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The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases

The conviction rate in drug facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) cases is known to be very low. In addition, the potential impact of toxicological results on the case is often not well understood by the judicial authorities. The aims of this study were (1) to obtain more knowledge concerning the preval...

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Autores principales: Wille, Sarah M. R., Van Dijck, Karolien, Van Assche, Antje, Di Fazio, Vincent, Ramiréz-Fernandéz, Maria del Mar, Vanvooren, Vanessa, Samyn, Nele
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8147760/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34064432
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ph14050432
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author Wille, Sarah M. R.
Van Dijck, Karolien
Van Assche, Antje
Di Fazio, Vincent
Ramiréz-Fernandéz, Maria del Mar
Vanvooren, Vanessa
Samyn, Nele
author_facet Wille, Sarah M. R.
Van Dijck, Karolien
Van Assche, Antje
Di Fazio, Vincent
Ramiréz-Fernandéz, Maria del Mar
Vanvooren, Vanessa
Samyn, Nele
author_sort Wille, Sarah M. R.
collection PubMed
description The conviction rate in drug facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) cases is known to be very low. In addition, the potential impact of toxicological results on the case is often not well understood by the judicial authorities. The aims of this study were (1) to obtain more knowledge concerning the prevalence of incapacitating substances in DFSA cases, (2) to create a more efficient DFSA analysis strategy taking background information into account, and (3) to evaluate the potential impact of systematic toxicological analysis (STA) on the final judicial outcome. This small-scale epidemiological study (n = 79) demonstrates that ‘commonly-used’ illicit drugs, psychoactive medicines and ethanol are more prevalent in DFSA cases in contrast to the highly mediatized date rape drugs. Additionally, via case examples, the interest of performing STA—to prove incapacitation of the victim—in judicial procedures with mutual-consent discussions has been demonstrated as it led to increased convictions. However, more attention has to be paid to ensure a short sampling delay and to get more accurate information from the medical treatment of the alleged victim. This will improve the interpretation of the toxicological analysis and thus its applicability in a DFSA case. The future is multi-disciplinary and will certainly lead to an efficient and more cost-effective DFSA approach in which STA can impact the final judgment.
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spelling pubmed-81477602021-05-26 The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases Wille, Sarah M. R. Van Dijck, Karolien Van Assche, Antje Di Fazio, Vincent Ramiréz-Fernandéz, Maria del Mar Vanvooren, Vanessa Samyn, Nele Pharmaceuticals (Basel) Article The conviction rate in drug facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) cases is known to be very low. In addition, the potential impact of toxicological results on the case is often not well understood by the judicial authorities. The aims of this study were (1) to obtain more knowledge concerning the prevalence of incapacitating substances in DFSA cases, (2) to create a more efficient DFSA analysis strategy taking background information into account, and (3) to evaluate the potential impact of systematic toxicological analysis (STA) on the final judicial outcome. This small-scale epidemiological study (n = 79) demonstrates that ‘commonly-used’ illicit drugs, psychoactive medicines and ethanol are more prevalent in DFSA cases in contrast to the highly mediatized date rape drugs. Additionally, via case examples, the interest of performing STA—to prove incapacitation of the victim—in judicial procedures with mutual-consent discussions has been demonstrated as it led to increased convictions. However, more attention has to be paid to ensure a short sampling delay and to get more accurate information from the medical treatment of the alleged victim. This will improve the interpretation of the toxicological analysis and thus its applicability in a DFSA case. The future is multi-disciplinary and will certainly lead to an efficient and more cost-effective DFSA approach in which STA can impact the final judgment. MDPI 2021-05-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8147760/ /pubmed/34064432 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ph14050432 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wille, Sarah M. R.
Van Dijck, Karolien
Van Assche, Antje
Di Fazio, Vincent
Ramiréz-Fernandéz, Maria del Mar
Vanvooren, Vanessa
Samyn, Nele
The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases
title The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases
title_full The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases
title_fullStr The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases
title_full_unstemmed The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases
title_short The Interest of a Systematic Toxicological Analysis Combined with Forensic Advice to Improve the Judicial Investigation and Final Judgment in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases
title_sort interest of a systematic toxicological analysis combined with forensic advice to improve the judicial investigation and final judgment in drug facilitated sexual assault cases
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8147760/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34064432
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ph14050432
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