HOUSTON – District Attorney Kim Ogg is awarding a Houston area group $269,000 to provide trained forensic interviews in hopes of lessening the trauma for sexual assault victims.
Ogg, along with the Forensic Center of Excellence and the UTMB Center for Violence Prevention, discussed the benefits of forensic interviewing of adult sexual assault victims, which they say is a less invasive and intimidating process.
Forensic interviewing is a process in which highly trained experts meet with sexual assault victims to get the information necessary to identify and prosecute their attackers without adding to the fear and trauma inherent in a sexual assault. Adult forensic interviewers coordinate with law enforcement to interview victims in a safer, neutral and less intimidating environment than a police station or hospital interview room.
As a result, Ogg says assault victims often share more information in greater detail than they might in a more aggressive law-enforcement interview.
“Sexual assault is one of the most invasive and traumatizing of all crimes,” said Ogg. “Anything we can do to lessen that trauma and still get the information needed to lock up these attackers is money well spent.”
Khara Breeden, the founder and chief executive officer of the Forensic Center of Excellence, said Ogg’s office has been funding the center’s Texas Forensic Nurse Examiners adult forensic interviewing programs for more than two years.
Breeden said the grant from the District Attorney’s Office will allow her agency to employ three more full-time forensic interviewers, for a total of four. The center operates out of offices in the Upper Kirby District.