Sexual Assault Cases

The recent Globe and Mail investigation regarding sexual assault cases has caught the attention of many individuals. The article “Why police dismiss 1 in 5 sexual assault claims as baseless,” states that the study involved over 870 police forces in Canada. The article states that 19.39 per cent of the sexual assault complaints that were received over a four-year period of time, were dismissed by police forces as being unfounded (Doolittle, 2017). The article also states that according to research from North America, the United Kingdom and Australia, between 2 per cent and 8 per cent of complaints were considered false reports (Doolittle, 2017). Nonetheless, I agree that for serious complaints like sexual assault, the police should have no
For example, Ava’s case was not properly investigated, which led to discretions in the overall allegation made by detectives. The very first mistake made by police, was choosing to interview her roughly 12 hours after the incident. At this time, “Ava had not slept or eaten, and was feeling nauseated from the night before” (Doolittle, 2017). This shows that Ava was not in the proper mind set to be answering questions. The Globe’s Robyne Doolittle spoke with educators, criminologists, trauma experts and lawyers who state that: “police should be better taught how to interview sexual-assault survivors, such as interviewing them a few days after the incident, when their memories are clearer, instead of immediately after (Ronan, 2017). Moreover, Paul Gambriel, the detective on Ava’s case, made several mistakes according to Melanie Randall, a law professor at Western University who has studied sexual-assault law. She states that “the police failed to understand the law, failed to understand memory and traumatic events, didn’t listen to key things she said, didn’t ask her the right questions, arrogantly imposed his own version of what happened, challenged her repeatedly, pretty much suggested that he didn’t believe her, and reframed the event as consensual” (Doolittle, 2017). This is extremely problematic
Many agree that “accusing sexual assault victims of lying is a problem that needs to be fixed” (Balkissoon, 2017). Since the Globe’s investigation’s debut, even the police forces realize that they are not properly trained regarding sexual assault cases. This reinforces the fact that they do not have enough knowledge on sexual assault cases to be able to dismiss them. Doolittle states that “police forces should adopt better standardized protocols for how police should handle sexual assault cases” (2017). The police need to understand that these cases are fragile, which requires patience and proper protocols. For instance, the interrogation process must be changed in order to collect proper facts about the incident. If Ava’s interrogation process was properly executed, her case would have been considered founded from the beginning. Moreover, after reading about this study, Alok Mukherjee, a criminology professor at Ryerson University states “this is absolutely unprecedented” (White & Doolittle, 2017). He is infuriated with the lack of knowledge and the lack of training the police officials have on this topic. Ava, who is also infuriated, agrees with the fact that the police must be properly trained. She states, “I do hope there are changes to how officers are trained. It’s important to tackle the problem at that end” (White & Doolittle, 2017). Since the