Calgary's sexual assault 'unfounded' rate plummets under new police protocols

Calgary police say one year after adopting a new sexual offence strategy, its unfounded sexual assault rate has dropped byjust aboutsevenpercentage points, so that less than three out of 100 potential cases are deemed not worth pursuing.

The force began reviewing cases after a 2017 Globe and Mail article reported that 10 per cent of Calgary sexual assault complaints were being classified asunfounded.

Calgary Police Servicelaunched a pilot project in February 2018 that aimed to makesure all sexassault cases were properly investigated. An internal review had found dozens of files hadbeen given the wrong classification.

• Sex assault cases wrongly labelled 'unfounded' prompt Calgary police reform

At the time, police saidofficials discovered 48 sex offences that were incorrectly coded as "unfounded" police lingo signifying that investigators believe no offence had taken place or was even attempted.

Staff Sgt. Bruce Walker saidas a part of the pilot project's strategy, they adopted the Philadelphia Model.

"Which is a model that was designed in the city of Philadelphia back in 2001, and this would involve any sex assault investigation that was cleared or closed with no charges laid," he said.

One year later, Walker saidthe unfounded rate in Calgary hasdropped from 10 per cent in 2017 to roughly 2.93per cent in 2018.

As a part of the model, sexual assault advocates form a committee and work with police four times a year to review cases.

Danielle Aubry,executive director forCalgary Communities Against Sexual Assault(CCASA), is a member of that committee.

"We are looking for things that have plagued sexual violence for years and years. The barriers that people experience whether it's sexual assault myths and stereotypes or attitudes, and we take all of those types of things into consideration," she said.

"The education and theknowledge of sexual violence and all those insidious dynamics that exist. That's where our specialty and our expertise comes in because we do this work every single day."

The committee then reports their findings back to police.

Walker saidat the first two review committee sessions the team looked around 80 files each time.

The third review committee session is set to take place this month, with just as many on the docket.

• 1 in 7 sexual assault cases in 2017 deemed 'unfounded': StatsCan

As a part of their sexual offence strategy which police have now decided to permanently adopt CPS have also introduced a dedicated officer to the role of sexual offence coordinator whose responsibility it is to look at every single sex related offence reported to the service.

"Theywould review it and then offer expertise and experience to the frontline officers who were dealing with the less serious of the sex assault investigations," said Walker.

And the advocacy community thinks it's a good move too, according to Aubry.

"I think it builds capacity within the service becausethat person is able to go backto a constable or another detective and talk to them about what they feel maybe they missed or different perspective on things," she said.

Walker said so far the sexual offence coordinator has already reviewed more than 550 cases.