ALICE VACHSS

attorney, author, consultant & lecturer

"One of America's toughest prosecutors …" —PARADE, 1989

MODEL FORMS & LEGISLATION by ALICE VACHSS

A note from Alice Vachss:
As all of you in this work know, one of our greatest strengths is our willingness to share resources. The following materials are a series of working models and legislation that I originally drafted to respond to a particular specific need. I think they are good enough problem-solving tools that I would like to additionally share them with you. They are presented here as a public service and may be used freely, provided there is full and correct attribution to me. If custom-tailoring is required, then so long as the final version accurately represents the meaning and intent of the original, the attribution may say "based on the model originally drafted by Alice Vachss."

SART Confidentiality Waiver [PDF/45k]
When Sexual Assault Response Teams first came into vogue, I was excited by the opportunity for advocacy with law enforcement and prosecutors that SART meetings might represent. But many rape crisis advocates and counselors shied away from case-specific meetings because of confidentiality concerns. This form was initially intended simply to leave that particular choice up to the victim or survivor. During the drafting process, it also became a model for how to specify the "who" and "what" of other types of confidentiality waivers.

Model School Policy: Bullying by Teachers and Abuse of Educational Authority [PDF/90k]
We are finally beginning to look at the huge damage that bullying can inflict. But, for the most part we've limited that attention to peer-on-peer school bullying, with very little recognition or policymaking on bullying perpetrated by educators. This model school code defines the problem and creates remedies, including a unique form of protective order which specifies both the impermissible conduct and the remedies for recurrence.

Proposed Crime-Footage Legislation [PDF/45k]
This model legislation criminalizes the possession and trafficking of actual, non-fictionalized crimes. It was written as an alternative to First Amendment-invasive anti-pornography legislation but is more comprehensively useful to address the proliferation of invasive personal crimes such as "upskirting," and shared-pathology crimes like cell-phone recorded gang-rape. Drafted several years ago, it may need updating to reflect technological developments such as YouTube.