Ann Burdges
Executive Director, Gwinnett Sexual Assault Center & Children’s Advocacy Center
Our facility handles everything from victim advocacy, forensic training, counseling and collection of evidence in sexual assault cases. We work with men and women and children.
We’re very fortunate because our facility gets a lot of support from law enforcement and the District Attorney’s office. We’ve been called a model facility, both statewide and nationwide. We do everything on site. We get notified (about a sexual assault) primarily through law enforcement. In all incidents with sexual violence, we perform a forensic medical examination and collect evidence. We are open 24 hours a day; we have on-call teams. It took many years for this system to evolve.
Typically we are notified by a police dispatcher that “Detective X” and a victim are en route. We usually have a 30-minute response time. When the victim arrives at our center, she is met by an advocate, taken to a quiet room area, made comfortable and we then do an immediate assessment. We address the victim’s immediate needs, their emotional condition, whatever. The SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) meets with the detective to get the basic facts. The questions a SANE might ask would be: did the attack occur out of doors? Has the victim showered since the attack? Any other helpful information. At that point, the SANE goes into the examination room with the victim and performs a full forensic examination. The SANE asks about medical history, medications, allergies, etc. She will also ask about the nature of the assault and what areas of the victims body she should focus on. The SANE will explain how the evidence collection procedure works. The exam room is completely private. There is a connecting hallway from the exam room to a bathroom; they never have to step outside into the public area.
What the SANE will be looking for is bodily fluids. She’ll swab those areas to collect the fluids. She’ll collect any hair or fibers and take pictures of any bruising. After the examination, we’ll educate and explain what happens next.
We’ll tell the victim about the morning after pill; we’ll tell her about STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases). We’ll let her take a shower, dry her hair and get into some different clothes. We keep a large supply of clothes here, in all sizes. After that, the detective will conduct an audio-taped interview with the victim. We’ll tell her about our follow up services, such as counseling. We’ll tell her when she can expect lab results from any tests that we’ve done. We’ll schedule a follow-up visit.
Once we’ve collected the evidence, we’ll seal it in an evidence bag and then give it directly to the law enforcement officers. The SANE may also debrief the officer, explaining bruising, or why there may not be any bruising or trauma. Then the SANE completes her report immediately.
There still continues to be a lot of myths surrounding sexual assault, like how the victim dresses might actually lead to rape. We still hear that on many cases. The defense will say something like, she’s putting her body on public display; she was asking for it. “She’s walking around like a slut, drinking and getting high on drugs.” She’s not asking to be raped; she’s just exercising poor judgment. If you put a man in the same situation, would you reach the same conclusion? Say some guy is walking around with cut-off jeans, maybe drunk or high, is he asking to be sexually assaulted?
The most important thing for a victim of sexual assault, any victim, is to get counseling as soon as possible after the assault. I’ve seen it time and time again where a victim who put off getting counseling had a much harder time coming to grips with what happened to them than the ones who didn’t.