TPS put halt to 'unfounded' in sex assault cases; TAWC says more could be done

The term ‘unfounded’ has been a powerful one after a February Globe and Mail report into sexual assault cases.

So powerful, the Timmins Police revealed Thursday they will be removing the word from their vocabulary altogether on those cases, and only a trained member will be completing their statistical reports.

This is after a review, stemming from the report that detailed 30 per cent of sexual assault cases in Timmins were classified as ‘unfounded.’

(To recap, 30 per cent comes from the presented statistic that out of 641 reported sexual assault cases in Timmins from 2010 to 2014, 190 were cleared as ‘unfounded.’)

Kate Cantin, Timmins Police’s Corporate Communications Coordinator, says that it’s a classification that “should not be used, should not have been used and won’t be used going forward.”

She says ‘unfounded’ could be misinterpreted by some people. But she indicates ‘investigation’ is the key part in the Uniformed Crime Reporting (UCR) manual’s definition.

“You hear the word ‘unfounded ’ and you think the police just didn’t believe the complainant right at the outset. There was no investigation, they just said ‘oh, this never happened,’ which is absolutely not the case of what was happening,” she said.

“That’s why when we saw this article in The Globe and Mail, we saw these numbers, we knew right away that this was incorrect. There was something going on here so that’s why (TPS stenoclerk) Amy (Chartier) was tasked to look into the numbers.”

An ‘unfounded’ case is defined by the Canadian Center for Justice Statistics and UCR, as: “if it has been determined through investigation that no violations of the law took place at that time and location.”

The research by Chartier not only confirmed the statistics above to be factual, but also that all 190 ‘unfounded’ sexual assault cases were classified improperly during the data-entry process.

Chartier says sexual assaults are always taken “extremely seriously,” but that the improper classification could be as easy as inputting a wrong number onto the report.

She says while there was some of that that played a part, she agrees it was mostly the misinterpretation of the word.

“If you begin the first sentence of what ‘unfounded’ reads in the UCR manual, I could see how someone may have interpreted it that no offense occurred,” Chartier adds, “It’s potential that no offense occurred but we certainly did investigate (and) we found something else to be the case, whether it be a ‘police assistance’ call, a ‘mischief’ call, it was something else.”

Chief Gauthier says the 92 cases misclassified overall—as indicated above—were a result of data entry errors, incorrect classification types, and reports being filled out by various personnel.

Gauthier adds when he was a Staff Sargent, he got a brief overview of how to properly UCR reports, including sexual assaults.  And the thought process was that “if I had my hands in reviewing the reports of my subordinates, I was the best person to then try to classify.”

“That probably wasn’t the best choice, which led to our numbers being skewed,” he said.

Chartier—who is the TPS’ trained member—provided the police’s assessment analysis report to the National Training Officer in the Policing Services Program for the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

Through email, the Officer agreed with the assessment.

With that, Gauthier says they feel comfortable with their clerical process moving forward.

The Chief adds that it was an important learning experience and now that Chartier will be filling out the reports—which he says is her sole job—the spin off will have a great benefit locally.

“This qualified data will enhance our crime analysis and will better assist local resource planning in our community,” he says.

SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTRE RESPONSE

However, that may not be enough for sexual assault centres in the community, who indicated a number of recommendations back in February.

The Public Education and Community Relations Coordinator for Timmins and Area Women in Crisis is Becky Mason.  She says that means 30 per cent of victims of sexual violence are still not getting justice.

“It’s unfortunate that the only thing that was focused on in terms of the unfounded rates is that 100 per cent of the 30 per cent unfounded rate was a clerical error,” she added, noting the TPS’ solution just changes “the administrative end game.”

“Not classifying sexual assaults as ‘unfounded’ does not change that there’s still no justice, there’s still no accountability for the perpetrator,” she stated.

“It’s a little bit frustrating that we’re not further ahead since we presented ourselves to Timmins Police on numerous occasions to talk about how we could assist and it feels like it wasn’t heard.”

One of the recommendations in February was to “implement an Advocate/Systemic case review model”—commonly known as the ‘Philadelphia Model’—which would require city police to work with sexual assault centres in reviewing cases they’ve deemed unfounded, unsolved, etc.

“(It) would give us and them an opportunity to show where the problems are, because we have to keep in mind investigative techniques are flawed,” Mason said.

“You’re still asking women ‘What we’re you wearing? We’re you under the influence of alcohol? Why did you go by yourself?’ All of those questions are victim-blaming and we feel as though police are not hearing us when we say that.”

“That needs to change.”

Another recommendation was that police get trained to utilize a more “trauma-informed approach” when investigating sexual violence.

“The fact of the matter is (the TAWC) operate that way,” Mason added.

“Trauma-informed means she’s not going to remember everything right away. That means she’s going to mix up details. It means that she may have disassociated. It means a million things.”

Mason feels it wouldn’t come at any cost to bring TAWC aboard or to get the training.

“I feel like they could move forward and it’s right down to the justice system. We never get called as ‘expert witnesses’ in a sexual assault trial, that never happens but we know. We can answer those questions and we can make the process smoother for survivors of sexual violence.”

Mason says communities like North Bay and Sudbury are already taking on the advocate-case review.

She adds it’s also being endorsed by the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Marie-France Lalonde.

“What else do you need?” Mason asks.

“It’s been endorsed by the Ministry of Corrections, why are we still talking about this? I don’t understand why we’re still talking about this.”