New law: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett (center, seated) signed the Adam Walsh bill into law Jan. 3. The law requires homeless and out-of-state offenders to register and expands the definition of institutional sexual assault to employees, volunteers and other adults who work with children in schools and other centers. The signing brought Pennsylvania into compliance with the Federal Adam Walsh Act.

Dear Legislative Friends,

HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence are urging the Pennsylvania House and Senate to restore funds to the House amended budget because of victims like Beth. 

HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape presented Carol Lavery with the 2011 Pennsylvania Visionary Voice Award, April 6 at the Rotunda, Capitol Building in Harrisburg during its annual advocacy day.

 Lavery earned the award in 2011 for her career-long dedication to helping victims of crime and advocacy for sexual assault victims and their families.

Last week U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) held a hearing in Washington, D.C. to hear from experts and victims about the mishandling of rape cases. The hearing also addressed the FBI's antiquated definition of rape and how the system of collecting data on incidents of rape is outdated. Below are news stories and press releases covering this story:
 
Feds undercounting rape victims, advocates warn

Pennsylvania is one of two states that doesn't allow for them to testify, but many say doing so could help jury members understand the behavior of the victims.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
BY ASHLEY MANNINGS
 
For The Patriot-News
http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1284000906102700.xml&coll=1
 
 
Kate Rush Cook believes that if an expert in what a sexual assault victim goes through was allowed to testify at her trial, the man who was acquitted of raping her would not have been turned loose.
 
"I was victimized once by my rapist and then subsequently by the court system," said Cook, of York County.
 
Pennsylvania is one of only two states that does not allow expert testimony in sexual assault cases, which many claim could help jury members better understand the behavior of the victims. Minnesota is the other.
 
Rep. Cherelle Parker, D-Philadelphia, is sponsoring a bill that would allow a qualified expert to testify regarding symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and any recognized and accepted victim behavior in sexual assault cases.
 
Seventeen years ago, Cook was kidnapped, terrorized, robbed and raped. She reported the crime amid tears and hysteria, but it wasn't until her trial that she realized she was not prepared for what she would have to endure.
 
For example, she was asked questions such as where she bought her underwear and what color they were.
 
Sexual assault is the only crime in which the victim is continually scrutinized and questioned, said Jennifer Storm, executive director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program.
 
During Cook's trial, it became clear that not only did she have to recall the painful memories that occurred that day, but she had to defend herself against myths and stereotypes the jurors had about rape victims.
 
"While my rapist was on trial, I was made to feel as if I had to prove my innocence," she said.
 

Hearing spurred in part by Sun reporting on cases in city
 
By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-senate-hearing-rapes-20100907,0,4630153.story
 
Concerned that police departments nationwide fail to fully investigate rapes, a congressional committee will examine the issue next week at a hearing spurred partly by a Baltimore Sun examination of the systemic underreporting of sex crimes.
 
The Senate Crime and Drugs subcommittee has asked representatives of the Office of Violence Against Women to appear in Washington to discuss the problem, as well as a Pennsylvania woman jailed by police who erroneously accused her of making a false rape report.
 
The Sun reported in July that Baltimore for years led the nation in the percentage of rape cases in which police concluded that the victim was lying, with more than 3 in 10 cases determined to be "unfounded." Other cities have seen disturbingly high percentages of uninvestigated or dropped race cases in years past, and a women's advocate in Philadelphia pushed for the congressional hearing after the Sun's investigation reignited concerns.
 
The newspaper's report "made me believe that all of the issues [in other cities] were not just idiosyncratic problems, but that there is likely a chronic and systemic failure in police departments," said Carol E. Tracy, head of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia. "I think it's important to expose it, and to encourage the federal government, which has very little jurisdiction around this, to nevertheless exercise greater accountability on the data that it does receive."

Last week New York Governor David Patterson signed a law, the first of its kind in the U.S. that would allow those forced into prostitution or sex trafficking to erase prior prostitution convictions from their records completely.
Read more here:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/new-law-allows-sex-traffick...

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
 

For Immediate Release
 
July 29, 2010

4:58 P.M. EDT
 
     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  Please have a seat.
 
     I want to start, obviously, by thanking Lisa for her introduction and having the courage to share her story with all of us today.  It’s for every survivor like Lisa who has never gotten their day in court, and for every family that feels like justice is beyond reach, and for every tribal community struggling to keep its people safe, that I’ll be signing the Tribal Law and Order Act into law today. 
 
     And in doing so, I intend to send a clear message that all of our people -- whether they live in our biggest cities or our most remote reservations -- have the right to feel safe in their own communities, and to raise their children in peace, and enjoy the fullest protection of our laws. 
 
     As many of you know, I campaigned on this issue.  And during our last -- during our tribal conference last year, I pledged my administration’s fullest support for this bill.  And I told Senator Dorgan last week that I intended to sign it in a ceremony here at the White House with all of you.  So today, I am proud to make good on my word.

Published on May 26, 2010 in The Tennessean
 

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a por­tion of the Adam Walsh Child Pro­tec­tion and Safety Act that allows fed­eral courts to order civil com­mit­ments of men­tally ill “sex­u­ally dan­ger­ous” fed­eral pris­on­ers if they have reached the end of their crim­i­nal sen­tences or if they are incom­pe­tent to stand trial.
Civil com­mit­ments for men­tally ill sex offend­ers are a com­mon sense and humane approach to crime pre­ven­tion and com­mu­nity safety. When con­sid­er­ing the impact of sex­ual vio­lence upon vic­tims, it is clear that this class of inmates requires a height­ened leg­isla­tive and judi­cial response to pre­vent future crimes and pro­tect communities.
 
Twenty-two states also have sim­i­lar civil com­mit­ment laws for this class of inmates, and the Supreme Court has pre­vi­ously upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of those laws as well, not­ing that pre­vi­ous instances of vio­lent behav­ior are an impor­tant indi­ca­tor of future vio­lent ten­den­cies. The laws that pro­vide for civil com­mit­ments also pro­tect the rights of these pris­on­ers by pro­vid­ing for the appoint­ment of attor­neys and peri­odic judi­cial review to deter­mine whether the pris­oner remains dangerous.
 
Civil com­mit­ment statutes place the focus where it belongs, on the preda­tory, vio­lent con­duct of sex offend­ers and on the deviant moti­va­tions and/or men­tal ill­nesses that con­tribute to their crim­i­nal behav­ior. If the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem rou­tinely took this same offender-focused approach when sex­ual assault cases first come into the sys­tem, more cases would be inves­ti­gated and pros­e­cuted, lead­ing to more jus­tice for vic­tims. This, too, would pre­vent crime and pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties from sex offenders.