Gallery Carre
The Case of the Disappearing Sex Crimes Unit (CityPages)
Oct 30th, 2007 by Viviane
A story about the understaffed Minneapolis Police Department Sex Crimes Unit:
Investigative units measure success by something they call a “clearance rate”—the percentage of reported crimes that lead to an arrest. The 10-year high for the Sex Crimes Unit was 57 percent in 2004. Last year, the rate fell to 26 percent—just 1 percent above a 10-year low.This year, with data available through August, the unit’s clearance rate is 12 percent.Translation: For roughly nine out of every ten rapes reported to the police, there is a victim waiting to hear word of an arrest.
Meanwhile, the number of reported rapes in Minneapolis has been rising steadily—from 362 in 2002 to 453 last year—even as the number of reported rapes nationwide continues a decades-long decline.
Thanks to a Minneapolis reader for sending this.