The Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training on Thursday, July 25, on a unanimous voice vote, approved new training standards related to sexual assault cases. Those seeking their first law enforcement licenses will be trained in on the new objectives and once the curriculum changes are in place, trainees will see questions reflecting the new educational materials on their licensing exams.

The new training objectives take a "victim-centered" approach to respond to cases of sexual assault and require that trainees better understand trauma and how it can manifest in sexual assault survivors. They'll also be required to understand how an officer's doubt or questioning can re-traumatize a victim.

Peggy Strand, POST Board education coordinator, said she worked with sexual assault survivor advocacy groups, law enforcement groups and other stakeholders to write new objectives that didn't require new officers to specialize in a new area but gave them enough background to appropriately respond to survivors.

“The fear was, OK, we’re not trying to make everybody everything, right? And on the other hand, couldn’t we just make sure that everyone has a little bit more?" Strand said. "I think I have both sides a little bit uneasy, (so) I think I’ve found the right balance."

Strand said she would work with programs that train peace officers to determine whether they could adapt existing materials to meet the new objectives or whether a fuller overhaul of that curriculum would be necessary. She didn't have a timeline for when prospective officers would be required to know the new objectives.

Drew Evans, superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said law enforcement officials had grappled with the best way to appropriately manage sexual assault cases. He said it was crucial that trainees learn about best practices right away.

“It needs to start with our students and equipping them with these concepts so that they’re ready and prepared to come in and remove some of those biases that we all have as we enter this profession,” Evans said.

Framing the trauma a sexual assault survivor can experience in a light that peace officers are already trained to understand could better equip them to respond to cases involving rape or other sexual offenses, Mendota Heights Police Chief and POST Board Chair Kelly McCarthy said.

“I didn’t fully understand and I probably still don’t fully understand trauma-informed until we put it in the context of officer-involved shootings,” McCarthy said. "Talking to victims through that lens is going to be really helpful."

The Minnesota Sentencing Guideline Commission on Thursday also took up the topic of sexual assault. The commission approved new guidelines for sentencing various crimes related to criminal sexual conduct and production and dissemination of child pornography. The commission also agreed to launch an extensive review of the sentencing guidelines for those convicted of creating and disseminating child pornography.