretionary and dispositional decisions directed toward this group. Before it can combat child molestation effectively, the criminal justice community must first understand it. Empirical knowledge of the factors that lead individuals to sexually abuse children can support and inform the sentencing, probationary, clinical, and supervisory decisions that must be made with regard to child molesters. This report is divided into four main sections. Section 1 discusses the frequency of child sexual molestation and factors leading to sexual deviancy in individual offenders. Section 2 includes classification models for typing and diagnosing child molesters and describes treatment approaches and strategies for community-based maintenance and control. Section 3 talks about reoffense risk as it relates to criminal justice decisions and discusses predictors of sexual recidivism. To illustrate the variability of recidivism among child molesters, section 4 presents the findings of a 25-year followup study of 115 released offenders. Finally, some of the shortcomings of current approaches to reduce child molester reoffense risk are touched on in the report's conclusion, and an argument is made for postrelease treatment and aftercare programs.

In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm (table 1). Homicides made up about 2% of all firearm-relatedcrimes. There were 11,101 firearm homicides in 2011, down by 39% from a high of 18,253 in 1993 (figure 1). The majority of the decline in firearm-related homicides occurred between 1993 and 1998. Since 1999, the number offirearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011. Nonfatal firearm-related violent victimizations against persons age 12 or older declined 70%, from 1.5 million in 1993 to 456,500 in 2004 (figure 2). The number then fluctuated between about 400,000 to 600,000 through 2011. While the number of firearm crimes declined over time, the percentage of all violence that involved a firearm did not change substantively, fluctuating between 6% and 9% over the same period. In 1993, 9% of all violence was committed with a firearm, compared to 8% in 2011.

The Sexual Assault Among Latinas (SALAS) Study adds to the literature by using a national sample of Latino women to determine the extent of sexual victimization alone and the overlap of sexual victimization with other forms of victimization. Additional distinguishing components of SALAS includes an investigation of formal and informal help-seeking responses; inclusion of culturally - relevant variables such as religiosity, gender role ideology and acculturation in relation to victimization and help-seeking; and assessing the psychosocial impact of sexual victimization on psychological distress and posttraumatic symptomatology. A national sample of 2,000 adult Latino women living in high-density Latino neighborhoods participated. Trained professionals from an experienced survey research firm conducted interviews over the phone in either English or Spanish, from May through September 2008. Respondents were queried about lifetime victimization, help-seeking efforts, acculturation, religiosity, gender role ideology, trauma symptoms, and post-traumatic symptoms. Respondents were on average 47.76 years of age and largely foreign-born (72.4%). The lifetime rate of sexual victimization was 17.2% with 87.5% of sexual victims experiencing another form of victimization (physical, threat, stalking or witness) within their lifetime. Sexual victimization mostly commonly occurred with physical victimization in childhood (47.3%) and threatened victimization in adulthood (55.9%). Victims of child sexual assault were more likely to experience any form of adult victimization (OR = 4.59, p

The purpose of this project was to examine adolescent sexual assault survivors' help-seeking experiences with the legal and medical systems in two Midwestern communities that have different models of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) / Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) interventions. This project had two main objectives. First, we conducted qualitative interviews with adolescent sexual assault victims regarding their initial post-assault disclosures and their pathways to seeking help from the medical and legal systems. It is important to understand how and why teen survivors decide to seek help from these programs in the first place. Although SANE-SART interventions have the potential to be useful resources to teen victims, they are only useful insofar as they are utilized by survivors. In Study 1, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with N=20 adolescent sexual assault victims 14-17 years old. From these interviews, we identified three distinct patterns of survivors' post-assault disclosures and their pathways to seeking help from SANE programs and the criminal justice system: voluntary (survivors' contact with the legal and medical system was by their choice), involuntary (system contact was not by choice), and situational (circumstances of the assault itself prompted involuntary disclosure). Victims with voluntary disclosures patterns were more likely to remain engaged with the legal system throughout the investigation process. Those in the involuntary disclosure pattern were only sometimes willing to continue to pursue legal prosecution. There were too few situational disclosures to examine the impact of system entry on subsequent system involvement. The second objective was to conduct a quantitative analysis to determine what factors predict successful prosecution of adolescent sexual assault cases. Once teen victims are "in the system" what factors determine whether a case will be prosecuted? Criminal justice prosecution is a multi-step process, from reporting to referral, arrest, prosecution (which itself has many steps), and final case outcome. Rather than focusing at any one stage, we assessed progress through this system as an ordinal variable in order to capture incremental change. We examined how differences between the two SANE-SART models-and the evolution of these models over time-predicted prosecution outcomes relative to the predictive utility of victim characteristics, assault characteristics, and medical forensic evidence findings.

Our audit assessed programs implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and National Security Division (NSD) to identify, investigate, and prosecute terrorist financing. We found that the FBI and NSD have mechanisms to ensure terrorist financing-related information is shared and coordinated with each other and with other relevant law enforcement organizations and intelligence agencies. However, we found that the FBI could improve some case management practices associated with investigating terrorist financing. In August 2005, the FBI Terrorist Financing Operations Section (TFOS) recommended that FBI field offices consider the use, where appropriate, of six basic financial-related investigative techniques when conducting counterterrorism investigations. According to TFOS, these investigative techniques are: (1) FBI database inquiries, (2) FinCEN data inquiries, (3) government-wide database inquiries, (4) public and commercial database inquiries, (5) credit history checks, and (6) the identification and review of bank account activity. The FBI directed each field office to focus on financial information in counterterrorism cases and establish a financial investigative sub-file for all counterterrorism investigations. Also, each FBI field office was instructed to designate a Terrorist Financing Coordinator to serve as a liaison between the field offices and the Terrorist Financing Operations Section. The case files we reviewed did not always contain documentation of the use of financial-related investigative techniques or for not using techniques when it appeared unnecessary to do so. According to the FBI, Special Agents are not required to document each action it deems unnecessary to take and doing so may be unduly burdensome and inefficient. However, in our judgment better-supported case files enable succeeding Special Agents and FBI managers to determine whether a given counterterrorism investigation included an appropriate financial focus. In addition, clearly documenting the use of financial-related investigative techniques or valid reasons for not using these techniques is consistent with FBI investigative and case-file management requirements. FBI field offices are required to ensure that all reasonable investigative techniques have been exploited during each terrorism investigation. When closing such investigations, field office staff affirms that they have exhausted reasonable and practical intelligence collection methods and that investigative methods and techniques initiated have been completed or discontinued. We determined that the FBI documented the use of or provided a valid reason for not using FBI database inquiries for 100 percent of the case files reviewed. For the remaining five techniques, we or the FBI identified documentation of the use of or valid reasons for not using the techniques in most but not all sampled cases. The FBI issued a directive to focus on the financial aspects in counterterrorism cases by creating a specific sub-file for all counterterrorism investigations, but we found that Special Agents did not always adhere to this directive. We also found that during the review period Terrorist Financing Coordinators did not routinely review counterterrorism cases to ensure the field offices implemented the financial focus directive for counterterrorism investigations. We believe it is important that all criminal and counterterrorism cases be reviewed for a potential nexus to terrorist financing so that FBI management can seek to achieve a consistent approach to applying financial-related investigative techniques. Our review found that the coordinators did not always perform their duties as intended by the FBI, performed unrelated collateral duties, and were not always selected in accordance with TFOS guidance

Strong evidence links early problem behavior to later adolescent delinquencyand serious adult criminality. Many children in the United States are lacking fundamental elements essential for human development. These children are legally entitled, but have no access, to safe shelter, adequate food, basichealth care, and sufficient preparation to become economically viable adults. The absence of these resources has been linked to abnormal development, economically and socially marginal existence, and persistent criminality. Children whose parents are criminals have a high probability of becoming delinquents. Those identified in court as abused or neglected by their parentsare more likely than other children to become delinquent. Offenders whose parents were also criminals have a high probability of being high-rate predatory criminals. However, whether or not their parents have criminal histories, children raised by mothers or fathers with good parenting skills are less likely to become delinquents or serious offenders. Inmates who assume responsible family roles after they are released are less likely to recidivate than offenders without family ties. The vast majority of delinquents and criminals eventually "mature out" of crime; assumption of family responsibilities can be a key factor in this process. Research documents the effectiveness of early prevention and intervention in forestalling these outcomes. Waiting until the mid-to-late teenage yearsto intervene in persistent delinquency ensures that the battle will be difficult, if not impossible. The current focus on older juveniles is at best a stopgap measure; it ignores younger children, who, in the absence of early prevention/intervention, will soon follow the same nonproductive path astheir teenage role models. Research also suggests that early childhood programs cost relatively little compared to the costs associated with the problems they prevent later, such as drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, special education requirements, or institutionalization

This study reports that 4.4% of prison inmates and 3.1% of jail inmatesexperienced sexual victimization within a period of twelve months or since admission to a correctional facility, if the admission took place within less than twelve months. "Nationwide, these percentages suggest that approximately 88,500 adults held in prisons and jails at the time of the survey had been sexually victimized." Approximately 2.1% of prison inmates and 1.5% of jail inmates reported inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, whereas approximately 2.8% of prison inmates and 2.0% of jail inmates reported staff sexual misconduct. In comparison to male inmates in prisons and jails, the BJS Report found that female inmates were more than twice as likely to report inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization. Reported sexual activity with facility staff involved 2.9% of male prisoners, 2.1% of male jail inmates, 2.1% of female prisoners, and 1.5% of female jail inmates. The rates of reported inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization were significantlyhigher for inmates who had the following characteristics: Being white or multi-racial, Having a college education, Having a sexual orientation other than heterosexual, andExperiencing sexual victimization prior to coming to the facility. The rates of reported staff sexual misconduct were lower among inmates who were white and twenty-five years old or older, whereas the rates were higher among inmates who had a college education and who experienced sexual victimization before coming to the facility. Among inmates reporting inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, 13% of male prisoners, 19% of male jail inmates, and 4% of female inmates in both prisons and jails said they were victimized within the first twenty-four hours of admission to a facility.25 Among inmates reporting staff-oninmate sexual victimization, 16% of male prisoners, 30% of male jail inmates, 5% of femaleprisoners, and 4% of female jail inmates said they were victimized within the first twenty-four hours of admission to a facility. Significantly, most perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct were female and most victims were male: among male victims of staff sexual misconduct, 69% of prisoners and 64% of jail inmates reported sexual activity with female st