Laura Rogers, JD

Director

Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, SMART Office

Wed Plenary

C9 CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: PROSECUTIONS BASED ON A STRONG FORENSIC PROCESS, PART 1

D9 CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: PROSECUTIONS BASED ON A STRONG FORENSIC PROCESS, PART 2

F9 CASE REVIEW

In December 2006, Laura L. Rogers was appointed by President Bush to be the Director of the newly established SMART Office for the Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Prior to SMART, Ms. Rogers was the Director of the National Institute for Training Child Abuse Professionals (NITCAP), an organization dedicated to excellence and providing forward-looking training for child abuse professionals. Ms. Rogers has trained extensively throughout the United States and internationally on the prosecution and investigation of criminal cases involving child homicide, child sexual and physical abuse, maltreatment and sexual abuse involving victims with developmental disabilities. She researches and writes extensively, and has published several articles.

Prior to founding NITCAP in 2004, Ms. Rogers was a Senior Attorney at the American Prosecutors Research Institute’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA) since 1999. Ms. Rogers was recognized as the Centers expert in topics such as child fatalities and victims with developmental disabilities. Prior to joining NCPCA, Ms. Rogers was a Deputy District Attorney in San Diego, California for 11 years. As a prosecutor, she tried over 120-felony jury trials, with a 92 percent success rate. She served in the Family Violence division for 7 years prosecuting child sexual abuse, physical abuse and child homicide cases as well as domestic violence assault and homicide cases. Here, she developed a specialty in handling cases involving victims with disabilities.