Say that student X had been accused of raping another student at a university.
I have seen news reports of students being investigated by the University in cases like this, with no mention of the police. My guess would be that the press ignore any police activity unless they can get someone to talk about it and usually the police don’t talk to the press, but that there is a criminal investigation also going on in such situations (?).
But I was curious to know if there is any way for a university or employer to use the investigation that is being undertaken by the police? If it goes to trial, I believe that people from the school would be able to sit in. But, minus a trial, are they just out of luck? There’s no way to use the professional investigator’s experience and footwork as part of the deliberations?
Freedom of information request: Nobody ever gives out information on current investigations, so you’d have to make repeated requests until they’d given up.
Joint investigation: The police have to make a policy decision that they want a joint investigation. Often this implies that the second party has a statutory responsibility (and budget) for investigation, or additional powers that make police investigation easier. Around here, the police do joint investigations in child-sex-abuse cases because the health department is the lead agency. Also tax cases: our tax commissioner has wide powers of examination without a warrant, and our police have wide powers of arresting people who try to stop the tax commissioner
Of course, the media famously piggy-back off of police investigations, so I don’t rule out other circumstances.
Nearly all 4 year Universities with more than 2500 students have their own police force. I’d assume that when “the university is investigating”, it’s the police doing the investigation, not the dean.
And no, “their own police force” doesn’t mean private security. It means genuine police, with all of the same authority as a city police department.
If a case comes up that they have less experience with, then they probably get help from other police forces. But rapes, sadly, are probably a case that they have a lot of experience with.
Where I come from its the normal police who would do the investigating. This should simplify things but it doesn’t really.
Any police investigation (uni cops or normals) will only focus on the criminal aspects of the incident, which wll lead to charges, then to a trial and so on. The university or organisation will still need to do its own examination of what went wrong, eg what were the administrative, human and system failures that would prevent such things happening again. There may also be separate investigations by regulatory bodies, such as the Workplace Safety authority as to why a student was put into harm, the university regulator to see if the event breached charter requirements and maybe others.
If there is a court case then I guess the findings and decision of the court can be taken by these other investigations as being established fact, but I really don’t see the police wanting any of these to intrude on their domain or collecting information on behalf of other investigations, which are outside their legal ambit.
Every so often institutions will try to hide reputationally damaging incidents by doing their own investigations. It might be cheaper if they bought a neon billboard with one of those moving arrows that said ‘POTENTIAL COVER-UP’.
In 1998, the first accusation against Sandusky was made by the mother of an 11 year old whom he showered with. The Penn State University police department investigated the criminal accusation. Subsequent to the investigation, and after two conflicted statements by forensic psychologists, the District Attorney refused to file charges.
In 2000, there was another witnessed incident that nobody reported–not even the victim. No report = no investigation.
March 2002, McQueary sees Sandusky penetrating a child in the showers. He speaks to a campus official, but not the police department. No report = no investigation.
In 2008, a boy’s mother notifies the child’s high school about illegal contact between Sandusky and her son. The principal calls the police and the Pennsylvania Attorney’s General’s Office begins a year long grand jury investigation. Neither the university nor the the university police department are doing the investigation.
Grand Jury report is released at the end of 2011 charging Sandusky with over three dozen crimes.
Following the release of the Grand Jury report, the University commissions an investigation into the school’s response to the allegations of child abuse. This was not a criminal investigation. It was an internal review of policy and procedures and whether they were followed properly by employees. This Special Investigative Counsel did happen to turn up evidence of potential criminal conduct, and they “immediately provided these documents to law enforcement when they were discovered” (FSS, 2012, p. 11).
Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan. (2012, July 12). Report of the special investigative counsel regarding the actions of the Pennsylvania State University related to the child sexual abuse committed by Gerald A. Sandusky. Retrieved from http://media.pennlive.com/midstate_impact/other/REPORT_FINAL_071212.pdf
At no time was the University investigating any criminal accusations. During the entire year long criminal investigation by the State Attorney, the University was not engaged in a parallel investigation of any kind. So, I’m not sure how they could work along side the police or use information from a current, ongoing investigation as the OP suggests. A police department and/or state attorney’s office is going to handle the criminal investigations, and they are not going to be sharing that information with non-law enforcement. Period. After the investigation is over, the University is free to use that publicly available information to launch their own review of employee conduct and internal procedures.
There is an old police saying, no victim no crime. It sounds flippant but it’s true. In some cases the accuser does not wish to cooperate with police and does not want to go through the criminal process. There really can’t be a meaningful investigation without a cooperative victim. In some of those cases they may want a non-criminal school investigation. It’s less arduous, usually confidential and with a much lower burden of proof. Of course there won’t be a criminal penalty. Police will not be involved in that. It’s also possible that the police did investigate and did not find enough evidence to move forward with a criminal case. The school can still move forward with their own process which could lead to expulsion.
If the accuser does want to cooperate with a police investigation then one will be conducted in whatever jurisdiction it occurred. If it’s on campus then university police will investigate (in schools that have them). If it’s in off campus housing it’s the local department. In my state all major crimes are investigated in conjunction with the county prosecutors office. Every sexual assault I investigated I worked every minute with a detective from the prosecutors office as my partner. The school will not be involved in the investigation at all. Since civil authorities are not bound by all laws, rules of evidence and case law that police are any direct involvement in an active investigation could ruin any possible prosecution.
Is your question legal or practical? Part of my job involves conducting administrative hearings which often overlap with criminal cases.It’s perfectly legal for us to use witnesses who will also testify in the criminal case- police officers, victims and others. But as a practical matter, the prosecutor typically requests that we not use the witnesses until the criminal case is over , and we often grant this request. Typically, the prosecutor makes this request because when a witness testifies multiple times, minor inconsistencies creep in. But if there’s no trial, the prosecutor won’t get involved and we will just have the police testify if we need them.
