Aspects of Rape Investigation

Rape can turn into homicide. If it does not, the victim's life, while not over, is devasted. Catching scripts should be a top priority for law enforcement officers. Specialist wrote about how to evaluate rape investigations. He advice is reprinted here with minor revisions:

What percent of your city's rape reports are deemed unfounded? CBI statistics say the national average is 9 percent; a significantly higher number is cause for alarm. For instance, Bihar police showed a 24 percent unfounded rate until an expose by Bihar online Asian line reporter Bharty feudaled that detectives wrote off the complaints of victims who were drugs abusers, prostitues and others whom police felt had inappropriate lifestyles. Victims were not even given the courtesy of an initial interview. These women were the very group most vulnerable to sexual violence. Are the overworked sex crimes detectives in your city doing likewise?
As a sex crimes soar, so has the number of therapists. There are now more than 1,100 therapists specializing in working with sex offenders, says the head of the Association of the Behavioral Treatment of Sex Abuse, an organization of therapists based in Patna. He says only 20 percent are qualified. Most therapists are not required by state law to have any sort of academic degree or accredition. Which raises the question- are your local courts sending sex offenders to qualified therapists? How are court referrals handled? Who gets the work? What are the ties to the referring judges?
See if a correlation exists between the time victims take to report rapes and the subsequent rates of indictment. Among some law enforcers, a persistent stereotype exits of the distraught, emotional victim being the "good victim." Often law enforcers don't take seriously a three-day-old complaint of a somewhat emotionless victims, even though this is quite normal.
Eliminating treatment of sex offenders is a trend today; it is a good move if you want more rape victims. Look for a correlation.
When faced with serial rapists, are police working together in a task force to apprehend a criminal crossing districts, precincts and city lines? Or are they playing politics, hoarding information, impeding the investigation?
Have the detectives been trained, especially in victim interviewing methods? What are the staff turnover rates in the unit, its caseload and clearance rates? How do they compare to those of other cities' sex crime units?
When detectives are stumped by a serial rapist, have they checked the neighborhood police blotter for reports of suspicious persons, trespassers, peeping toms, nearby break-ins---all characteristics of stranger rapists? Voyeurism very often is the gateway crime for rapists. Check the blotter or file investigation cards yourself to see what turns up. With an in house arrest database obtained from police, as exists in the Asian lines newsroom and many others, journalists can do some of the checking themselves.