What’s New in Psychology
MSU Professor Hopes to Hold Sexual Offenders Accountable
Jim Windell
In the U.S., according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one in six U.S. women experience either an attempted or complete rape, and one rape occurs every 68 seconds in this country.
Most cases of sexual assault go unreported, but even when victims do report, prosecutions are regrettably uncommon. Compounding that reality is the fact that many sexual assault kits are not tested, resulting in either the delay or prevention of justice for survivors of sexual violence.
In Michigan, for example, some untested kits were warehoused for years before being discovered and then sent for processing in August of 2018, when 3,440 previously untested sexual assault kits were submitted for DNA testing under the Michigan Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) and tested.
The testing of a sexual assault kit costs just under $1,000, but each assault costs victims around $200,000 in terms of both physical and emotional pain, according to research.
Testing these kits resulted in hits from the Combined DNA Index System, a database used by law enforcement to exchange and compare DNA profiles that can identify suspects and link crimes.
“MSU has been at the forefront of the Michigan SAKI research since the beginning, with MSU Professor Rebecca Campbell and her team’s groundbreaking work,” says Karen Holt, an assistant professor in the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice. “My work extends this by looking at offenders’ behavior and patterns and the investigative response to them.”
The Michigan State Police, through funding by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, approached Holt to help examine their case files. Together, they are working closely with the Ingham County SAKI team to see if suspects were identified, what their criminal histories look like, and what the resolution of these cases has been.
Holt has been examining DNA evidence, police reports and criminal background data to identify these offenders and will soon begin to interview identified offenders. Specifically, she hopes to learn whether offenders committed additional crimes and if they were prosecuted.
“A major point of my work has been to examine what happens when offenders are not held accountable for their crimes,” Holt says. “For me, being offender-focused means putting a magnifying glass right on the person who committed the crime.”
Combing through police case files and reports can be tedious and time consuming, but Holt has seen what happens when solid investigations take place and investigators understand offender behavior. In one case, led by SAKI detective Annie Harrison, it led to the successful prosecution of a serial offender.
Holt’s work is important for not only demonstrating what happens when individuals are not held accountable for their crimes, but to bring changes and reform to our criminal justice system. She is focused on creating ways to bring researchers and practitioners together through partnerships, training and education to shift the conversation away from blaming survivors to understanding the ways that offenders manipulate and exploit them.
“I approach the study of sexual assault offenders through my research, which helps investigators,” Holt says. “The investigators share their wealth of knowledge and experiences with me. These kinds of collaborations are critical in approaching and combatting sexual violence.”
To read the article on which this blog is based, find it at:
MSU today. (2025). MSU Professor’s Research Aims to Hold Offenders of Michigan ‘Cold Case’ Sex Crimes Accountable. MSU Today. Retrieved from: https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2025/04/msu-professors-research-aims-to-hold-offenders-of-michigan-cold-case-sex-crimes-accountable
