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How Do SARTs Help Responders?
Multidisciplinary teams provide a range of resources and shared expertise to help make services for victims a priority and to encourage quality evidence collection. Many teams provide interagency cross-training, develop guidelines and protocols for consistent responses, and consult with a network of government- and community-based service providers to heighten their expertise.
National SART Listserv Service providers throughout the Nation share innovative practices, protocols, and multidisciplinary solutions to emerging issues.
For service providers, these benefits translate into2—
- Better informed decisions through an understanding of cross-agency roles.
- More efficient use of limited resources.
- Improved interagency responses based on victim-identified needs and state-of-the-art investigative practices.
- Seamless service referrals.
- Safer communities through sexual assault prevention education.
Cases that involve SARTs—
- Are reported more quickly.
- Have more evidence (in particular, DNA evidence).
- Are the strongest predictor that charges will be filed in sexual assault cases with adult female victims.
- Yield more evidence on average than cases in which no SANE or SART intervention occurs.
- Are more likely to lead to arrest than cases in which there is no intervention.
- Have personnel who keep victims better informed and engaged throughout the criminal justice process.
Source: Nugent-Borakove et al., Testing the Efficacy of SANE/SART Programs: Do They Make a Difference in Sexual Assault Arrest & Prosecution Outcomes?, 2006.
