Head
of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice Vanita
Gupta describes the problems and systematic issues outlined in a
DOJ report
on policing conditions
in Baltimore.
The Baltimore Police Department failed
to adequately and comprehensively investigate rape and sexual
assaults according to the Department of Justice in a
report
into the BPD practices.
DOJ
also found that rape victim have little hope of getting justice for
their rape saying, “BPD’s response to reports of sexual assault
is, overall, grossly inadequate...”
A victim of rape in
Baltimore is half as likely as a victim anywhere else in the country
to have a cop arrest their rapist. From the report:
“In
2015, for example, BPD described approximately 56 percent of its rape
cases as ‘open.’ Meanwhile, only 17 percent of BPD’s rape cases
in 2015 were closed by arrest – a rate less than half the national
average for the proportion of rape cases closed by arrest.”
Upon
review of the rest of the report, the reasons for such a low arrest
rate are shockingly clear.
The Baltimore police failed to
investigate rape and when they did, they fail to perform
investigations objectively or comprehensively. The police failed to
identify witnesses, conduct investigations of rape scenes, identify
suspects, corroborate victim statements, run rape kits, and in some
cases were actively hostile to victims.
From the report:
-
“BPD
seriously and systematically under-investigates reports of sexual
assault, and the sexual assault investigations it does conduct are
marked by practices that significantly compromise the effectiveness
and impartiality of its response to sexual assault.”
-
“BPD’s
sexual assault case files, as a general matter, are missing critical
information and lack sufficient documentation of the investigation
to allow detectives, their supervisors, and prosecutors to
effectively evaluate the quality of investigation and to assess and
respond to the reported crimes.
-
“Indeed,
across the board, we found that we learned far more about victims’
impressions and recollections of their assaults from the forensic
medical exam reports than from BPD’s own reports.”
-
“In
the majority of BPD’s sexual assault cases, BPD fails to pursue
investigations beyond the immediate, preliminary response to a
report of sexual assault.”
-
“Similarly,
BPD makes little, if any, effort to corroborate victims’ accounts
of their assaults, either by identifying and interviewing witnesses,
gathering other types of evidence, or identifying and interrogating
suspects.”
-
“...
BPD allows more than half of its rape cases to linger in an “open”
status, often for years at a time, with little to no follow-up
investigation, while fewer than one in four of its rape
investigations are closed due to the arrest of a suspect, a rate
roughly half of the national average...”
-
“...BPD
detectives request testing of rape kits in fewer than one in five of
BPD’s adult sexual assault cases, leaving these rape kits to sit
untested in BPD’s evidence collection unit...”
-
“...BPD
detectives rarely, if ever, seek to identify or interview suspects
and witnesses, even in cases where they are clearly identified by
the woman reporting the assault.”
-
“In
addition to failing to seek out corroborating witness testimony, BPD
persistently fails to seek other types of evidence that could
corroborate a victim’s account of the assault.”
The
failure to investigate rape has allowed serial rapists to offend
without consequence and increase risk of victimization in the city.
From
the report:
“Serial
suspects are believed to be responsible for a substantial proportion
of sexual assaults— one oft-cited study concluded, for example,
that two in three rapists who had never been prosecuted for their
crimes were repeat rapists—and thus there may be enormous public
safety consequences when law enforcement fails to identify and hold
accountable serial rapists.”
In
2010, the Baltimore Sun took on the Baltimore Police Department’s
extraordinary high unfounded rape reports. At that time, the
Baltimore Police Department determined that 30% of rapes were
unfounded, five times the national average. The department promised
reforms.
The
Department of Justice found the reforms came in the form of
statistical manipulation, not meaningful change. Instead of labeling
the rapes as unfounded, Baltimore Police Department kept cases open
with little to no investigation.
From
the report:
“We
are concerned, however, that these statistics mask a continuing
problem with BPD’s understanding and application of the
appropriate definitions and uses of the classification categories,
as well as with its practices for identifying and reporting sexual
assaults…. Taken in the aggregate, this data suggests that BPD is
keeping the majority of its rape cases in an “open” status, thus
drastically reducing the rate of its rape cases closed as
“unfounded”—and creating the illusion of having made
meaningful reforms to its procedures for identifying and classifying
sexual assaults.”
Victims
faced ridicule and name calling if they reported rape and sexual
assault. The DOJ asserting victims face, “undue skepticism of
reports of sexual assault.”
From
the report again, “For instance, officers and detectives in BPD’s
Sex Offense Unit often question victims in a manner that puts the
blame for the sexual assault on the victim’s shoulders—for
example, with questions suggesting the victims should feel personally
responsible for the potential consequences of a criminal report on a
suspect or for having engaged in behavior that invited the assault.
In their interviews of women reporting sexual assault, for example,
BPD detectives ask questions such as ‘Why are you messing that
guy’s life up?’”
The
police in Baltimore often are unabashedly dismissive to victims.
From
the report:
-
“One
victim advocate told us about a detective in the BPD Sex Offense
Unit
making comments at a party, in the company of BPD officers and
victim advocates, that, ‘in homicide, there are real victims; all
our cases are bullshit.’ When another person suggested the
detective soften the statement, the detective added, ‘Ok, 90
percent.’”
-
“We
also reviewed e-mail correspondence between a BPD officer and a
prosecutor in which they openly expressed their contempt for and
disbelief of a woman who had reported a sexual assault: the
prosecutor wrote that ‘this case is crazy. . . I am not excited
about charging it. This victim seems like a conniving little whore.
(pardon my language).’; the BPD officer replied, ‘Lmao! I feel
the same.’
Baltimore
Police Department’s behavior is by no means isolated, as such
behavior is reported all over the country. Belief police will do
nothing is the second most common reason rape is not reported to
police and less than 40% of rapes are reported in the United States.
Baltimore
Police Department has effectively legalized rape by ignoring their
duty to investigate rapes. On the plus side, if you are a serial
rapist, you now have a splendid place to vacation or relocate.
Rape
reporting stats:
