Some smart tactical moves in policing also send an important public-safety message - like posting an attentive cop on the corner. That's the dual benefit of Police Commissioner John F. Timoney's decision to run several dozen detectives through the Philadelphia Police Department's troubled sex-crimes unit.

The plan is to assign about 45 detectives to the Special Victims Unit for weeklong training, with some detectives staying on.

Following the commissioner's decision to review hundreds of sexual-assault cases that police either dismissed or shelved, the infusion of this manpower - even temporarily - is welcome.

At a minimum, it means more detectives will become familiar with how to deal with victims of sexual assault. That could increase the department's expertise in handling these sensitive cases and boost the chances of solving more.

But the personnel move also appears to be a sign that Mr. Timoney means to make meaningful changes, starting with a higher profile for sex-crime policing.

It's time. Over two decades, thousands of women's reports of sexual assaults received questionable handling by the Police Department.

From a policing standpoint, the stakes have been distressingly high. When police dismissed the claims of two Center City women who were attacked by a serial rapist, they missed the chance to stop a depraved criminal who, it turns out, later killed a Penn graduate student.

Hundreds of other crime victims also may have been denied justice by the police practice of downgrading sex-assault cases - just one of many types of crime treated this way.

Officers say they shunted aside some sex-assault cases as unprovable given a crushing workload and also because they felt under pressure from commanders to paint a rosier picture of the city's crime rate.

Mr. Timoney, to his credit, has blasted the practice of "going down with crime" and insists it has ended. At the sex-crime unit itself, he's brought in new leadership and upgraded training.

Until recently, though, he resisted the need to review more than a year's worth of dismissed or shelved sex-assault reports. Fortunately, his outlook has changed.

Was he won over by demands from women's groups for a wider review of the cases after revelations in The Inquirer? Or by City Council's clamoring for hearings? It doesn't matter now.

What does matter is that Mr. Timoney has taken the high road - offering just the sort of leadership, by the way, that again proves his worth. It should reassure Mayor-elect John F. Street about his commitment to keep the commissioner on the job.

But more work awaits: Structural reform of the sex-crimes unit to focus resources and better handle child assaults; regular public disclosure of how cases are handled; and a new, more victim-friendly location for the unit.

Philadelphia looks forward to Mr. Timoney's next move.