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April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, which presents an opportunity to remind every Hoosier citizen that it takes all of us to help create healthy environments for children. Children deserve every chance to grow up in safe families and communities. Children are the most vulnerable among us and keeping them safe takes an effort from everyone in Indiana, from parents and grandparents to community leaders like prosecutors and lawmakers.
This April, the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council (IPAC) is proud to highlight a new law that will greatly help child victims of sexual assault through the judicial process. Senate Enrolled Act 206, which became law in March, puts significant limits on the ability of criminal defendant to take the deposition of a child victim in a sexual assault case. The bill was authored by Sen. Mark Messmer (R-Jasper) and sponsored in the Indiana House by Reps. Jerry Torr (R-Carmel) and Donna Schaibley (R-Carmel).
Thanks to their leadership and passion on this important piece of legislation, the bill passed the House unanimously. Republican and Democrats alike signed up to join the bill as co-authors and co-sponsors. Thanks to a lot of hard work and shepherding by Rep. Torr, SEA 206 was crafted into a terrific product that will help countless child victims.
“During these depositions, children often have to recount some of the worst moments of their lives,” Torr said. “I was encouraged by the General Assembly’s swift action to help these survivors seek justice for the heinous crimes committed against them.”
Being victimized by sexual assault is traumatizing enough, especially as a child, but victims are also forced to re-tell their horrific experience over and over again in forensic interviews and depositions. Schaibley said oftentimes, the alleged perpetrator was in the same room as the victim during depositions.
“This process can be an incredibly intimidating experience for children, especially if the person accused of the crime is in the same room when they are sharing what happened to them,” Schaibley said. “Young Hoosiers are among our state’s most vulnerable and they need protected from enduring further harm when reporting these crimes.”
Not only did this process re-traumatize children but it also led to the families asking for plea deals or asking prosecutors to stop pursuing the case in order to protect the child. Thanks to the work in the General Assembly led by Rep. Torr, depositions in these kinds of cases will no longer happen, expect in extremely rare circumstances, such as the victim not being available to testify during a trial.
“We were honored to come alongside Rep. Torr and the rest of the House and work to get this law passed,” IPAC Executive Director Chris Naylor said. “This is a significant step forward for victims in Indiana.”
In this new age of COVID-19, it is especially important to do everything possible to watch out for the most vulnerable among us. With more people obeying stay-at-home orders, there has been a spike in domestic violence and child abuse calls, and statistics show that many more are likely going unreported.
If you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, don’t wait. Call the Indiana child abuse hotline at 800-800-5556 to make a report. Indiana routinely records a higher child abuse rate than nationwide averages. Together, we can all do our part to protect Hoosier children.
About the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council
The IPAC is a non-partisan, independent state judicial branch agency that supports Indiana’s 91 prosecuting attorneys and their chief deputies. It is governed by a 10-member board of directors of elected prosecuting attorneys. The IPAC assists prosecuting attorneys in the preparation of manuals, legal research and training seminars. It serves as a liaison to local, state and federal agencies, study commissions and community groups in an effort to support law enforcement and promote the fair administration of justice.