SAKI's Partnership With the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program

• NCJ Number: 252606
• Date Published: April 2018
• Length: 2 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2015-AK-BX-K021
• Agencies: BJA-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Report (Technical Assistance); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description; Instructional Material; Grants and Funding; Factsheet

Annotation

This training and technical assistance resource for grantees of the federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) - which involves implementation of a model to reduce backlogs of untested sexual assault kits (SAKs) in local and state jurisdictions - explains SAKI's partnership with the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP).

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Justice established the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) VICAP in 1985, with the goal of providing crime analysis support to local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. Its featured model for apprehending violent criminals includes 1) collecting, assessing, collating, and analyzing case information; 2) providing investigative leads and resource recommendations; and 3) facilitating coordination across multiple agencies. As part of these efforts, VICAP manages a web National Crime Database with just over 86,000 cases. This database is available only to law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies through the secure Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP). This database enables the identification of similar criminal cases on regional, state, and national levels. The types of cases included in this database are homicides and attempted homicides, sexual assaults that are known or suspected to be part of a series and/or committed by a stranger, missing- person cases with a strong indication of foul play, and unidentified human remains from a known or suspected homicide. Fiscal year 2018 SAKI sites are required to enter data into the VICAP database for all cases that meet the VICAP submission criteria. The SAKI Training and Technical Assistance (SAKI TTA) Team recommends that sites begin this effort by prioritizing entry of cases that are linked to other cases via DNA/CODIS hits; e.g., if a SAKI site has unknown serial rapists who have a DNA hit to other cases, these cases should be prioritized for entry into VICAP.