NCJ Number
214835
Journal
Alaska Justice Forum Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 2006 Pages: 1,4,8
Date Published
2006
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article reports findings from a study on how the Alaska Department of Law (DOL) disposes of reported sexual assaults between one victim and one suspect at three stages of prosecution: referral, acceptance, and conviction.
Abstract
From January 2000 through December 2003, the Anchorage Police Department (APD) received reports of 1,235 sexual assaults, including 1,074 sexual assaults that involved 1 victim and 1 suspect. Data on 1,052 of the sexual assaults involving 1 victim and 1 suspect indicated that 17.9 percent (188 cases) of the cases were referred to the DOL for prosecution and 67.6 percent of these cases were accepted (127 cases). A total of 413 charges were made in the 127 cases accepted for prosecution. Of the cases accepted for prosecution, 87.4 percent resulted in a conviction. Put another way, convictions were obtained for 138 of the original 413 charges accepted for prosecution. The greatest attrition for sexual assault cases thus occurred between the sexual assault report and referral for prosecution. Yet, most offenders whose cases reached prosecutors in Alaska were held accountable to some degree for their crimes. Data were drawn from the Alaska DOL and were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Future research should examine why the majority of sexual assaults reported to the APD are not referred for prosecution. 16 tables, 1 figure