Under the law, consent is not a defense and therefore officers would be automatically liable. Image: happiness time/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffAn audit has found that no charges were filed in fiscal 2023 under a 2022 law on sexual misconduct by federal law enforcement officers.
The provision made it unlawful for someone, while acting in their capacity as a federal law enforcement officer, to knowingly engage in a sexual act with an individual who is under arrest, under supervision, in detention, or in federal custody. Under the law, consent is not a defense and therefore officers would be automatically liable.
The law also required GAO to report annually on any prosecutions. In the first of those reports, GAO said that the Justice Department had no records of charges under that provision and that further investigation concluded that those records are “sufficiently reliable.”
However, it noted that the law did not apply retroactively and that “there is a high rate of underreporting of sex offenses in general, particularly when it involves victims in custody or detention, where victims are reluctant to report ‘the police to the police.’”
Also, it can take several years from the time of an alleged incident to the filing of a criminal case to a disposition of the case, it said.
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