Old Cops, New Tricks

An innovative police unit is pioneering a better way to investigate sexual assault on campus— and listen to survivors.

One day near the end of spring semester, a 22-year-old I’ll call Abbie stood in front of a roomful of cops and recounted what happened after she was raped by another student at her college. Standing very still behind a large podium, she described how she’d driven to campus to file a report in the early morning hours following the assault, hitting 90 miles an hour, half-wishing she would crash. Within days, rumors started circulating about her; a faculty member blamed her rape on her “overcaring personality.” Then she met with Dennis Dougherty, a senior investigator with the Campus Sexual Assault Victims Unit of the New York State Police. Their meeting lasted five hours. She’s memorized the words Dougherty said after she finished telling him her story: “I believe you. I don’t know if there’s enough evidence to make an arrest, but I believe you.”

Abbie’s speech opened a two-day training in the Hudson River Valley for officials who investigate sexual assault on college campuses. It was put on by a local rape crisis center and the Campus Sexual Assault Victims Unit, which is trying to fix the way cops handle sexual violence among college students, starting with how they talk with—and listen to—survivors. The unit, the first of its kind, was created by a 2015 law that required all universities and colleges in the state to adopt “yes means yes” affirmative consent policies and guarantee the rights of sexual assault survivors. It launched in March 2016 with a dual mission: reduce sexual violence on campuses and get more victims to file police reports.