273 Peel sexual assault cases wrongly classified as unfounded, review finds

Peel police have learned 273 of its sexual assault cases were wrongly classified as “unfounded” and are working to ensure the problem doesn’t keep happening.

Chief Jennifer Evans launched an internal review in February following a Globe and Mail report about a large number of sexual assault cases in Canada being classified as “unfounded.”

In other words, police presume “the offence reported did not occur, nor was it attempted and therefore no violations of the Criminal Code or other federal statute took place at that time or location.”

A team of senior investigators re-examined 1,016 of Peel’s 4,180 sexual assault cases, classified as unfounded since 2010. They found 273 cases were not unfounded and have since reclassified them.

“We found the vast majority of those cases should have been coded as unsolved, not that the member of the public was misleading the police,” said Supt. Robert Strain. “There were errors in our own procedures in terms of how we coded it.”

Police are federally-mandated to classify a case in one of 15 categories, and Strain said designating a case as unfounded doesn’t mean it’s closed.

“[When cases are classified as unfounded], it doesn’t mean the investigation is stopped; it means it’s at the point where the officer wants to classify the occurrence,” he said.

“All of our cases [including the 273 incorrectly classified cases] don’t close. If it’s unsolved we will continue to investigate that. So all of those cases are still open.”

The force’s unfounded rate has dropped from 24.3 per cent to 17.9 per cent.

“I want to assure victims that we take every sexual assault complaint seriously,” Evans said in a release.

“The review revealed that some cases in Peel were incorrectly categorized. Through this process we have enhanced our training, policies, and procedures and have strengthened our relationships with our community partners.”

Farrah Khan, a sexual violence support coordinator at Ryerson University, said she would have liked to have seen the community more involved in the review.

“I’m concerned about the fact it was an internal audit and not something they were looking at with a community process,” she said.

“When we internally audit ourselves we can find different things than when we have partners, experts in sexual violence, experts that do violence against women work, look at those.”

Police now require authorization from supervisors before classifying cases as unfounded, and the force — along with external agencies that support victims — will conduct audits of all unfounded sexual assault cases twice a year.