Commerce City/Brighton, Colorado

Two Colorado law enforcement agencies, in adjacent jurisdictions, partnered to develop and implement a multi-jurisdictional Sexual Assault Taskforce (SATF) to more effectively address sex crimes in their bordering communities. The SATF leveraged gains made through the You Have Options program implementation and comprised of detectives and victim services staff from both the Commerce City and Brighton Police Departments. The SATF worked collaboratively to enhance each agency’s capacity to investigate sex crimes, maintain meaningful connections with victims and survivors of sex offenses, and enforce sex offender registration more effectively.

Through specialized training and a targeted, collaborative focus on this persistent and pervasive crime, SATF members developed expertise in sexual assault investigations, forensic interviewing, sex offender management, and victim empowerment. The intended outcomes from implementing the SATF include more effective and thorough investigations, an increase in victim/survivor engagement, an increase in prosecutions, and a more streamlined process for sex offender management. The multi-jurisdictional taskforce framework has proven successful in addressing other chronic crime problems such as drug-related investigations, but it has not been applied to, or tested for efficacy with sex crimes. The SATF is an innovative and promising approach for sex crimes investigations and sex offender registration management that leveraged multi-agency collaboration to allow investigators to develop a depth of experience in their field as well as community trust.