August 19, 2024, 2:00 PM ET – 3:30 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT – 12:30 PM PT: Overcoming Barriers to Justice: Prosecuting Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Human Trafficking Involving Victims from American Indian and Alaska Native Communities
This web-based panel will explore the ways in which bias against survivors from American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities affects the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and human trafficking.
Panelists will address the following topics:
Effects of inequalities and challenges that survivors from AIAN communities uniquely face as victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and human trafficking.
Barriers to reporting crimes, such as bias and stereotypes held by law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and jurors that can translate into disparate outcomes for victims through unfair credibility determinations.
Impact of bias on case assessments of the likelihood of conviction, and collateral consequences on a victim’s ability to seek healing and justice.
Strategies for prosecutors’ offices to enhance justice for AIAN victims by engaging in cultural humility, improving training, and ensuring accountability reinforced by data.
This project was supported by Grant No.15JOVW-22-GK-03987-MUMU awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.