Committee Hearing, December 6, 1999

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, December 6, 1999 10:40 a.m. - - - RESOLUTION 990775 - Authorizing Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings on the efficacy of the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes in the City, including, but not limited to, the practices and procedures of the Philadelphia Police Department's Special Victims Unit's use of non-offense Code 2701 and Code 2625 in order to keep many rape cases out of the official crime tally; the adequacy of the location of the facilities for servicing rape victims, and any current proposals by the Philadelphia Police Department, the FBI, and other criminal justice experts, advocacy groups, and citizens on how these crimes should be handled in the City of Philadelphia. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ, Chair COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN FRANK DICICCO COUNCILMAN W. THACHER LONGSTRETH COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN JOAN L. KRAJEWSKI - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 12/6/99 PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 990775 I N D E X Carol Tracy, Executive Director . . . . . . . Women's Law Project, Philadelphia Frank Cervone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Support Center for Child Advocates 7 Jane Siegel, Assistant Professor. . . . . . . 66 Criminal Justice, Widener University 8 Commissioner John Timoney . . . . . . . . . . 85 9 Captain Joseph Mooney, Philadelphia Police. . 108 10 Special Victims Unit 11 Richard Birns, President, Board of Directors 150 Philadelphia Children's Alliance 12 Chris Kirchner, Executive Director. . . . . . 164 13 Philadelphia Children's Alliance 14 Carole Johnson Executive Director . . . . . . 177 Women Organized Against Rape 15 Deborah Callahan, Director of Counseling. . . 183 16 Women Against Rape Crisis Stacey Walsh, Intervention Coordinator. . . . 188 Women Against Rape Crisis Mimi Rose, Esquire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Philadelphia District Attorney's Office Professor Michelle Anderson . . . . . . . . . 234 Villanova University School 3 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 P R O C E E D I N G S

Good morning, good morning. This is the Committee on Public Safety, a quorum being present. We have Councilman Frank Rizzo, Councilwoman Donna Miller, Councilman Kenney, Councilman Frank DiCicco, Councilman Darryl Clarke, Councilman Thacher Longstreth, and Councilman Michael Nutter. Will the clerk please read the Resolution No. 990775.

Authorizing the Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings on the efficacy of the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes in the City, including, but not limited to, the practices and procedures of the Philadelphia Police Department's Special Victims Unit's use of non-offense Code 2701 and Code 2625 in order to keep many rape cases out of the official crime tally; the adequacy of the location of the facilities for servicing rape victims, and any current proposals by the Philadelphia Police Department, the FBI, and other criminal justice experts, advocacy groups, and citizens on how these crimes should be handled in the City of 4 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Philadelphia.

Thank you. I want to thank all of the groups, all of the women's groups that have helped shape these hearings. I want to thank the Inquirer for bringing it to our attention that this was occurring in the City of Philadelphia in 1999. And I'd like to welcome everybody to today's hearing because this is a very important issue, not only for women, but for all of us who are interested in justice and how investigations in our Police Department functions. The purpose of this hearing is to investigate how we, the City, are prosecuting code sex crimes and other serious acts of violence. These hearings come on the coattails on news reports that brought to light administrative practices within the Police Department that was historically classifying a significant number of serious offenses, such as rape and other assaults in obscure categories, that were dismissed by investigators as unfounded or groundless. Subsequently, they never got to the DA's Office. The consequences are serious. The most obvious effect is that it meant that a number of 5 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 sexual assaults, for example, were not being accurately represented in the statistical crime report. Second, and most important, the so-called dumping of such acts in unfounded and other lesser and nonviolent categories meant that investigations that should have gone forward never happened. This means that there could be criminals on our streets that were never apprehended and victims who today might still be suffering from traumatic emotional experiences that are especially common among victims of sexual violence. Therefore, it is clear that the manner in which we document incidents and complaints is critical to our ability to effectively investigate criminal acts such as rape and other violent assaults. Further, it is fundamental to the Police Department's role as they seek to enhance the safety of our residents. Today we will hear from Commissioner Timoney, who is investigating the sex crimes units and is moving with plans to rectify this situation. We will also hear from the experienced experts and advocacy groups, many of whom will be 6 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 making recommendations for improvement. In effect, we hope to bring about a better understanding of the problem and seek remedies to this important public-safety issue. Before we begin, this weekend, we were all awakened by some very sad news of violence in our city, and a good friend was the individual that received that violence, and it ended up in his death. Russell Byers was one of the great, great individuals and characters of the city. And before we begin, for an individual who cared -- and we differed, we differed on the issues, but the intellectual biplay that went on was incredible, and we will miss him, I will miss him. And if we could all stand for a moment of silence for Russell Byers, I would appreciate that. (Pause.)

Miss Carol Tracy, please, and Frank Cervone. (Witnesses come forward.)

We have copies of our testimony.

We have copies of 7 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 your testimony, Frank. Please identify yourself for the record.

Good morning, Councilman Ortiz, members of the Public Safety Committee, and members of Council and staff. My name is Carol Tracy, and I'm the Executive Director of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia. The Women's Law Project is a public-interest law center devoted to improving the legal, social, and health status of women. Our work involves high-impact litigation, public-policy development, advocacy, and public education. The Women's Law Project, along with Women Organized Against Rape, Pennsylvania NOW, and the Penn Women's Center, asked the Public Safety Committee to have these hearings after revelations appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer about what appeared to be the miscoding of cases involving the Rittenhouse Square murderer and serial rapist and the subsequent investigative reports regarding the Philadelphia Police Department's response to sexual-assault 8 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 complaints. The cornerstone of the Inquirer report is the classification of sexual-assault cases by the Philadelphia Police Department in a noncriminal code instead of in a criminal code which, apparently ends the investigation of the crime. This practice of decriminalizing large numbers of sexual-assault crimes had been in place for a significant number of years, according to the Inquirer. It allegedly began when the FBI questioned a large number of unfounded rape reports in 1983; so instead of unfounding these crimes, the Department moved large numbers of cases to a category called "Investigation of Persons," which is an administrative category only and does not refer to any crime code. Any downgrading or large-scale unfounding of crime is serious, under any circumstances. It is particularly serious in the context of rape and sexual assault. Rape is a felony, making it a very serious crime, second only to murder. But according to the major criminal justice literature, it is also the most under-reported of crimes. The crime of rape is 9 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 fraught with myths and stereotypes and is deeply grounded in bias against women. Its historic underpinnings are useful in understanding the depth of cultural bias associated with this crime. Rape developed as a crime against property, rather than as a crime against person, under English common laws, from which are our laws have developed. A woman's chastity was essential to establish patriarchal inheritance rights. Thus, a daughter's chastity was viewed as the property of her father. The father essentially sold her virginity to the man who would become her husband and through whom property would pass. Rape was the theft of this property owned by men. Only virgins and unmarried females could be raped under this theory. The bodily integrity of the woman was irrelevant, so much so that the crime of rape could be cured, from the view of the criminal justice system, if the rapist married his victim. If, on the other hand, he did not marry his victim or was without property, she then became damaged goods, and her father suffered severe economic consequences. Rape laws protected 10 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 the male economic interests and permitted extraordinary social control over women. It's important to point out that historically in this country, this has meant white male economic interests, as research indicates that scores of innocent African-American men were hanged and lynched in the early part of this century as control over white women's sexuality was used as an excuse to terrorize the black community. Likewise, women of color received no 12 meaning redress in the legal system when they were raped. Although significant changes in definitions have developed over the centuries, the vestiges of this concept are still deeply embedded in our laws, institutions, and society at large. And these will be explored later today by a legal expert, Michelle Anderson.

The centrality of NOW interests continue to dominate public perceptions and reactions to this crime. Its most obvious manifestation is the focus of attention on the victim's behavior rather than the assailant's. Under this view, then, rape occurs not because of 11 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 the action of the assailant, but by the victim's response to his action. The treatment of rape has been a marked contrast to other felonies in its emphasis on the character, behavior, and thoughts of the victim, rather than on the actions of the accused. Suffice it to say that even though significant law reform has taken place, victim-blaming, suspicion, and shame still dominate much of our culture. The most obvious the shift in attitude has occurred when rape is reported to have taken place by a stranger and accompanied with additional physical force or injury. Not more than 30 years ago, even those types of rape were viewed with suspicion, and responsibility for their occurrences was placed on the victim. Why was she out alone? why did she walk down that alley? what was she wearing? were the questions always posed. Indeed, when I was an undergraduate at the university in 1973, two student nurses were gang-raped in the dead of winter in an alley on campus. The head of security advised us that we could avoid rape by not wearing provocative 12 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 clothing. Today considerably more public sympathy exists when what has become known as "stranger rape" occurs. The reality is that most rape is committed by acquaintances, and in the case of children, by family members. So we find ourselves today in a place today where society is comfortable in recognizing the crime of rape when bad men rape good girls at knifepoint. When a female, however, knows her assailant or has had prior intimacy with him, she is far less likely to be believed. If she is impaired in any way, such as by alcohol or drugs or by mental-health problems or is a prostitute, the focus shifts back to her behavior. Under these circumstances, she is held responsible not only for her behavior but for her assailant's as well. There is frequently a sense in cases like this that not only did she ask for it but that she also deserved it and that she is the one who should suffer the consequences, not the assailant. Unfortunately, it appears, from both the reports in the Inquirer and the experienced that Women Organized Against Rape will describe 13 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 later, that these are the primary types of cases where the Philadelphia Police Department has let women down. Since we first called for City Council hearings, we have met with Commissioner Timoney and his senior staff. We have agreed to meet at least on a monthly basis. When we observed that the Philadelphia Police Coding Book that they gave us seemed to be missing changes in the Pennsylvania crime codes with regard to their classification of sex crimes, Chief Inspector Maxwell called and asked us to participate in a process of reclassifying crimes. We've also been invited, and will attend, the COMPSTAT to acquaint ourselves better with current police practices. We know that changes have been underway under Commissioner Timoney's leadership regarding the coding of crimes and we feel that we are on the path to corrective actions. Though the leadership of the women's community is heartened by these responses, we know that we are not the important players in this. It is the women in Philadelphia who must trust that their experiences of sexual assault will be taken 14 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 seriously and that they will not be retraumatized by the police process. It is those women whose cases were not believed or thoroughly investigated, which could number in the thousands over the past years, and the larger community 7 who have read the Inquirer who must be able to 8 trust the police response.

9 We know, and you will hear, that there 10 are many police officers -- hopefully, the 11 majority -- who do their jobs we well -- patrol 12 officers, Special Victims Unit officers and 13 detectives, as well as the senior command staff, 14 who see themselves as professionals investigating 15 serious crime and who have compassion for the 16 victims of crime. 17 But there is no question that there are 18 some who would assume dishonesty on the part of victims who make accusations of sexual assault, who have feelings of protection for the alleged perpetrator, who will say, for example, This could ruin his career and family, or who are simply incompetent in their jobs. These officers do not believe or trust the victims, or they talk victims out of filing complaints, resulting in biased or 15 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 incomplete investigations. The Police Department must supervise, train or remove these types of officers, and the cultural norms in the department that similarly reinforce these attitudes must be changed. We are mindful that these are difficult crimes to investigate, particularly when they involve children. My colleague Frank Cervone will describe in detail issues associated with the sex crimes against children, which apparently amount for the majority of sex crimes, and will provide concrete recommendations for change in that regard. We hope today that we will find out how cases are being investigated and coded, what the impact of coding is on investigation, what corrective actions have taken place and will take place, particularly with regard to the large number of cases categorized as noncriminal in the past five years, which is the statute of limitations period, and most especially, how we can build a system of response to sex crimes that the community at large can trust. Thank you. 16 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775

Thank you. Mr. Cervone?

Thank you, Councilman. Thank you, members of Council for attending to this most serious problem. The Support Center for Child Advocates is Philadelphia's lawyer pro bono program for abused and neglected children. We offer the skills and dedication of lawyers, social worker teams, and last year, we represented a record high of 614 child victims in various court proceedings in Philadelphia's courts. For more than years, 14 we've served as a resource to the community and to 15 this Council. We're glad to do so once again. 16 Children's cases comprise the majority 17 of investigations conducted by the Police Special 18 Victims Unit. In the 2-year period 1997 through 19 1998, a total of 7,810 cases were investigated. 20 Of these, 5,328, or 68 percent of the cases, 21 involved child victims of physical and sexual 22 abuse, while 2,482 cases involved adult victims of sex crimes. Four in five of the children's cases, or 80 percent, are sexual-abuse cases. So that in the same 2-year period, there were approximately 17 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 4,200 child and adolescent sex-abuse police investigations. Except for stranger assaults, all of the child-abuse cases are also investigated by Philadelphia's DHS. What problems do we see? There are: Delays in the assignment of police investigators; Conflicting schedules of investigations by the police and DHS; Poor handling of children in the way their stories are heard and accepted or rejected; large caseloads; Repeated interviews by, at times, unskilled investigators; The failure to share information about Special Victims at the Frankford Arsenal, a small, common, cramped waiting room for adults and children; Perpetrators enter that building through the same entrance and use the hallways and same restrooms as the officers and the victims. In general, our city lacks a convenient, child-friendly facility for more than a handful of all cases; 18 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 There are difficulties that the location of the Arsenal and the lack of resources place on workers and officers who want to collaborate; Also a problem is the freedom of officers and workers to decline to collaborate; There's a resistance to some --

Excuse me. Can you define that a little bit clearer. Freedom of officers and workers who decline to collaborate?

"Collaboration" is a term of art that we use in a general sense, a sense to give people credit for all the different ways that they connect with each other. But workers -- and the site for collaboration is the Philadelphia Children's Alliance, which is the agency formerly called the Children's Advocacy Center, at 40th and Chestnut. Basically, there's a structured way of doing the case together. Well, only about 10 to 15 percent of the cases that come through the system are handled together at that facility with that process. So workers and officers can decline to work at the Advocacy Center. They can also work on their own, 19 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 they could collaborate without the Advocacy Center, and they are, as well, free to not do that. There's no mandate for collaboration, as I'll suggest to you and give some context to in a minute. There's a persistent distrust between some workers and some officers distrusting their interview skills, distrusting the goals of the investigation; There's a continuing -- certainly not widespread but continuing -- attitude of disbelief of child victims' disclosures; There's a reluctant to videotape. That comes in part because we don't want to create weak cases, bad evidence. Most of us feel that videotaping will indeed raise the bar of the quality of these interviews.

And, you know, that runs across the department. We had Commissioner Neal here, and he -- I can testify to a resistance to videotape investigations of interviews that they had with perpetrators.

To their credit, and, I think, to their reform, the Commissioner and the 20 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Department have recently opened up the possibility of homicides and other serious investigations, captain cases, using videotaping in those. We're concerned that our system continues to be unable to work together on more than a fraction of the cases where collaboration is warranted and that there's no process for multidisciplinary review, as is now required by law. Too many of these cases are still being handled in ways that enlighten communities have repudiated and have improved. Too often, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. With our systems closed to each other and to the public, there's no 16 cross-checking or dialoguing results. Is there miscoding or downgrading of child crimes, as has been found in the adult cases? Well, because there's been no review of children's cases and because there's little concrete data, we simply cannot know. It should be noted that child-abuse cases produce different evidence and different challenges from adult cases. There almost undoubtedly will be a higher rate of unsubstantiation. But with the high 21 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 percentage -- two-thirds -- of Special Victims involving children, we can reasonably speculate that we might see similar problems in children's cases, as the Department itself and the Inquirer are finding in the adult cases. In short, we must change the way children's cases are handled. We need a mandate on workers and officers to collaborate, we need a facility where they can do so, and we need the resources to allow all of this to happen. Briefly, there are two pathways, and I've prepared a chart that goes across the for your reference. I hope you have that. There are two ways the cases get in the system for children's cases, and these would be different cases on different paths. Each of the two paths connects to the other on occasion. First, the 9-1-1 calls. If a mother calls the police to report that her daughter, for example, has been sexually abused, the police, 9-1-1, sends a radio car from the district. That district officer transports the child and her mother to the Special Victims Unit at Frankford Arsenal, where the case is assigned on a wheel to 22 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 a line-squad officer. There's 24/7 service, and some officer, the next up --

Excuse me, you can't speak in code. When you say 24/7 service --

That's hours a day, 7 7 days a week, there are officers on staff at the 8 Frankford Arsenal to take so-called live-job 9 cases, Councilman. 10

Excuse me, excuse 11 me. You mentioned the best-case scenario, where 12 the police transport the victim and the mother. 13 What about a victim that doesn't have a mother 14 that can respond; how is that handled? 15

Again, on the 9-1-1 side, 16 if somebody's calling the police 911 Unit, I 17 assume they make some identification of where the 18 child is, whose care the child is in. Lots of 19 9-1-1 calls come from strangers and so it's not 20 immediately apparent to the responding officer 21 with whom the child is staying or in care. 22

My point being, if 23 there is not an adult immediately available, does 24 the Police Department provide a person that can cover the child and not just put that child in a 23 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 police car and take them away in it?

No, no. Though on occasion -- I think the answer is no. The police do not provide a separate social worker, there's no social work staff in the Police Department.

Councilwoman Miller is reaching over and asking, Does DHS provide that person?

That is the answer, that is where I was going. In fact, you'll often see outside DHS late in the day a police car; that police car's typically there because a child has been brought in.

Thank you.

Let him finish as he takes us through here, unless he speaks to us in code; then we'll ask for an explanation on that code. Go ahead, Mr. Cervone.

So we're at the Frankford Arsenal, the district officer turns over the care of the case to the next line-squad officer up for an assignment. This is an assignment on a wheel. There are seven to ten officers present, and the 24 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 next one scheduled to take a case gets the case. That officer -- by the way, that line-squad officer gets whatever the next case is that comes in the door. It might be an adult case, it might be a child case, it might be an infant case. One of the problems of our system is that the line squads do all the cases on 911's. So the child was interviewed probably by the district officer very briefly at the house, but the significant interview and investigation occurs by the line-squad officer. Some hours or days or weeks later, the officer may make a report to DHS. They are mandated reporters. We don't have any data on how many of the cases actually result in calls to DHS. Certainly our office has seen lots of cases that have never had a call from the Police Department to DHS.

Excuse me. You mean that this does not happen simultaneously?

That's correct.

DHS may get the case two weeks later?

That's right. This is a 25 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 pathway that begins in the Police Department, and it only leaves the Police Department if the Police Department elects to let it leave. We're in the Police Department --

And so there's no 7 one from DHS present when that child is brought in?

That is correct.

All right.

The Police Department, if they inform DHS, they typically will use the hotline, and the hotline process is started up, which we'll begin in a second.

So, excuse me. Who accompanies the child -- back to Councilman Rizzo's question -- to the Frankford Arsenal?

The parent or other caregiver and the police officer from the district.

Okay. And if there's no caregiver. . .? Then what?

Typically, there is because a complaint's been filed -- typically by a family member. 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 In the other type of situation where a neighbor, for instance, calls and hears that there's abuse, there's something going on in this house and calls 9-1-1, certainly the police officers in that situation might call DHS from the street, and a worker might be sent out through their emergency process.

Okay, thank you.

Now, consider the same case reported to the DHS hotline. For DHS child-abuse cases, someone makes a call to the hotline, an intake social work on a scheduled emergency day makes a contact with the child or family, quote, immediately -- certainly within an hour or two, if they're able to. And then an actual face-to-face meeting with the child generally occurs within hours. 19 DHS hotline immediately faxes the 20 referral to the Child-Abuse Unit at Sex Crimes. 21 This is a different unit from the Special Victims, 22 the three Special Victims Line Squads Unit -- they 23 all work under the captain at Special Victims. 24 Unfortunately because of staffing shortages and the caseloads of the Child-Abuse 27 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Unit, there are delays of one day to several weeks before a child advocacy unit officer is assigned. Meanwhile, the DHS worker may have concluded her investigation and issued findings and closed or transferred the investigation. Again, in many cases, there's no 8 connection between the two investigations. What we see is cases open and cases closed in their respective spheres without there first being a connection. DHS will open after police are closed; police will open after DHS is closed. Our law enforcement -- I want to say that most of what we say in this process and certainly today, it sounds like it's a very negative, pessimistic picture. By contrast, our law enforcement and child-welfare personnel have been working together for many years to improve this system. On the cases that have been investigated collaboratively, there seems to be a level of satisfaction of all the participants. Many of the individuals in both systems participate in joint trainings. Many social workers and police officers work well together on 28 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 their shared cases. Interview protocols have been in development for over a year. There's a referral , there's a protocol for joint investigation of 5- to 11-year-old's working reasonably well -- for some cases. The police and DHS have been committed to working together through the Philadelphia Children's Alliance on this identified group, and the commissioners and the District Attorney have all committed to doing it better. Unfortunately, these many positive efforts and supports have resulted in collaboration in only 10 to percent 14 of all eligible cases. Geographic distance 15 between the several sites, the current structures in assignment, with all of these, even willing personnel can get together only on a limited basis. Briefly, to many, if not all of these problems, we believe there's an answer -- a co-located facility that brings all the key players under one group. Miss Kirchner and Mr. Birns, from the Philadelphia Children's Alliance, will provide you with more details of this proposal later in the hearings. 29 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 I can report that I've personally visited co-located programs in Dallas, El Paso, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Commissioner Timoney's own program in Brooklyn. There are, by the way, hundreds of these co-located programs all over the country. What we find is a tremendously positive interaction of professionals in a dramatically- improved intervention for children and families. We need a co-located program and a collaborative investigative process in Philadelphia. Lastly, we've attached the recently committed recommendations of the Law Enforcement Child Abuse Project, or LECAP, on the goals of reform. These recommendations reflect the broad community consensus on what our system investigation should contain. You can restore the integrity of our investigations and the confidence of our community. We hope that this statement of goals will guide you and other policy-makers to build a different kind of building and a new and effective process. Thank you for your interest in our 30 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 children.

Councilman Kenney?

Thank you very much. And good morning. Thank you for your testimony. Miss Tracy, in your testimony, you had indicated -- and I don't mean to paraphrase you, but I think I did get your point, which is that the attitude of male officers towards the complainants and rape or sexual-abuse cases colors -- or their predisposition, their own upbringing perhaps colors or hampers the way in which the case is, first of all, taken seriously, and secondly, investigated. Could you kind of elaborate on that a little bit.

Well, it appears to us that -- and let me, please, remind you that I've said "some" officers.

Yes, right.

Because we do know, and I do know that many women have had very good experiences with many officers. But the cases that we have heard about 31 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 that and you'll hear about later from Women Organized Against Rape, and also the cases, many of the cases that were reported in the Inquirer, suggest that when women are impaired in some way, particularly if they have had drug or alcohol histories, that their report of a crime is just not taken seriously. I think those attitudes are attitudes are still culturally very common in our society in general, and unfortunately, it appears that that that is true with some members of our police force. It's not clear to me -- I have looked at the training manual that the police have supplied to Council, and it's not clear to me that there is a significant or an adequate amount of training on those issues. I hope that when the police testify, we can find out more about that.

One of the things I was going to ask you as a result of your answer is, how do you believe the training could be changed, both in the academy, prior to the officers coming out onto the street as new officers, and what can be done from a training aspect when it comes to veteran officers who may 32 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 be set in their ways and attitudes about things and ways of doing their own job that need to be changed? What types of training could be employed to begin to be able to change that?

I believe, for the most part, that training in crimes related to sex crimes shouldn't differ that much from other crimes, in that a professional, objective investigation should occur. I think police officers should have adequate training in investigative techniques. In addition, though, in dealing particularly with children, which Frank has outlined, but also with adult victims, there is a significant amount of trauma that is associated with it, and this is an extraordinary ordeal that people go through, that can last from the time they have reported a crime to the time they are back home, 10 to 12 hours later. It's grueling, it's intense, and it's sometimes retraumatizing. So I think that we need to be mindful of that. I think we need to have intensive interactive training. I think that when individuals who have biased attitudes are 33 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 confronted with scenarios or cases that could be close to home -- after all, it is frequently the wives and daughters of individuals who are assaulted as well. When it becomes a little more personal, then they have a better understanding of it. I think that there are adequate training materials that are available. I think there are adequate individuals in the Philadelphia area and nationally who are available to train officers. But I also want to say that I don't think training should be the scapegoat for poor supervision. When it is obvious -- and it should be obvious, I think, to a supervisory structure -- that investigations are not occurring properly, then the supervisor really has to take over, and I think the supervisory and command structure is every bit as important as any kind of training that goes on outside.

Thank you. The issue of spousal abuse and its relation to the potentiality of children being physically or sexually abused in the home is 34 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 apparently clear from all the research that's been done in this that says that when you have an abusive husband, he's also perhaps potentially an abusive father. On spousal-abuse calls where uniformed personnel respond to a home where the woman has obviously been beaten, is bruised, you know, is crying, upset, and has been beaten up, and there's children in the home, is there any protocol that exists today? And should there be where there are questioning of the children, based on the spousal- abuse call, but a probative type of questioning that would maybe enlist additional information about what is going on in the house? And is that employed anyplace else in the country? Does it open other types of investigations as it relates to the minor children in the home? And what's your experience in that regard, as far as other cities?

There are -- the connection between domestic violence of and between adults and the experience of children in those hopes is a topic that has, in a sense, only recently come to the fore of professional 35 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 attention. It certainly has been present in the lives of families for generations. What we see is a kind of emerging sensitivity to the connection. Places that are doing it right are including in their risk assessment protocols and instruments the dimensions of child abuse and the experience of children. Places that are doing it right give children and adults a friendly face and a friendly place to share their story. Places that are doing it right have some sense that they need to remove the abuser from the home rather than the victimized child or perhaps to split the child from her mother. Councilman Kenney, we certainly have appreciated your own interest in this topic, and I know that many of us have talked about the proposals that you've put forward about, in a sense, co-locating or joining the process for adult victims child and victims, and we look forward to that dialogue. The numbers of domestic-violence cases in the city are also large, and so we've talk a lot about how we might join these two processes. 36 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 We think, at a minimum, there should be the kind of sensitivity and connection that's borne of liaisons, protocols, and some shared case-management on those connected cases.

Which cities are doing it right, in your opinion?

Well, I'm not an authority on location. There's a great program in Boston that lots of folks are familiar with. We can certainly provide your staff and others of Council with more information.

Okay.

I would like to add to that one thing, though, that many of these cases wind up in the civil context, and perhaps another form -- although I know Council does not have any authority over the courts, I think you would be shocked to know how often abusers get custody and unsupervised visitation of their children through the civil court system. This is not something that has police involvement generally, but it is a severe problem, and there is no question that children who simply witness violence, much less experience violence, 37 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 suffer severe consequences as a result of it. And we do not have a good, adequate social response to that here -- or most anywhere.

And I think also the real sadness, in addition to the children witnessing violence or experiencing it, is the potential of them becoming abusers themselves as they grow into adulthood because of their experiences. Just finally, on the co-location issue, is there an importance for a co-located facility, in addition to being friendly and conducive to dealing with the serious problem, is there any importance on having it near a children's hospital or, for example, CHOP or St. Chris? Is there any need to integrate the medical side and the psychiatric side of a co-located facility when it comes to the investigation of child abuse?

I think proximity is less important than capacity. The programs that I've seen, all four of them had some medical component on site. Only one that I know of -- I'm sure there are others, and I've not been to it, in San Diego, is actually based in the hospital. There 38 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 needs to be the capacity for the rape kit work and that to be administered by a sensitive, appropriately-trained professional. There needs to be a connection to a lab. There needs to be the opportunity for medical exam in the more -- particularly in the more sensitive or severe cases.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the record, Miss Tracy, in your testimony, when you say that the aspect of classification of sexual-assault cases by the Police Department are in a noncriminal code instead of in a criminal code, could you give us more on that and what you mean by that, and which are the types and examples.

And who determines whether it becomes a criminal code or not?

Well, I would suggest that I think we need to ask that question of the police. I don't think I can answer that. But what I do want to do is go through 39 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 some of that for you, Councilman Ortiz. I'd also like to describe, as part of that, some of the exhibits that we have provided for you. The first is just an excerpt of their uniformed crime code, which is the national accounting, and Jane Siegel will testify about that, and then the police description of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code Report as well, as well as the pertinent statute that defines sex crimes. Next is the Philadelphia Police Coding Book, and I know they've provided you with this information as well. And as you look through the Police Coding Book, as you look through this, you will see on the left side something called "the Philadelphia Code," which, I believe, is something an administrative code. To the right, you will see in parentheses (unintelligible), and that's the crime code.

That's the Pennsylvania Crime Code.

The Pennsylvania Crime Code. And rape is listed under the 200 series, sexual assaults are listed under the 700 series, and they have parallel citations to the Crimes 40 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Code. There are, however, other categories that don't have parallel citations. One of them is called -- is numbered 2701, and that is the Investigation of Person. And, according to the information that was in the Inquirer and that I see that the police have provided for you today, large numbers of cases, until very recently, were put in that code. It doesn't have any parallel citations to (unintelligible), it isn't a crime. These, apparently, were reported as sex crimes. I think we saw a couple of cases related to the Rittenhouse Square rapist and murderer that a couple of reports of assaults were ultimately classified as 2701, Investigation of Person. There has been --

When you speak in numbers --

It's on here.

But for the record, I would like you to explain that so that --

Councilman Ortiz, I'm not competent to explain that to you; that's something that the police have to explain to you. It's 41 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 their material that I'm reading from.

All right.

The other code that is currently being used is Philadelphia Code 2625, on real, and that's called Investigation Protection Medical Examination. And I do not know, and I hope that a real point of today will be to find out how those decisions are made, why those decisions have been made. It is quite clear, from the data that has been recently supplied by the Philadelphia police, that fewer and fewer cases are put in those categories. There is a larger concern on our part of all of the cases in the past from, '94 to '97, and it looks like there's several thousand that were put in the category of Investigation of Person, that we hope have been reviewed to see if those cases were improperly classified; and they, indeed should have been classified as crimes and properly investigated. I think, actually, that is the fundamental question of the day. What is that about, are we clear that it's been corrected, and what are we doing about the cases that were coded 42 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 that way in the past?

Councilman Nutter?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hi. Good morning, Ms. Tracy and Mr. Cervone. Mr. Cervone, let me ask you a question, and then I have some other questions for Ms. Trace. On your testimony, into 2, you list under the general heading of what problems do you see in the investigations of children's cases, and there are bullet points, some probably or 14 so of them. Have you had an opportunity to 15 discuss these issues with both the Police Department and the Department of Human Services?

I have not taken the opportunity since I compiled this list, to review the list with them. I daresay, however, that I have --

I'm sure you've had some discussions about this.

I daresay that I've had years of dialogue on each of the points with many different members of both leadership and line 43 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 staff of both organizations.

And can you share with us this morning any of the highlights of any of those discussions? Or is there acknowledgment that you might be right or you're absolutely wrong, or they're willing to make some adjustments? I mean, can you tell us a little bit about this list?

I doubt that persons of integrity would deny any of this. I do believe that the leadership of both organizations generally recognize most of these problems. I think the Department of Human Services would deny that they have excessive caseloads. Their typical response, I understand as recently as last week, was that their caseloads comply with the regulations. But, no, I don't think there's been any denial --

People often testify in a way that comports with the way they've been asked to testify about certain things.

Well, I certainly have 44 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 not.

Oh, I'm not talking about you; I'm talking about people in the government. Have you seen any movement in recent times on any of these issues to try to get to a better system?

Yes. I think that both of our systems, the civil child welfare system characterized by DHS or led by DHS and the criminal justice system led by the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office have both been most cooperative in moving forward at all levels -- in everything from training to size of caseloads to this issue of location. And we have heard positive indications on the location question from all three commissioners -- from the two commissioners and the District Attorney.

When you're talking about location, are you talking about the location of the Special Victims Unit which, I understand, is at the Frankford Arsenal?

That's correct. We certainly have not heard a commitment from the 45 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Police Department to move that facility.

How long has that been there?

That's been there for roughly five years. I'm not a great one for dates. Certainly, in my tenure, the operation previously was in a building affectionately known as "The Stables," down at the Franklin Roosevelt Park, on Pattison Avenue; and before that, at a facility that, apparently, was even worse. It is, as I understand it, actually, fairly common knowledge among police, wherever they go, that they will be mistreated with the facilities provided them by their public systems, and so there is this shrugging acceptance of bad facilities.

Does it -- I mean, I'm not sure if my life depended on it at this moment that I'd be able to direct someone specifically to this particular unit at the --

To the Arsenal facility?

Yes. I think I may have seen it.

Ten or twenty people in 46 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 this room, tops, could get there.

Okay. I mean, does it make some level of sense to have this unit somewhat centrally located in the city? And no 6 one may ever agree about what is central in Philadelphia, but it certainly seems to me, at best, generally accessible to a variety of forms of public transportation, if not car, places generally known by, you know, some significant portion of the citizenry and is a decent facility. I assume it needs, you know, certain rooms interviews and privacy, and you make, I think, reference in your testimony in one of these sections that -- or in someone's testimony that the victims are sitting in a place where the alleged perpetrator comes through the same door or the same area or something like that? Was that in your testimony or was that in someone else's testimony?

Yes, yes.

I mean, I guess, if something had happened to a child or to an adult and they've now come to a place they thought was of refuge and the next thing you know, the person 47 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 that just did something to you earlier that day or that night, or whenever it was, comes walking through that door, it must have a dramatic impact on that person.

It's terribly upsetting and traumatic to even see the person. Occasionally that person comes through the door with another loved one of that child, and so then there's the added trauma and upset of this mixed facility.

Right.

The Brooklyn facility is a good example of a building, an old warehouse rehabbed into a modern facility, with a separate, entirely separate flow, physical flow, of persons, and separate for victims and for perpetrators.

Okay. Lastly, just if you know, when the move was made to the current location, do you recall what the explanation was or what any added touted benefits were of this particular facility?

Well, I remember distinctly the response of the community to the move. It was one of surprise and it was one of 48 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 being uninformed. None of us, none of us knew it was coming until, tops, a month before it occurred. There was absolutely no dialogue, there was no question as to whether this worked. This, as I understand, from my perspective, I could only conclude that it was a real-estate question. They had an available facility and they took it. There certainly could be no other justification for locating a space of public accommodation into a space that requires, or might require, transport by other professionals. There can be no other justification or explanation for locating it at the Frankford Arsenal.

Mr. Chairman, before I ask Miss Tracy any questions, I'm assuming that the Police Department is going to be here today?

Yes. Commissioner Timoney is here.

Oh, okay. Thank you, Mr. Cervone. Miss Tracy, let me ask you about -- there was some discussion earlier by some of my 49 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 colleagues with regard to the general issue of domestic violence and how the victims are treated. And there was some discussion with regard to the police investigation and training and the like. Can you tell me what, from your perspective, happens after that, in terms of prosecution or non-prosecution? And what's the experience after you get through the police experience?

If an arrest is made?

Yes.

I actually think that Women Organized Rape would be better able to testify about that because they provide advocates. My sense is that when an arrest is made, when they move through the court proceedings, that it's always a painful experience, but it's not a question anymore of being disbelieved because someone has been charged with a crime. So as soon as the charging of the crime has happened, it is the issue of being disbelieved that -- that is so troubling about these cases. 50 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 I don't think that the reporting or the prosecution of rape is ever an easy path for anyone to go through, and I think that's part of the reason it's such an under-reported crime. But I do think that one of the critical issues is, is the system going to believe me? And if the system doesn't believe at the outset, it just is a traumatizing experience. I would like to mention, when you were talking about the facility, in your packet, there are photographs of the Arsenal.

Yeah, I saw them.

And you will see that there's barbed wire. And it is difficult to find your way once you get in there, into the building. And there's also a map that suggests its location and, I think, its lack of convenience to the sites, particularly the hospital sites where rape victims are brought, from Children's Hospital, Thomas Jefferson Hospital, and Episcopal Hospital.

Well, if you weren't driving, how would you get there from here? 51 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775

Well, the police -- you know, if you were brought to the hospital, transport.

Okay.

But I think there is also a question to be asked of the police of cases. I think if a victim is not -- if a sex crime is not reported within 72 hours, there's not much point in going to the hospital. So then the question is, if a person reports a sex crimes after the 72 hours, how do they get to the Special Victims Unit? And I hope that you will ask that of the police officers. We also have, finally, in this packet a description of Directive 107, which the police provided to us. And, again, I really do want to emphasize that they have been most cooperative. And it describes the protocol that is employed by the police in rape and in other sex offenses. And then we, trying to figure it all out at the Law Project, drew this chart. I don't know that it's adequate; it just helped us understand it and we thought it might help you understand it. 52 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 But there are -- I think as we go through this, there are the kinds of questions about what happens if it isn't an immediate crime that's taken to the hospital. And it does appear that quite a few of these crimes are reported after the 72 hours -- particularly, I suspect, in the case of children.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Miller? And then Mr. Cohen.

Thank you, Councilman Ortiz. I have a couple questions. Mr. Cervone, you gave us information on how the flow chart is as it exists today. What would you change to make this look like more of a team approach? What type of chart would you design? And maybe we could get a copy of that. ?

I urge you that this is not a fanciful theory nor a gold-plated proposal. 53 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775

Right.

But rather, it is the way that many communities have already done it. So we don't have to actually design it using the chemicals. But what we see is, the case would -- regardless of which door of the system it came in, the case would land, in a sense, at some central assigning person. That staff person would work for a separate nonprofit entity, who would then inform, or somehow be informed, that the case is in the system. The case would be duly assigned and simultaneously assigned to both a police officer and to a social worker.

At the same time?

At the same time. The family would be contacted by one or the other of the designated persons on that team. The other members of the team would be aware of those contacts. An interview, or interviews, of the victim and any witnesses would be scheduled, and the other members of the team would be informed of that date and time. Because they're 54 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 all working in the same buildings, perhaps even in the next desk, they get to know immediately when that event is about to occur. They then participate in the event, the interviewer. Sometimes those interviews are conducted by a member of the staff of the agency, the nonprofit agency -- in our case, the Philadelphia Children's Alliance. In other cases, they'll be conducted by the police officer or by the social worker. The other persons sit behind the mirror and observe the interview. The child is -- very often, kids have to be interviewed several times, both to develop a rapport, to recall the events, to understand the questions, and to ensure their credibility. The child would typically meet the same person each time rather than a different person each time asking the same questions. There's a kind of learning curve to the whole team. And then, all of the team communicate. This would include -- getting back to Councilman Kenney's question -- the medical staff, whether they're on-site or nearby. The child is examined, then the medical staff get to add their input and 55 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 their findings to the team process. Lastly, there's an efficiency that comes when the several people know that somebody else took care of it. We see lots of inefficiency in our work when we -- we all come to these case with a degree of care that the child be treated well and the child be safe. We're wondering whether the doctor was called or whether DHS was called. And so the police officer ends up making a bunch of extra calls because they're sure if the worker made the call, and so on. And so with everybody on the team, everybody's more apt to do their own job and less apt to worry about whether the other job was done.

You stated earlier, you and Miss Tracy -- or in Miss Tracy's testimony -- you stated that you've been meeting with the various departments, at least with the Police Commissioner. Are you also meeting with the Commissioner of DHS and the other departments to really pull this whole flow of arrest from arrest or from point of call to the end together? 56 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775

Yes. In fact -- and I haven't been as clear about this. With the Children's Advocacy Center -- now called the Children's Alliance -- is a collaborative venture. It's, in a sense, co-owned, so to speak, by those three lead agencies as well as by a community of representative members of its board, of which I serve as a standing member. And for ten years now, we've been meeting and functioning as a team to try and get this right. So all of those agencies have leadership. The Director of Intake of the Department of Human Services, the inspector and captain from Sex Crimes, a representative from the District Attorney's Office, have all been at that table throughout.

And, Miss Tracy, I'd like you to comment on, where's the need to -- I asked you earlier about unfounded cases, but if cases are being disposed of as being unfounded, that seems to me to be one place where we really need to start to impact change.

Well, there are two different issues. One is an unfounded case where 57 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 the police, for one reason or another, don't believe that a crime has been committed. Then there is this other category of cases that seems to be a limbo. It's -- because when they're unfounded, they're still unfounded in the context of a criminal action. When they're put -- in at least as I understand it -- into these categories called Investigation of Person or Transportation Medical Support, they're not -- they're no longer considered a crime. It's not a question of having made a determination that a crime didn't meet -- that the circumstances around the report were not credible. And that actually is what I hope that the police will be able to explain in ways that we can all understand today. Now, from their reports that they've given you today, they're not putting nearly the number of cases in those kinds of noncriminal categories as they did before. I think it's also important for us to know what the circumstances are and when cases are unfounded as well.

Right, right. That's what I was wondering. 58 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Okay, thank you.

Councilman Cohen will be the last questioner for this group because we're running behind the times Councilman?

First to Mr. Cervone. You stated in response to Councilwoman Miller's last question at one point that for ten years, there have been representatives of these group at work together. Do you mean by that that they have achieved the kind of efficiency that you have in mind? And if they haven't, why haven't they? In your opinion, why hasn't --

If I may, it's kind of like a manufacturing process in which the factory needs more orders for goods; but if it got more orders, it actually couldn't handle them anyway, because it's out of space. We're out of space to take more cases, but we're not getting as many cases as we ought to be getting. Everybody in this process wants to do it differently. At some level of their being and some level of their experience of cases, they all tell us they want to do it differently, but none 59 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 of them have taken the step forward to say, We will do it differently and we are willing to change.

Well, isn't it a fact that, really, the only one that could bring it about would be the Mayor, or the Mayor's representative in our city government. Doesn't it have to be top executive action bringing this about? And in that regard, I would ask, what steps are being taken to deal with the transition teams of Mayor Street, Mayor-elect Street, or bringing it to his attention? 'Cause it seems to me that this is a great time to bring about the result that you're advocating. But that the only way that you're going to do it is by having the mayoral action. Our experience at Council is that different City agencies lack one important position. Each of them needs an ambassador to represent it with others because each agency works by itself, preserves its own rights and places, and that's usually the number-one item on the agenda. 60 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 And so you need an authority higher than the commissioners to bring this about, and I think Mayor-elect Street is the person at this point to deal with, and the best time to do it is at the beginning of his tenure and before our first budget that he'll be presenting to us shortly after the new year.

Councilman, hopefully, out of these hearings, we will have serious recommendations for the Mayor-elect coming out of the suggestions that the witnesses will be making to us.

Well, I think we'll be doing it, but I think we also need the advocacy groups to be doing it.

Well, let me say this, Councilman, that we -- it is indeed the case that -- and we would welcome the support of Mayor Street. His office and former role has been apprised throughout, as was Mayor Rendell. And we agree with you that the commitment from the top makes all the difference in the world in this world of ours. I'd say as well, though, as we sit in 61 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Council chamber, with all due respect, that Council has a role to play.

We agree with that.

Council needs to fund this process. The Council, when in the past invited to appropriately fund the District Attorney's Office and the Police Department for investigations, has not been a warm friend; it has been as critical as it has been supportive. We invite you to that level of leadership as well. We need this Council to say that our system needs to be different. And with that, we'll have an entire community of leadership willing to say it's different. These hearings are our first and best, including the most present opportunity to make a difference in this city. So we're counting on your leadership to make that happen.

Well, let me conclude with a touch of reality. I agree with everything you've said, and I'm very confident that this Council is going to be actively supporting that program. But under the Home Rule Charter that we operate under, even 62 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 if Council appropriates money, the Mayor has the power not to use the money for the purpose appropriated. So that what you need is a combination of the appropriation by Council, plus the agreement of the Mayor to carry out the program. And the easiest first step is to get agreement by the Mayor before the budget comes to City Council. If the fight has to be made at the City Council floor and we appropriate the money, our experiences that we don't get the same kind of result. And that's the reason what I said has nothing to do with the will of the City Council. I would have to disagree with you. I don't know on any occasion when this Council has been unfriendly. What has happened is that Council faces a reality that if a Mayor is totally in opposition to something, that appropriation of money is often a futile thing. Sometimes we have appropriated, sometimes we don't. But I'm urging you to put heavy weight on the Mayor as well as on the Council. We'll do our job, because we've tried in many cases to move 63 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 the mayors forward, and we need the help in Council, we need the help of outside advocacy groups to be very active at the mayoral level as well as at the Council level. So we take seriously what you say, and I think you'll find that Council will more than meet what you think may be its obligation. Miss Tracy, you made one remark that I just wanted to touch on for a minute. Are you going to deal further with the civil aspect? You stated that there are aspects that are unattended to in the civil process. Do you have a specific recommendation with respect to that?

Well, Councilman Cohen, since so much of that involves Family Court, I think it's difficult to ask Council; although I would love to see Family Court's budget, something that none of us have been able to get our hands on. I don't think you have authority over Family Court. Some of it is the idiosyncracies of our Family Court judges, and I think that we are working through the various Bar Association committees, and we've had a pretty responsive ear with Judge Panepinto. 64 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 But I think that we would welcome probably another hearing, because there's nothing more powerful than the bully pulpit, which Council can, and does, provide so effectively.

I think Council does provide that bully pulpit in both areas, and particularly in the civil area, and I think that it would be very helpful if you prepared that. It probably ought to be a separate hearing, as you're suggesting, but I think it's an area that Council can be very effective in.

Yes. We have really focused today primarily on sex crimes and the police response to sex crimes, and have not looked at the entire system, because that seemed to be the most urgent issue at hand. But it's not the beginning and the end of it, either. Thank you.

Thank you.

One last comment by Councilman Kenney and then --.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue, though, we've been talking 65 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 about today, I don't think necessarily think at the outset if we were to change the structure and culture, it would necessarily cost more money initially. While I agree that the District Attorney's Office is in need of some additional funding, perhaps DHS and the courts, the coordination and collaboration and co-location issues, the use of domestic-abuse response teams, and the Detectives Division working with at the same location as the Child-Abuse Unit, as the Rape Unit, the Special Victims Unit, all of that can be done initially without any additional costs 'cause the personnel is still there, with the exception of, perhaps, finding a hospitable location for that. But as far as large amounts of appropriations necessary to do this, while I recognize that there may be need for more money in order to put this in the right direction, I don't think necessary think it's going to cost us any additional money, just a recognition that there needs to be a different organizational aspect of what's going o.

That does require a 66 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 response right now. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jane Siegel, please.

Thank you, Councilman.

For the record, we have been joined by Councilman Krajewski. Then Commissioner Timoney is here, right? How are you doing, Commissioner? We're running a little bit late, Commissioner, so. . . Please identify yourself for the record. (Jane Siegel comes forward.)

Councilman Ortiz, members of the Public Safety Committee, members of Council and staff, thank you for inviting me to appear this morning. Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Jane Siegel. I'm an assistant professor of criminal justice at Widener University, in Chester. I'm also a research associate at the Stone Center of Wellsley College, in Wellsley, Mass, which houses the National Center for Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center. 67 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. D. at the University of Pennsylvania, and have continued that work for several years. Currently, I am conducting research on risk factors for the violent sexual and physical victimization of women, under a grant from the National Institute of Justice. The purpose of my appearance here today is simply to provide the committee with some background information on the Uniform Crime Reports, which were referred to throughout the articles about rape statistics that appeared in the Inquirer in October. I would like to state at the outset that I do not have firsthand knowledge of Philadelphia's arrest records and, therefore, will not be able to discuss the methods used by the Police Department to classify sex crime victimizations. The Uniform Crime Reporting program -- or the UCR, as it is commonly referred to -- is the oldest of the country's two major sources of crime data. The program began in 1930, when the 68 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 International Association of Chiefs of Police decided that it would be beneficial to provide the country with a regularly published report on the nation's crime rate. The International Association asked the FBI that year to assume responsibility for gathering and compiling the necessary data and for publishing periodic records. " The data gathered by the FBI for the UCR come from local police departments that voluntarily participate in the reporting program. The departments submit information on crimes reported to them as well as on arrests. For reporting purposes, the FBI has designated four violent offense categories, which consist of: murder and non-neglect manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. And there are four property offense categories: burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. And these are what the FBI refers to as Part I 69 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 crime. All other offenses, such as simple assaults, forgery, fraud, sex offenses other than rape, prostitution, and drug offenses are classified as Part II crimes for purposes of the report. " The Annual UCR Crime Report contains different information for Parts I and II reported for the nation as a whole. Part I contains, first of all, the total number of offenses reported to the police for seven of the eight offense categories. Arson is excluded from the national-level report for technical reasons. Secondly, the rate per 100,000 people for each offense. And third, the percentage of reported offenses that were cleared by arrest or by exceptional means. Clearing a crime by arrest means that the police have arrested one or more persons who they believe is responsible for the crime, and have referred the person or persons for 70 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 prosecution. The ultimate disposition of the case in the courts is not a factor in whether a crime is cleared. Crimes can also be cleared by so-called exceptional means, which means that the police are satisfied that they know who the perpetrator is but are unable to make an arrest because of some unusual circumstance, such as the flight of the perpetrator to foreign country, with which we have no extradition agreement or the death of the perpetrator. The UCR report also contains tables that show the number of crimes reported to the police for metropolitan statistical areas -- for example, Philadelphia and the surrounding counties -- as well as for towns and cities of more than 10,000 people.

Crime rates for individual cities can be calculated from these tables because the UCR also provides population figures for the cities. Thus, if is a city's population was 200,000 and there were 16 murders there in 1998, the murder rate for that city would be 8 murders per 100,000 residents. Although not contained in the report 71 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 itself, individual police departments also report to the FBI the number of Part I crimes reported to them that they determined were unfounded, which means that the police concluded that what was initially reported as an offense actually did not constitute a crime. Part II of the UCR, by contrast, reports only the number of arrests made for all other crimes. In other words, it provides no 11 information on the number of offenses reported to the police in the less serious crime categories that make up Part II. As a measure of the amount of actual crime in the United States, therefore, Part II is far less useful, since we know that many crimes reported to the police do not result in arrest, yet Part II reports only on arrests. Thus Part I of the UCR receives more attention, not only because it presents data on more serious crimes but also because it provides a better measure of how much crime is actually being committed, regardless of whether the police were able to make an arrest or otherwise solve the crime. That is the basic framework of those 72 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 parts of the UCR that are relevant to today's hearings. However, it is important to note some limitations of the UCR and some features of it that may have an impact on the ways in which police report their data. First, most criminologists agree that the UCR is not the best source of information for determining how much crime occurs either in the country or in a given jurisdiction. The reason for this is a simple one: many crimes are not reported to the police, and the UCR is based entirely on the reports that have been made to the police and recorded by them. Note that not all crimes reported to the police are recorded as crimes.

So in order for it to being correctly reported by the police, the Police Department must have a very stringent and well-defined definition of what constitutes a sex crime.

For purposes of the UCR, yes. For purposes of the UCR, they have to follow the definitions given by the FBI in its guidelines for the UCR. 73 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775

But in the UCR -- and correct me. The UCR's definition about rape is still the one that was used in 1930.

Yes.

So the definition of the UCR has not changed from 1930 --

Right.

-- in terms of rape --

Correct.

-- to 1999.

Correct.

And we have seen through the process of the issue of rape that that crime in particular has gone from one in which Carol Tracy described the individual as property to one in which the woman was usually blamed for being the victim, as she caused it by her dress or the skirt that she wore of the length of it or whatever it is, so we still have a very unbalanced and really deceiving definition of what rape is.

Yes. And I was going to discuss that in my testimony.

All right. Well, 74 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 keep going.

Okay. Note that not all crimes reported to the police are recorded as crimes. Police have a good deal of discretion in how they deal with violations of the law that they observe or that are reported to them. This is not always a bad thing. Anyone who has been stopped for speeding and received only a warning instead of a ticket can probably appreciate the notion that the police are able to exercise their discretion. Similarly, many parents would, no 13 doubt, be grateful if a police officer decided not to arrest their 14-year-old child who was caught shoplifting for the first time, but rather, issued warning and speak with the parent about the incident. Of course, treating a serious crime as a noncriminal event or as a less serious crime are discretionary actions of a different magnitude, and these remarks are not intended to suggest that doing is an appropriate use of police discretion. Although it is not an especially good measure of the amount of crime in the nation, the UCR historically has been viewed as the report of 75 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 record for the nation's crime rate since no other information was available until the 1970s, when a second measure of crime was instituted nationwide based on surveys designed to measure criminal victimization. Thus, a good deal of attention has always been focused on the release of the UCR report in order to monitor crime rates not only nationwide, but also in individual jurisdictions, and the performance of many local police departments comes under scrutiny when the reports are released. Local reporters throughout the country have frequently used the UCR reports to compare the crime rates in their city to those in other cities. While limited as a crime measure, Part I of the UCR does provide what could be considered an indicator of police performance because it tells us what proportion of the crimes reported to the police were solved. Note that the annual report released by the FBI does not contain clearance rates for individual departments. But the departments themselves do report the number of crimes cleared in the reports they submit to the FBI, and this information often is reported to the 76 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 public through local media. If a department report that 95 percent of the robberies reported to it were cleared by arrest, most people would believe that the police were doing an exemplary job. If, on the other hand, they report that only percent were 8 cleared, many might question the performance of 9 the department. 10 Higher clearance rates are usually 11 expected for violent crimes because the victim was 12 present at the time crime occurred. Property 13 crimes, such as a burglary or a motor vehicle 14 theft, are usually discovered after they occur. 15 Violent crime victims, thus, are able to provide 16 more useful details that can assist the police in 17 identifying the perpetrator and making an arrest. 18 Thus, the Part I report, together with 19 the public attention that accompanies the annual 20 release of the UCR report, may create pressure on 21 the police to maximize their clearance rates and 22 to minimize the number of crimes reported to the 23 police. This has led, in some cases, to so-called 24 downgrading of offenses by police departments 25 across the country in order to paint a better 77 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 portrait of the crime situation in a city than might otherwise emerge. And "downgrading" refers to the practice of classifying a crime as a less serious offense. For example, a serious physical attack that should be classified as an aggravated assault is downgraded to a simple assault, which means that it would not be reported in Part I and, thus, will not figure in the calculation of clearance rates.

Philadelphia's suffered one of those embarrassing moments around two years ago.

Yes. And Commissioner Timoney, as I understand it, took several steps to correct that and address that.

He followed that in place.

Yes.

And it was very embarrassing for an incoming commissioner to be confronted with that sort of situation.

Yes, no doubt.

In the national 78 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 press.

Right. The same can be done for sexual assaults: a rape may be downgraded to a sexual assault and, thus, kept out of Part I. Downgrading of offenses has been known to occur throughout the country. For example, within the past year, such downgrading has been reported in Atlanta and in some localities in Florida, in addition to in Philadelphia. As Michael Maltz, who is editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and one of the foremost authorities on the UCR wrote recently in the report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, and I quote: "Nowadays, reporters and the public are more sophisticated and recognize that the police have only a limited ability to affect many types of crime. This has eased the pressure on police administrators to keep the crime rate down by reporting less crime than has, although the pressure to falsify crime data still persists." The second feature of the UCR that bears noting is that of the definitions of crimes, 79 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 as you mentioned, Councilman Ortiz. When submitting their data, local police follow FBI guidelines and definitions, which, theoretically, enables the UCR program to receive uniform reports from all localities, regardless of any differences in how crimes are defined in criminal codes from one state to another. Thus, for purposes of reporting to the UCR program, a sex crime that involves, and I quote from the UCR guidelines: A sex crime that involves "the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will," will be reported as a forcible rape by all reporting agencies, although other sexual offenses that might meet a state's statute definition of rape (for example, if the victim was a male) will not be. Failure to report the latter such offenses as forcible rape to the UCR should not, however, be taken as an indication that local police are not treating such reports as bona fide rapes under the laws of their own state. For example, if a police received a report that a man was raped by another male, they should presumably approach the investigation of the case as an 80 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 investigation of a rape, even though the report that they submit to the FBI would not include that case in the count of forcible rapes. Although the UCR reports may have an impact on how police departments classify offenses reported to them, the more important issue here is to consider how the police actually investigate a reported crime. Historically, women who have been sexually assaulted have believed that they may be victimized a second time if they report the crime because of the way that the criminal justice system responds to her report. As a result, rape has been a seriously under-reported crime. While great strides have been made nationwide to improve the way the reported cases of rape are handled by the criminal justice system since the issue first received significant attention in the 1970s, many women are still very reluctant to come forward to report a victimization. It is encouraging to know that Commissioner Timoney has instituted a review of the Philadelphia Police Department practices with respect to how sex crimes are handled and it is to 81 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 be hoped that improvements will be made if, in fact, the practice, as documented in the Philadelphia Inquirer, are found to be true. Rape is a crime with potentially serious consequences for victims. Care should be taken to ensure that women who report sexual victimizations are treated with respect and are not made to feel as though they are somehow to blame for their own victimization. Furthermore, treating reports of rape as noncriminal events may mean that potentially dangerous offenders are not being pursued, which is a public-safety issue of concern to the entire community. And thank you for your attention.

Thank you. So then when we read these reports in the press in terms of crimes, we can make a conclusion that, really, they are not giving us the true picture of what really happens.

Correct, correct.

And that we really don't have the picture of the incidence and the magnitude of this type of crime as we see it.

That's correct. And there 82 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 is, as I said, now since the early 1970s, there's been a second source of data that allows us to estimate what criminologists refer to as "the dark figure of crime," which has been the figure of unreported crime, because criminologists and police as well have always know that there's a lot of crime that does not get reported to the police, and so the UCR was an imperfect measure at best. And the second source of data has confirmed for us the fact that there is at least two, possibly three times as much crime committed as is reported in the UCR.

So if we can get you to start working with us and our police department and the State figures and such so that we can get a really true picture of what is happening in this city and what really is the need that we have, then we will call on you in those circumstance.

Okay.

Any other questions? Yes, Councilman Kenney?

Thank you. You touched in your testimony on the issue of the UCR definition of rape, forcible rape 83 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 and the issue of statutory rape. I'm not an attorney. Could you explain to me what is statutory rape and what it encompasses. And is statutory rape also forcible rape?

I am not an attorney, either, I should say.

Okay, but I thought that perhaps through your --

But statutory rape involves rape with somebody who hasn't reached the age of consent yet.

Okay.

And so it doesn't have to be forcible. In other words, a 13-year-old girl could have sex with somebody who is years old 17 and she could say, "I wanted to do this," but that 18 would still constitute statutory rape. That's my understanding of how statutory rape works.

Issues of rape, as it relates to the inducement of alcohol and/or drugs, which is not in a violent, forcible manner, are they still categorized as forcible rapes?

That would be up to the discretion of the individual police department. 84 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 Based on the circumstances of the crime, they would have to decide whether or not, in fact, there was force used to perpetrate the rape.

And is statutory rape ever designated for any incident involving anyone over the age of 18? Of the age of consent is or 18? 9

Here in Pennsylvania, I 10 believe it's 14. 11

14? 12

Or 16? 13

16? Is statutory 14 rape ever used or ever categorized as an incident 15 for anyone over the age of 16? 16

Not that I know.

Okay. All right, fine. Thank you. Just more for information. Thank you.

Are there any other questions? (No further questions.)

Thank you. Commissioner Timoney and his squad. (Commissioner Timoney and other 85 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 witnesses come forward.)

Commissioner, good morning. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Good morning, sir.

Or I should say "good afternoon." We welcome you, Commissioner to these hearings. It makes -- it seems like over the last few days, you've been in City Council more than you've been out on any street. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: And I'm still not running for office.

Yes, indeed. (Laughter.)

But let me say at the outset that you followed a department in which a -- or embarrassed actually when you came in because we were reporting all sorts of crime and misclassifying them and doing it in not the manner and the procedures that we should have. And that you have undertaken since then to make sure that one of the hallmarks of this administration, your administration, is that we classify the crime as they were. 86 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Mm-hmm.

And I really am delighted that every time something comes up that you have been able to begin the process not of denial but of saying if something is wrong, let's fix it. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.

And you have gone on to begin establishing those procedures that go towards correcting the situation. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.

Because we do really have to know what is going on. And if criminals are out there, we have to be able to be able to go after them. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Correct.

Again, so please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and thank you and other members of the Council for inviting me here. I am Police Commissioner John Timoney, of the City of Philadelphia. Next to me is Captain Joe Mooney. 87 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 He's the commanding officer of the Special Victims Unit. And Brad Richmond, who's the Special Assistant to the Police Commissioner, is to my right, and there are others supporting casts behind. I thought rather -- I came from a series of meetings, and I forgot to bring the testimony. I had prepared a two-page statement, which I'll submit later. But let me take a few minutes, probably about ten or fifteen minutes, to walk you through the process that begun in regards to reorganizing the Philadelphia Police Department upon taking my office in March of 1998. Within the first week of taking office, I had a series of interviews, and one of those interviews was with then-Chief Inspector Jack Maxwell, who was assigned to -- he was the head of Internal Affairs. And based on my background investigation of various people within the Department, I had an idea of who would eventually be assigned where. And it was clear to me that Jack Maxwell, based on his prior detective experience, experience in Internal Affairs, was going to be my choice as Chief of Detectives. 88 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 So when I interviewed Chief Maxwell for a few hours -- it was actually before even taking office, it was the week before I was sworn in, and I had a tradition office set up in the MSB Building, on the 14t floor. And I tasked Chief Maxwell with going back to the Department and looking at the Detective Bureau and completely reorganizing the Detective Bureau with the view towards not just reorganizing the (unintelligible) of the Detective Bureau, which is a centralized bureau, but also looking at the detective divisions that, when I got here, were under the supervision of a uniformed inspector, because I wanted to take the Detective Division from the uniformed inspectors and give everything to the chief detectives. And within a few months, Jack Maxwell, Chief Maxwell, presented to me a plan for overhauling and reorganizing structurally the Detective Bureau. That's largely what you see in existence today, with one or two changes over the last year and a half. We then -- and that took probably the first part of 1998, up to the summer. We went through the summer and then began in the fall, 89 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 throughout the organization, but here we're talking about the Detective Division, a series of personal transfers and promotions and moving people about. And so by the end of 1998, we had in place a Special Victims Unit. The man seated next to me, Captain Joe Mooney, who, by all accounts and opinions -- I don't want to embarrass him -- was considered, when I got here, the single best captain in Internal Affairs. So I took the single best captain in Internal Affairs with investigative experience and put him in charge of the Special Victims to make sure we had top-notch people running that unit. We then began to move in other personnel, sergeants, lieutenants, and then for the first time ever, detectives, 'cause I thought there was a need to get detectives in there. And as you're well aware, we put them in there almost a year ago now, and we have plans, when this class gets through its training -- there are 45 detectives in training now -- we will add more detectives into the Special Victims Squad. While that was going on, we began, 90 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 throughout the Detective Bureau, to develop in every unit a case management systems, where supervisors would be held strictly accountable for the cases of the detectives they supervised. And that's kind of a long, elaborate process.

But for example, the one of the Special Victims unit, the case management system now in the Special Victims Unit is second to none, I can guarantee you. It's as good, if not better, certainly than the one in New York. And this is largely as a result of the efforts of Captain Mooney. It doesn't mean that things are perfect now. I'm not at all painting a picture of a perfect police department, but it's a police department that's moving in the right direction, making change wherever we can, taking suggestions from everybody that has good ideas, including people outside the Department. We did not institute, but I think we've created a much more improved COMSTAT process where we go over not just what patrol does, but also what the detective do, and they get grilled just like patrol commanders regarding how they're 91 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 handling cases, whether it's homicide or the special victims or rape cases. That happens every two weeks. We then -- and while all of this is going on, we institute a whole series of training regiments for the Special Victims Squad. We brought in private trainers, private outside people, Reed Associates, that trained, I believe, upwards of 40 of our investigators in interviewing techniques. We had crime scene training for all of our folks. For our Homicide Square, we created a whole 'nother trained regiment for homicide detectives. And then a whole series of other training schemes. The new detectives, for example, that get promoted now received the normal training at the academy, and then they would go out for about three to four weeks -- we haven't firmed up as to how many weeks it will be -- in a centralized unit, almost like a field training experience that young kids get that are coming out of the academy. They will go and work in centralized units -- in this case, the Special Victims Squad, but also, some of them will go to the Homicide Squad to get 92 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 an idea of how the bureaucracy works, how the Detective Bureau works from a global perspective. And then some will stay in Special Victims, others will go out to the detective divisions. We've done vast improvements in improving pattern identification and data analysis as part of the COMPSTAT process. We've increased tremendously our extraditions from other states as a result of making where we have known (unintelligible) putting that information into the NCIC -- that's the National Crime Information Center. We put out crime bulletins on a regular basis out to the patrol force. Just a decade ago, the thinking in policing, you know, especially in the area of sex crimes that, you know, don't let the people know, don't unnecessarily alarm them, you know, you're going to scare people. Well, I think there's been a change, a good change in policing, that people have a right to know, and that the sooner you identify a pattern, you should get that information out there. And so we're trying as often as possible, as soon as you get a pattern, to get it out there as quickly as possible, even 93 12/6/99 PUB. HEALTH/SAFETY - RES. 990775 if don't have great information, try and get it out there. And so, for example, you saw last week on a child molester who was working two different neighborhoods in Philadelphia, it led to a quick arrest. We're attempting to improve the equipment needs, with laptop computers and camera equipment. Those requisitions have been put through on the grant money. We have formalized, set down formal meetings between Homicide, the Special Victims, and the lab. The lab is -- labs traditionally view themselves as kind of independent of the operational entities. That's not the case here. They should serve the needs of the operational people, and the operational people have to determine what the priorities are, what are the priority cases. So we formalized that relationship, and they meet at least once a month, going over existing cases.