Honoring Polly Poskin
Polly Poskin is a pioneer in the anti-rape movement.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month
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Table of Contents:
Interview with Polly Poskin, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault
End the Backlog.org - June 10, 2011
http://endthebacklog.org/blog/?p=500
Polly
Poskin, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual
Assault, took some time to speak with me about her work to end sexual
violence in Illinois, the progress on there on the rape kit backlog and
the culture of violence against women. Her words were incredibly
informed and powerful and this transcript hardly seems to do them
justice. We are pleased to be sharing this interview with you today.
Sarah Tofte: Polly,
thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today. Let’s
talk a bit about how you got interested in working on violence against
women issues.
Polly Poskin: In
college, I focused on women’s history for my graduate degree. That was a
time when we were learning about the women’s movement. So much of the
focus was improving access to education, improving employment
opportunities and expanding daycare. And we got into reproductive
rights. Our women’s movement focused on educational opportunities for
women, equal pay, child-bearing and child-caring issues and the right of
a woman to control her body. We never talked about domestic violence
and rape. I wasn’t aware of those issues in 1970.
ST: So, when did violence against women come into your work?
PP: I
remember the New York Radical Feminists held a “Speak Out” on rape in
New York City in 1971. I came to understand that if women were to gain
equality and be free to move about safely in this culture, we were going
to have to have sexual safety. If women were to feel liberated, they
needed to be safe. And I realized that if we don’t end violence in
women’s lives, women were never going to be safe, free and even remotely
equal to men in all the areas of life that we might like to pursue.
ST: Once you decided to commit yourself to this work, where did you go?
PP: The
opportunities were not huge. There were rape crisis centers and
domestic violence shelters, but there was no funding for them. Then, in
1980, President Reagan signed into law the rape crisis services and rape
prevention program that contained federal funds designated for rape
crisis centers. That helped open up the field for more people to be
employed, including me.
ST: Tell me about the early days of your work on sexual violence. What were the challenges?
PP: Well,
if we didn’t have bona fide physical evidence that could somehow
substantiate the woman’s report of rape, then there was going to be no
support for–and no response to–a rape victim by law enforcement and the
criminal justice system. In the early days of my work, many of the women
coming forward were sexually abused as children or as young teenagers
and, now, decades later, were coming forward to get help from us and to
tell us what had happened to them. As there became more permission for
women to report rape and as women realized they could get the support of
victim advocates and have some community back-up, more women came
forward in the immediate moments after a rape. There was growing focus
on what physical evidence existed in order to go forward with a case.
Women began to believe they could report a rape right after it happened
when there would still be physical evidence that could be used at trial.
ST: I
have been doing some research lately on the origins of rape kit
examinations in the United States and I learned that Illinois is
considered the birthplace of the rape kit. Was it around this time that
the rape kit started to emerge as a good law enforcement tool?
PP: A
victim’s rights advocate helped develop the kit with a detective in or
around 1975-1976. Before the rape kit existed, there was very little
physical evidence collected from rape cases—or, if it was collected, it
was not always as useful as it needed to be. There were storage issues
and contamination issues and inconsistency in analysis. It was a bit of a
mess.
The
importance of the rape kit rose as reporting rates increased and more
victims came forward right after a rape occurred. In the mid 80s, an
investigative reporter in Chicago discovered that police were hoarding
rape kits in the trunks of police officers’ cars. The kits never even
made it to the police station. These kits had been collected and because
there was never any pursuit of the investigation, the officers never
took the kits to the station or the lab. That story opened the
floodgates to talk about the significance of rape kits, the lack of law
enforcement compliance in delivering the kits to the lab and the role of
state’s attorneys’ offices who too infrequently requested lab results
from the kits.
Since
the first rape kit was introduced, we have constantly made tweaks and
improvements as our knowledge base increases about what works and what
doesn’t for victims and for evidentiary value. We worked hard to improve
the emergency room response by doing training with hospitals and law
enforcement. We tried to bridge the relationship between cops and
hospitals so they would communicate better with one another.
ST: Why was the forensic piece so important to get right?
PP: As
to the crime of rape, our society does not believe women simply based
on their word. So, especially in those years before the rape laws were
changed, we really, really needed corroborating physical evidence in
order to get a prosecutor to take the case. We needed to have evidence
to substantiate the woman’s testimony of what happened to her because,
unfortunately, her word alone was not enough. The reality was we needed
evidence to bolster a woman’s credibility that she was telling the truth
about the rape. Quite honestly, so much of making a criminal case
depended on the emergency room personnel who documented the victim’s
condition when she came in—the bruises, the broken bones. All of this
was in addition to the rape kit collection, and together, it lent
credibility to the woman’s story. And in cases when a victim was afraid
to tell anyone about the abuse, effective and compassionate care in the
emergency room helped to encourage the victim to report the crime.
Forensic evidence also made it more difficult for the police to deny
that the abuse occurred.
ST: I
recently read that of the 4,100 untested rape kits in Illinois police
storage facilities, the oldest one was from 1978. Would you talk about
the difference between what a woman reporting in 1978 and having a rape
kit collected would experience and what a woman today experiences?
PP: In
1978, a victim would be fortunate if she got herself to an emergency
room. It wasn’t as widely known that a woman could get help, so it was
even more rare then for a woman to come forward to report the crime or
get medical help. The process of the rape kit exam was, and continues to
be, a pretty arduous experience, although that has certainly improved
through sexual assault nurse examiners who
are trained to do the exam as efficiently and compassionately as
possible. Thirty years ago, many women went to the ER to get care
because of a fear of pregnancy and many of them didn’t even necessarily
want to report rape to police. The cultural bias against rape victims
told a victim that she was probably not going to get the support she
needed and that the assailant would never be apprehended. There was very
little incentive to report rape. A woman went to ERs for care, not for
evidence collection, so the woman getting a rape kit collected in 1978
was especially brave.
Also,
back in 1978, we didn’t have as much information about the prevalence
of rape. There was no data. It wasn’t until Illinois required emergency
rooms to report to law enforcement that a victim had presented to the
hospital for a rape (leaving out the victim’s name or address). And then
we required law enforcement to publicly report the number of rapes
reported to them. In areas where law enforcement developed a good
relationship with emergency rooms, police would start to come to the
emergency room to gather information from the victim and about the
assailant. It gave police the opportunity to witness firsthand the
severity of the assault. Some police continued to use the ER visit as a
time to determine if they believed the victim. It was so important as
this practice developed to make certain that victim advocates were
present to serve as a buffer of protection for the victim and work with
law enforcement and emergency room personnel on her behalf.
Back
in 1978, the definition of rape was very narrow. The victim had to be
14 or older, could not be the assailant’s spouse and the sex had to be
sexual penetration by force. This narrow definition of rape in the law
told the victim that if she did not meet the law’s definition of rape,
then she was not a rape victim.
As
we started to get some data on the prevalence of rape and how many
different types of rape that were beyond the law’s definition of rape,
we started to focus on how to get the law to better address the broad
spectrum of rape.
ST: How do you think it helped to have an improved emergency room response?
PP: It
helped get victims the care they needed to put their life back together
again. It is my belief that victims need an immediate sense of recovery
in order to reestablish their lives. I think that when we get an
institution to respond well to the crime of rape, it’s useful in
responding to the victim, but it also helps to address the impact of the
crime on the community and helps preserve the physical and emotional
integrity of the victim. And we cannot underestimate the role the
advocate plays at the emergency room as she brings compassion and care
to the victim during what are probably some of the worst moments of her
life.
ST: And how has this improved training empowered victims?
PP: Hospitals
and law enforcement now know that rape victims get to determine their
care and the direction that care takes and that victims are free to
determine how much care they want. This lets victims know that they are
taking control of their lives and the process following rape; they are
then better prepared to be a witness and better prepared to be a
critical part of the criminal case. When professional care improves,
victims want to be more engaged in the system.
ST: There
are so many aspects to an improved criminal justice response. Let’s
talk for a moment specifically about DNA and how that is useful in
moving more cases forward.
PP: We
think of DNA as being most useful when the assailant is a stranger, at
least in terms of solving that individual case. And that is probably
true. But I think that if you are not testing all rape kits–even in
non-stranger cases–and not gathering the evidence that those kits
provide, then you are dismissing what can be the most critical factor in
the jury’s opinion. The more physical evidence and scientific evidence
you provide them, the more useful it is. And it is incredibly helpful in
interrupting the rape from occurring again, especially since serial
rapists are often non-stranger rapists as well as stranger rapists. So I
think it’s essential that we make sure that we are using all the tools
we have to hold offenders accountable and DNA is a huge part in doing
so.
I
believe Illinois is making huge strides in terms of rape kit
testing—and a lot of those strides happened because of the courage of
victims to come forward and say, “I don’t think my rape kit was tested.”
Everyone has to follow the law and we have a new law that
says we need to collect rape kit evidence and that the evidence will be
tested. You cannot have untested or unaccounted rape kits anymore in
this state without now breaking the law. So, by mandating by law that
every rape kit is tested, it sends the message that rape kit testing is
serious—so serious there is a law mandating it—and that we take rape
seriously. It is that kind of adherence to the law that creates a
cultural understanding that this is serious, violent behavior and we are
taking it seriously and we will handle testing with the utmost
responsibility.
When
people see that discretionary decisions are being made case by case
regarding rape kit testing, or when testing is based on an individual
police officer’s subjective beliefs about the case, then people see that
it’s arbitrary, that it isn’t law at all, it’s based on whoever is in
charge of the particular case or incident. That is a message to rape
victims that, “this is not going to go well for me if I report. It’s
going to be arbitrary about whether I am believed or not and I don’t
know if reporting is worth it.” Institutions have a responsibility to
provide standardization, uniformity, fairness and consistency in their
responsibilities and once that is undermined and certain people are
given passes and excuses, faith in those institutions is diminished.
ST: Let’s go back to the rape kit backlog. Talk to me about the latest developments in Illinois.
PP: There was a report just released by the Illinois State Police that found 4,100 untested kitsinventoried
in 379 different law enforcement agencies. Now that we have inventoried
these kits, we know what we are dealing with in terms of our rape kit
backlog. The best that is going to come out of this is that we will all
collaborate and come to a common understanding that the implementation
of law leads to successful investigations, increased safety of
communities and hopefully justice for the victim. We will start to see
the value of stretching ourselves to create laws and implement laws that
bring about justice and hopefully the prevention of rape.
I
would like to think that the effort to end the rape kit backlog will
result in a victim knowing that she or he will be believed and there is a
system in place that will do its very best to bring justice to her or
him. If, as a culture, we can ensure our citizens that if you reach out
for help, you will be believed that you need help, and if we say to an
assailant that they will be held accountable for violating someone’s
sense of sexual safety, we will be more trusting of one another and our
institutions. Maybe then, we can live in community.
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