Excerpt from: care2 (click for full article)
In the past four years, residents with developmental disabilities at the state of California’s board-and-care facilities have filed 36 reports of molestation or rape by caretakers. Just reading those figures — which are very likely higher as many of these residents have intellectual, speech and other disabilities that make communication difficult — is alarming and all the more if you are, like me, the parent of a teenage autistic child who will be living in some sort of group home or other setting all too soon.
Even more alarming is that, as SFGate.com reports, the Office of Protective Services, the police force assigned to protect residents at California’s five developmental centers, did not carry out “even the simplest tasks” in investigating alleged crimes of sexual assault. Doctors and nurses at California’s five developmental centers are not trained to deal with sexual assault victims, SFGate.com also reports.
Most other police departments use a “rape kit” to collect evidence that is all the more crucial given the vulnerable population of the developmental centers. The examination, performed in a hospital by nurses, is considered the “best way to find evidence of sexual abuse”; without any physical evidence, solving sex crimes can be difficult to the point of impossible.
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