Slipping through

One thousand three hundred twenty-six. That's the number of sexual assault crimes reported to the Chicago Police Department last year-an average of more than three per day.

Veteran sexual-assault service providers, researchers and advocates say that number represents just one slice of the larger problem for Chicago and other cities. Many more assaults take place that are never formally reported to law enforcement agencies, and just a fraction of those that are reported turn into felony charges in criminal court, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Why do some sexual assaults turn into police reports while others don't? Why do so many investigations-as many as 50 percent, according to some researchers-fall by the wayside before an offender can be tried in court?

A group of local advocates formed a task force this year to answer these questions. In the process they want to change the way the city tracks sexual assault cases through the criminal justice system, from the time a call to the police is made through the time state prosecutors get involved. The goal is to create the city's first comprehensive, public database of sexual assaults, using data collected from local agencies, law enforcement, hospitals and beyond.

The task force is chaired by Felicia Davis, the city's deputy chief of staff for public safety, and Juliana Wiggins Stratton, director of the Cook County Justice Advisory Council. Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) and State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie are among its members.

With this information, Chicagoans would be able to get a more complete picture of who is being served by city agencies, and how well, according to Tracy Siska, the executive director of the nonprofit Chicago Justice Project, who convened the task force. Siska hopes to get a handle on why very few rape reports eventually lead to convictions, and what the city can do to patch the holes that lead many to drop out of the system.

Gabriella Shemash, the commanding officer of the Chicago Police Department's Forensics DNA Unit, which handles sexual assault investigations, said there are many reasons a report may not get far in the system. Chief among them is a lack of evidence, or reluctance on the part of the survivor to participate in the investigation.

"With the nature of the crime, the victim doesn't always want to be reminded of it, doesn't want to deal with the police much, [and] they won't want to continue to participate in the process," she said. "It's mentally scarring for them."

When that's the case, Shemash said, the police department can at least stay in touch with the victim's advocate, if he or she has one. The database, she said, would make that effort easier.

"Sex assault doesn't just involve the police. There are at least three agencies: hospitals, attorneys, and the police," she said, and any of them may take an initial sexual assault report. "If everybody's on the same page and can contribute to that, it really gives us the best details and allows everybody to get the best possible information."

A sexual assault case can go through at least a half-dozen city agencies before going to court, from Chicago's Office of Emergency Management to the Chicago Police Department to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, and beyond. According to an analysis by the Chicago Justice Project in 2009, as many as 17 percent of felony sex crime allegations are deemed "unfounded" by CPD officials, meaning no charges were made and an investigation was dropped.

There are many reasons a sexual assault investigation may not lead to a court case, and not all of them are up to the police department or the courts. According to Megan Alderden, an assistant professor at St. Xavier University who has researched sexual assault case dropoff for CPD and is participating in the task force. Often, she said, it's because a victim decides not to participate in the investigation, even after he or she has filed a report with the police.

"In some cases it might be months before the offender is identified or arrested, and some victims decide they have moved on, or feel like it's not in their best interest to move forward," Alderden said, particularly if the offender is someone the victim knows, or if he or she has received pressure from family members to let it drop. "It can be traumatizing for a victim to have to re-tell their stories over and over again."

With a more uniform dataset, Siska said, researchers and advocates would finally be able to address complicated, open questions about why dropoffs happen, and whether the race and geography of victims or offenders plays a role in it.

"We can't tell any of that right now," Siska said. "But when our task force is done looking at all the numbers, it will be plainly and cleanly laid out for everyone in Chicago."

Myths about how race and geography play into the city's treatment of sexual violence cases are rampant, Siska said, and the task force's research could serve to confirm or refute them.

Leaders of local rape crisis programs say the data collection ideally would lead to them serving more people in need.

"There are three rape crisis programs in the city of Chicago," said Sharmili Majmudar, executive director of Rape Victim Advocates, one of the programs. "Between the three of us we're pretty confident that we are not serving every victim. Getting information from the criminal justice system will allow us to see the bigger picture of the people who do report sexual violence, above and beyond those who have an advocate."

rcromidas@tribune.com