Lt. Mary Keefe, from the Sex Crimes Analysis Unit, talks to women on how to prevent rape

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Demonstration at Police Headquarters against rape

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

John Jay College seminar on rape

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape demonstration at the Park Plaza Hotel, where eight women were raped and murdered

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

"Take Back the Night" demonstration (anti-rape)

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Anti-rape demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape protection karate exhibition at NOW office

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape info[rmation] board at NY police headquarters

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

New York Women Against Rape prepare posters for anti-rape demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Take Back the Day…Take Back the Night" NOW rape commission at City Hall

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape demonstration at Court house

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

The statutory rape crisis: a moral panic?

In this thesis I argue that the statutory rape crisis which materialised following the decisions in CC v Ireland and A v The Governor of Arbour Hill Prison, was a moral panic. I also contend that Mr A, a convicted sex offender who was released during the crisis, was a folk devil. Using data obtained from an ethnographic content analysis of a selection of newspapers, interest group statements, and Oireachtas debates, I demonstrate that the social response to the statutory rape crisis exhibits the key indicators of the moral panic phenomenon put forward by Goode and Ben-Yehuda. These key indicators are: concern, consensus, hostility, disproportionality and volatility. I employ the theory of moral panic to explain why the events of the statutory rape crisis ignited such emotion and why Mr A became a folk devil of the moral panic

A Novel Method for Rapid and Selective Extraction of Male DNA from Rape Kits using Alkaline Lysis and Pressure Cycling Technology (PCT)

There is an increasing demand for DNA analysis because of the sensitivity of the method and the ability to uniquely identify and distinguish individuals with a high degree of certainty. But this demand has led to huge backlogs in evidence lockers since the current DNA extraction protocols require long processing time. The DNA analysis procedure becomes more complicated when analyzing sexual assault casework samples where the evidence contains more than one contributor. Additional processing to separate different cell types in order to simplify the final data interpretation further contributes to the existing cumbersome protocols. The goal of the present project is to develop a rapid and efficient extraction method that permits selective digestion of mixtures. Selective recovery of male DNA was achieved with as little as 15 minutes lysis time upon exposure to high pressure under alkaline conditions. Pressure cycling technology (PCT) is carried out in a barocycler that has a small footprint and is semi-automated. Typically less than 10% male DNA is recovered using the standard extraction protocol for rape kits, almost seven times more male DNA was recovered from swabs using this novel method. Various parameters including instrument setting and buffer composition were optimized to achieve selective recovery of sperm DNA. Some developmental validation studies were also done to determine the efficiency of this method in processing samples exposed to various conditions that can affect the quality of the extraction and the final DNA profile. Easy to use interface, minimal manual interference and the ability to achieve high yields with simple reagents in a relatively short time make this an ideal method for potential application in analyzing sexual assault samples.