Research On Collection Of Evidence From Victims In Rape Cases

Rape is one of the conventional criminal charges.Rape violates sexual autonomy,severely damages physical and mental health of the victim,and affects the harmony and stability of our society.Among current criminal procedure law of our country,there is an inequality in rights between the victim and alleged suspect or defendant,existing apparent deficiencies in the protection of the rights of the victim.Compared to other criminal procedures,the damage suffered by the victim of rape cases is unique.The laws for protecting victim's rights in rape cases need to be improved.It worth mentioning that due to the difference between the characteristics of rape and common criminal charges in addition to unique damages suffered by the victim in sexual assault cases,the forensic procedures applied to the victim of those cases should be specially treated.During the procedure of obtaining evidences from the victim in rape cases,abnormal and unprofessional forensic procedures can result in the damage and loss of the critical evidences which affect sentencing and cause additional damage to the victim caused by misunderstandings and prejudices,violating the corresponding rights of the victim.This paper analyzed the difficulties of obtaining evidences from the victim in rape cases in four aspects.First,the difficulties in obtaining verbal evidence,due to the limitations of the victim's gender and obtaining evidences in unscientific places,is discussed.Second,this work talks about the difficulties of collecting physical evidences related to the violent acts due to untimely forensics and improper custody of the collected evidences.Then,this work presents the difficulties of physical evidences for sexual acts due to low extraction rate and lack of regulations for obtaining evidences from the victim.At last,the paper discusses the difficulties in collecting digital evidences such as lacking of professional training,regulations,and systematic guidelines.To overcome the problems mentioned above,this paper provides suggestions to the issues of obtaining evidences from the victim of rape cases in mainland China,considering the advanced methods and experiences from the U.S.A and Taiwan China,while combining the experiences gained as a frontline worker in crime investigations.The suggestions include,but not limited to,creating a specialized investigation room for verbal inquiry,selecting female investigators for forensics,utilizing designated hospitals and doctors for evidence collection and offering relevant training,and making practical digital evidence extraction guidelines.This work is to provide some groundwork for judicial practices and research of obtaining evidences from the victim in rape cases in our country.This work holds practical meanings towards accurate judicial sentencing and protecting of the rights of the victim in rape cases.