This two-day training is intended to aid law enforcement, medical providers, advocates and prosecutors in understanding the complexities of strangulation within the context of domestic violence to enhance overall investigation and prosecution efforts and support for victims.
A team of faculty with extensive professional domestic violence experience will include a medical provider, and victim advocate, a law enforcement officer, a prosecutor and a forensic interviewer. The training will begin with foundational information about the power and control dynamics of domestic violence within a context of coercive control and will examine the role that strangulation plays within these dynamics. A medical provider will introduce participants to the physiology of strangulation so participants develop a deeper understanding of the mechanisms used to either stop blood flow or cut off air supply or both during a strangulation event. Symptoms of this traumatic event experienced by victims during different types of strangulation will be discussed, and connections made between those symptoms and the law enforcement interview and prosecution direct exam.
Emphasis will include debunking myths, developing corroboration, creating effective and complete documentation that accounts for all the criminal elements to be proved and working in a victim-centered trauma-informed way toward a goal of offender accountability via successful prosecution. Participants will gain an understanding of the serious effects of strangulation, including those of multiple strangulation events and long-term damage to the victim, and will make connections between strangulation and lethality in domestic violence situations.
Class Times: 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM each day.
Lunch is on your own.