Philadelphia Inquirer
Tuesday, June 26, 2001

Editorial: Comfortable new home

Phila. sex-crimes unit has earned a new facility.

Carpeted, cool, and more convenient to reach, the new headquarters for the Philadelphia Police Department's sex-crimes unit at Episcopal Hospital represents a major win-win.

Win No. 1: The obvious benefit is that sexual assault victims - primarily women and children - no longer will be tormented and frightened by the surroundings of the very place they've gone to seek police help.

For years, the sex-crimes squad has been based at a cramped, forbidding, and out-of-the-way facility in the old Frankford Arsenal.

It's not just getting away from walls and barbed wire. The old facility threw victims and alleged attackers together in a confined space - forcing them to share hallways and rest rooms in an outdated building.

All that will end this fall, once renovations to a four-floor space at Episcopal are completed at a cost of up to $1.2 million. The facility in Kensington will have a special room for child victims and their parents. Waiting areas and interview rooms for victims and alleged attackers will be separate.

Being next-door to Episcopal's emergency room is another plus for victims, inasmuch as Episcopal nurses are trained to handle rape cases. The hospital treated several hundred sexual-assault patients last year.

And Win No. 2? The sex-crimes squad has earned its new digs. Once a unit that dishonored itself by burying thousands of cases, the so-called Special Victims Unit has been beefed up, reenergized, and redirected under Police Commissioner John F. Timoney.

The unit doubled its arrests last year compared to a recent 12-month period. Another sign of change: The sex-crimes unit works harder, and smarter, to make sure no actual sexual assault is dismissed. Officers now fully investigate the overwhelming majority of complaints. Along with a better track record today, the sex-crimes unit has gone over several thousand old cases and turned up 681 uninvestigated rapes. Most will remain unsolved, but police have made 85 arrests. That's at least some measure of redress for failings.

There's unfinished work, of course. The staff, while more professional, needs to be beefed up with more detectives. The Police Department owes assault victims more than just a pledge to look into their complaints. There should be a firm policy of notifying victims in the event police decide to shelve a case.

Also, child-welfare investigators need to work hand-in-hand with the police so that child victims aren't interviewed over and over unnecessarily. City human services chief Alba Martinez and her staff have had months to work out the details.

For now, kudos to Mr. Timoney's department, the Street administration, City Council, and victims' advocates. The Kensington facility will be a better setting for the city's effort to aid sex-crime victims - and to assure they're not victimized anew.