sex crimes such as those illustrated in the news headlines and excerpts below: · A woman charged with raping a man while he slept has agreed to plead guilty to 2nd degree assault and 3rd degree attempted rape. · While she was driving, Ross pulled out a black revolver and ordered the man, who was in the passenger seat, to get in the back and have sex with her friend…the woman in the backseat demanded that he take off his clothes and the man complied by taking off his shoes, pants and underwear before he was assaulted… · Temple woman charged with sexual assault of fifteen-year-old girl · Waco woman charged with sexual assault after boy under 15 contracts gonorrhea, chlamydia 42 · A Jonesboro woman, 21, is charged with sexual assault after having sex with a teen, 14 · SW woman charged with sexual assault of son’s 13-year-old friend during sleepover · Northeastern Iowa woman charged with sexual assault of 2 girls In jurisdictions where non-clinical professionals may be assigned to complete sample collection, there may be an explicit assumption that the examinations do not involve body cavities other than the oral cavity for buccal reference samples. At a regional law enforcement training in the mid-south (Faugno, 2014), a law enforcement detective stated, “We’ve done all of these exams for years, not the nurses”. He went on to explain how the forensic nurses provided the training for the officers. Two primary concerns were voiced by the presenters and other experts in the audience. The first concern involved dignity. The person having forensic samples taken in a physical examination has a right to being treated with human dignity. This includes having their privacy protected to the degree possible during intimate examinations, being treated nonjudgmentally, and being treated without fear of abuse. The second concern raised by experts was related to disparate treatment based on gender. An example similar to that voiced by fellow a law enforcement officer during the presentation will illustrate the key issues. Consider a case involving a 34-year-old teacher suspected of a sexual offense involving a 14-year-old boy that had occurred less than 12 hours before detaining the suspect. The question was posed, “Would your officers do the suspect exam?” The first detective did not hesitate in responding, “Yes.” The officer then added to the scenario that the suspect was female and the reported offense involved vaginal-penile acts with ejaculation and again asked, “Would you do the exam?” The answer now changed to “No” because the law 43 enforcement officers present reported they cannot do speculum exams on women. A follow-up question was asked related to who would complete the exam and the answer was unclear. This led to a discussion among the presenters and audience about the ethics of disparate treatment of people needing the same services based on their sex. Another assumption that underlies the collection of forensic evidence is its basic purpose. Is forensic evidence collected from the accused and the accuser primarily for the purpose of establishing guilt or proving innocence? For example, consider a situation where an accused and accuser are both men, one stating that sexual acts were not consensual and the other stating these acts were consensual. In such a case, the accused reports previous sexual contact with the accuser, stating that he engaged in consensual receptive anal intercourse with the accuser. The accuser denies these acts occurred. If samples are not collected from the accused’s rectal cavity, the opportunity to corroborate the accused claim that consensual sexual contact occurred is lost. To not collect this evidence, expresses a bias towards corroborating the accuser’s version of events as non-consensual sex rather than corroborating the accused’s account of consensual activity. In this scenario, to effectively obtain samples, a specialized instrument called an anoscope should be used to collect sample from the rectum. Law enforcement personnel are not trained nor comfortable with using this medical device, similar to their lack of comfort with speculums for vaginal samples. Hence, who provides the forensic medical examination influences both how it is done and whom receives it. Justice Exploring the concept of justice is essential in discussing individual, multidisciplinary, and social responses to violence. The same can be said about services for those affected by violence – the victim, their family, friends, loved ones and community AND the accused, their 44 family, friends, loved ones and community AND the offenders, their family, friends, loved ones and community. Distributive justice approaches justice from the perspective of fairness, equity and distribution of resources (Beauchamp & Childress, 2013). Retributive justice is grounded in the perspective of determining punishment for harms caused – in finding an acceptable balance between the pain and suffering assigned the offender in association with that suffered by the victim (Pollock, 2010). Lastly, restorative justice turns the focus on compensation rather than punishment and takes into consideration victims, offenders, and their communities (Pollock, 2010; Brathwaite, 2004). Distributive justice requires forensic nurses to treat similar people in similar ways. Yet, forensic medical examinations for