Timoney to allow sex-case oversight

Women Organized Against Rape, other groups will get to see how rape and related crimes are being classified.

John Timoney says he will let women’s organizations help police. (Inquirer)

By Mark Fazlollah,
Craig McCoy,
and Robert Moran
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Opening Philadelphia's sex-crimes unit to unprecedented scrutiny, Police Commissioner John F. Timoney says he will let women's organizations help police decide when to believe sexual-assault complaints and how to classify them.

For many years, sex-crimes investigators deliberately mislabeled rapes and other offenses to make the city appear safer. They also rejected large numbers of complaints as "unfounded," or not credible.

Under Timoney's plan, Women Organized Against Rape, the Women's Law Project, and other groups will essentially look over the shoulders of police investigators and supervisors as they evaluate complaints.

"We're putting together a committee of women . . . and [will] actually, quite literally, let this women's group be the final say on our classification," Timoney said in an interview.

Law-enforcement experts said the arrangement would be the first of its kind in the United States.

However, Philadelphia women's leaders said that they understood their role to be one of oversight, and that police would retain ultimate authority for classifying incidents.

Classification does not determine how or whether sexual assaults are prosecuted. But it can influence the urgency with which police investigate.

A crime classified as rape, for instance, gets immediate attention from top commanders, who will demand to know what the sex-crimes unit is doing to find the assailant.

When a case is downgraded or dismissed as unfounded, there is no pressure to solve it. It's as if the assault never happened.

As detailed in Inquirer articles, many of the thousands of cases misclassified by the sex-crimes unit over the last two decades received little or no investigation.

"There is a real issue of public confidence when it comes to the Special Victims Unit," Timoney said. "You can see it in letters to the editor. I see it in public meetings. It's a huge crisis of confidence, so we need to address that."

Timoney, in describing his plan, specifically cited cases in which sexual-assault complaints are deemed unfounded.

"We're going to go over those cases with the women's groups [and ask] 'Do you agree? Do you think we've done everything we possibly can?'" he said.

Women's groups, elected officials and others applauded Timoney's proposal yesterday.

"The only way a police department can be effective is if the people in the community believe it is going to be fair," said Councilman James F. Kenney, a member of the Council committee that oversees the department. "It's a good thing. We'll have a safer city. People will have more confidence in the police."

"It's wonderful," said Barbara DiTullio, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women. She said the plan could make Philadelphia a model for police departments across the country.

"It may put pressure on other cities," she said.

William Geller, deputy director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit policy group in Washington, said he knew of no similar arrangement anywhere in the country.

"To actually give an outsider a voice in the process of coding - I doubt you would easily be able to find this," Geller said. "This sounds very innovative. I congratulate Timoney."

Carol E. Tracy, executive director of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia, said that for the first time, advocates would be able to review the department's handling of sexual assaults "from start to finish."

"It's a major step forward," she said. "I think it's amazing to have this amount of citizen review."

The department's systematic misclassification of sexual assaults was documented in Inquirer articles published since October.

The sex-crimes unit, founded in 1981, buried nearly a third of its caseload over the next 17 years. Rapes, attempted rapes and other reported acts were given administrative labels such as "investigation of person" or were rejected as unfounded. Either way, they did not show up in crime statistics. The victims were never told their complaints had been shelved.

Current and former investigators said they dumped cases to cope with an overwhelming workload and pressure from commanders to generate favorable statistics.

Michelle J. Anderson, a Villanova University law professor who testified at a City Council hearing on the sex-crimes unit in December, said the women's groups should look closely at rape complaints put in administrative categories.

Anderson also said the Police Department, as a matter of policy, should tell women how their complaints are coded.

Timoney's spokeswoman, Lt. Susan Slawson, said the new system would start soon, but provided no date.

Tracy, of the Women's Law Project, said she and the other women's leaders expected to meet with the commissioner in the next two weeks to work out details. In addition to the law project, Women Organized Against Rape and NOW, the Penn Women's Center will participate.

"That's big," said Delilah Rumberg, director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape in Harrisburg. "It looks real positive for victims."