Sexual assault response teams (SARTs): an empirical review of their effectiveness and challenges to successful implementation

Historically, the response of the legal, medical, and mental health/advocacy systems to sexual assault has been inadequate and uncoordinated. To address this problem, communities have developed coordinated sexual assault response teams (SARTs) to address these problems. SARTs are community-level interventions that seek to build positive relationships and increase collaboration among sexual assault responders. SARTs hope to improve both the community response to sexual assault victims and the processing of sexual assault cases through the criminal justice system. This article has three aims: to summarize the historical development of SARTs in the United States, to review the empirical literature on SARTs' effectiveness at improving multidisciplinary relationships, legal outcomes, and victims' help-seeking experiences; and to review the empirical literature on the challenges SARTs face, which may hamper their effectiveness. Findings suggest that SARTs are a promising practice, but face many challenges; further methodologically rigorous research is needed to more fully understand these interventions. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.