Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

On April 4, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague Letter on campus sexual assault reaffirming the intent of Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Since that time, increased public scrutiny and legislative action has led to corresponding institutional changes on college campuses. These developments include the formalization of campus investigations and adjudications, the development of campus coordinating committees and expanded support mechanisms for victims. In Virginia, laws passed in 2015 require notification to both the local jurisdiction’s law enforcement agency and prosecutors’ offices of certain sexual assault offenses reported to colleges and universities and transcript notations. To date, no research exists on how prosecutors, who provide the gateway to justice, make sense of and navigate these emerging developments when making decisions about cases. The present study will help to fill that void by using inductive qualitative methods through a symbolic interactionism theoretical framework. Data will be collected via in-depth interviews with prosecutors across Virginia to examine how they create meaning based on case elements in campus sexual assault cases including legal considerations and victim and offender characteristics, as well as their perceptions of the influence of internal and external relationships on their decision-making. Data will be coded and analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. Results will inform the development of public policy to ultimately improve practice and information sharing processes in both campus and criminal justice-prosecution systems.