What is Case Review? (And why do we care so darn much?)
Yesterday, several Yukon groups spoke out about RCMP Headquarters ending Yukon Advocate Case Review.
Let’s get into what case review looks like, how it was created, and why folks care about it so darn much.
TL;DR
Case review is when survivors of sexual violence and survivor advocates look over all sexual assault investigation files that didn’t end with a charge being laid. Case review was created by survivors to counter the overuse of coding of sexual assault investigations as ‘unfounded’ and to make sure police are not letting rape myths and judgments about survivors impact investigations.
It Starts in Philly
In 1999-2000 the Philadelphia Police had a problem. After the rape and murder of Shannon Schieber, a Philadelphia Inquirer investigations found that the police were mishandling sexual assault investigations which had led to many cases not being properly investigated.
Philly police commissioner at the time John Timoney did something unexpected. Instead of dealing with the problem internally (police investigating themselves), he reached out to community experts - survivors and advocates who’d been working for decades to help our communities better understand sexual assault - and “ordered a review of every unfounded and non-criminal sexual assault allegation going back five years.”
Take Us back to 2017
In 2017 suddenly everyone was talking about unfounded because of a 20 month investigation into the handling of sexual assault reports by Canadian police led by Robyn Doolittle.
It’s only four years ago, yet feels like ages ago. Remember that:
Jian Ghomeshi was acquitted in March 2016 (and the #WeBelieveSurvivors campaign organized to counter the enormous amounts of victim blaming survivors experienced during the trial)
Hannibal Buress went viral in October 2014 when reminding folks that Bill Cosby has sexually assaulted many women
The Consent Tea video was posted on May 2015 and viewed nearly ten million times:
Consent and understanding survivors’ common reactions and coping strategies was still new conversations for folks.
The Globe’s unfounded investigation really blew people’s minds around why survivors of sexual assault don’t share their experience with the police or trust that they will find justice in the legal system.
Un-Found-What?
Unfounded just means that the case is found to be baseless. It’s a case file coding used in Canadian policing. If you are a survivor who makes a police report and after an investigation, your case is labelled as ‘unfounded’ it means that there will not be charges laid, a trial, or a verdict.
Labelling a case ‘unfounded’ is very different from when it’s labelled a ‘false report’.
From Robyn Doolittle’s unfounded investigation:
“There are many ways to shut a case without laying a charge. Not enough evidence? There’s a closure code for that. Complainant doesn’t want to proceed with charges? There’s a code for that, too. One of every five sexual-assault allegations in Canada is dismissed as baseless and thus unfounded. The result is a national unfounded rate of 19.39 per cent – nearly twice as high as it is for physical assault (10.84 per cent), and dramatically higher than that of other types of crime.
When complaints of sexual assault are dismissed with such frequency, it is a sign of deeper flaws in the investigative process: inadequate training for police; dated interviewing techniques that do not take into account the effect that trauma can have on memory; and the persistence of rape myths among law-enforcement officials.”
“There are many ways to shut a case without laying a charge”
In the Yukon, the unfounded rate is higher than the national average at 25%.
Survivors have been talking about bias, misogyny, and misinformation about sexual violence in the legal system for decades. Check out this paper created by Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre about unfounded rates and consent from 1975:
What Actually Happens?
Carol Tracy from Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia explains what’s involved in Advocate Case Review:
“It’s actually very simple. We’re a very large jurisdiction so we have about 6,000 cases coming in to the Special Victims Unit. For a three-day period a group of us, of advocates, review about 400 of those cases. We look at all unfounded rapes, and we look at any cases that have a non-UCR category, such a third-party report or medical investigation. We then look at a cross-section of open cases.”
In a CBC interview with Craig Norris, Carol talks about some of the misconceptions about case review and what the goal of the process is:
“We go in, we ask questions. We look to see that the cases have been properly coded, we make sure all the witnesses have been interviewed, we look to see that all of the evidence has been collected, we look to see if there’s an interview instead of an interrogation [of the victim].
We look for indications of the victim-blaming that has been so commonplace in police practice, and throughout society quite frankly. That’s our role in this.”
“We look for indications of the victim-blaming that has been so commonplace in police practice, and throughout society quite frankly.”
Advocate case review is a fail safe system. Case review is accountability to counter the rape myths that everyone grows up learning and that can have big impacts on sexual assault investigations.
Having community advocates sit at a table and look through all sexual assault cases that did not end in charges being laid makes sure that the police are:
treating survivors with respect and dignity
understanding trauma and how it can impact a survivor
collecting the correct evidence (example: by interviewing all the relevant people)
not putting pressure on the survivor
following up with survivors with results of the investigation
sharing sexual assault laws with the survivor correctly
not relying on rape myths in their investigations
taking into account marginalization and oppression and what groups are most likely to experience sexual assault
and lots more!
Want to take a deep dive into what’s involved in case review? We got you! A Canadian case review framework was created in 2019 by police forces from across Ontario.
What about privacy?
Do privacy experts adore the Canadian Framework for Collaborative Police Response on Sexual Violence created by police to be shared with other police? YES!
Both Brian Beamish, Commissioner of the Information and Privacy Commission of Ontario and Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, endorsed the case review framework. Daniel Therrien even encouraged the RCMP and Canadian military check out the report when they reached out to him about investigating sexual assaults.
Some People Make It Up, tho
Lying about sexual assault is rare. DWS’ Program Coordinator, Crickett Wilder, reminds folks that, “No one wants to be in the survivor club. There isn’t a big cheque, confetti, or balloons. I didn’t get love and support when I first told friends about being sexually assaulted. I got silence, hate, gentle and forceful blame (‘Are you sure that’s what happened?’) and lost lots of friends.”
False reporting of sexual assault happens so rarely (approximately 2%-8% of reports to police are false), the way bigger story is that most survivors never go to the police. In fact, survivor reporting rates are dropping: “Even though the rate of self-reported sexual assaults has remained relatively stable, the percentage of offenses that were reported to the police dropped from about 12% in 2009 to 5% in 2014.”
Why survivors don’t report
A Global/Ipsos Reid poll asking survivors why they didn’t report to the police found that survivors didn’t report because of:
feeling young and powerless (56%)
shame (40%)
self-blame (29%)
desire to move on (26%)
belief that reporting wouldn’t do any good (21%)
not wanting to turn in a family member (19%)
effect on future relationships (18%)
afraid of further damage from attacker (15%)
afraid of legal process (11%)
knew the person and didn’t want to destroy their life (9%)
The poll also found that of survivors that reported to police, 39% felt abandoned and 39% felt devastated with only a tiny amount feeling vindicated.
Speak Out
Survivors and advocates are already speaking out about RCMP HQ ending the Yukon Advocate Case Review.
“On top of substantial concerns around transparency and accountability with the Sexual Assault Investigation Review Committees (SAIRC) model, the abandonment of the Violence Against Women Advocate Case Review model (VACR) mid-stream showed a tremendous disrespect for the time, energy and expertise that Yukon Women’s Groups and Indigenous advocates brought to the review process. The case review team committed to specialized training, shifted considerable time and resources to take part in this important work, and participated in 3 case review sessions over a year prior to the plug being pulled. The unilateral decision to abandon the VACR process by RCMP HQ willfully disregarded these substantial contributions and has further eroded confidence in this policing institution. This is especially distressing in light of the release of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into MMIWG in June 2019 that clearly calls for police services to partner with frontline Indigenous and women’s organizations that deliver services to survivors of sexualized violence. We are experts in confidentiality in the work that we do every day – privacy concerns have always been front and center for us.”
Jen Gibbs, Director at Dawson Women’s Shelter
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