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WHAT IS THE LEGAL RESOURCES PROGRAM?
The Legal Resources Program is within the Sexual Violence Justice Institute. (SVJI). It is headed by staff attorney Caroline Palmer. Minnesota is a geographically large and demographically diverse state, with criminal justice professionals working with rural, urban, majority, minority, immigrant, conservative, and liberal populations simultaneously around the state. For this reason, they encounter various problems and successes in investigating, prosecuting, providing advocacy, and corrections supervision in sexual assault cases. Wouldn't it be nice if there were one centralized source of information, resources, systems change, and policy that could help professionals address sexual assault cases under these circumstances?
The LRP does that. We are working to bring professionals together, tapping resources such as legal research and briefs for prosecutors to share, expert witness and scientific information about sexual assault, policy initiatives through legislative and other state-wide systems actions, training and technical assistance. Generally, we are looking closely at the criminal justice process in this state as it applies to sexual assault cases, and will be working to correct problems and spread solutions to the professionals who address those cases.
A very helpful initiative has been the state-wide legal resources team of prosecutors and law enforcement who meet regularly to advise SVJI about what needs to be done. These experienced professionals represent many of the diverse areas outlined above, and provide insight and input directly from the field as to what works, and how to improve what doesn't. This team is open to all who can contribute, so please contact us if you are interested in assisting.
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