The Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) will soon team up with a national organization that reviews intimate spousal violence cases and determines whether the agency handled the situations properly.
The police service plans to work with a victims advocate case review program, which is a committee composed of residents with knowledge of intimate partner violence, Police Chief Rick Bourassa explained during the July 12 Board of Police Commissioners meeting.
This committee will review all complaints of sexual assault that the MJPS receives that do not conclude with a charge against the alleged perpetrator. The group will ensure the police agency did everything it could in such cases and will provide recommendations if it believes the agency fell short.
“We’re very excited about this. It’s an initiative that’s coming to us out of Ontario,” said Bourassa. “We’ll be the third police service in Saskatchewan to adopt that.”
Once the committee is formed, it will begin its work in October and conduct quarterly reviews of sexual assault cases. The group will have office space within the MJPS headquarters with computer access.
“We’re looking very (much) forward to having an additional set of eyes on our investigations of sexual assaults to make sure we’re getting to the right place,” the chief added.
The topic of sexual assaults arose during the meeting as part of a review of the June statistics, which showed such assaults rose to 25 incidents between January to June compared to 20 incidents during the same time last year. This was an increase of 25 per cent.
There are several reasons why the police service would not charge a person involved in sexual assault cases, Bourassa told the board.
One reason is there is insufficient evidence to bring against an alleged perpetrator, which is out of the police service’s control.
A second reason is a complainant does not want to proceed further with the complaint. This is acceptable, but the police service will keep the case on file and temporarily conclude the matter without laying a charge.
A third reason is a complainant does not know who the assailant was.
“Those are rare. Generally, sexual assaults happen to people that are known to each other. But there are times when the accused is just never identified,” said Bourassa.
“So, there are different situations where that can happen. This is just to make sure when we do get to those times, when there is not a charge laid, someone else is looking at it and saying, ‘We think you should maybe look at this,’ or ‘This might have been important,’ or ‘You probably could have done this a little bit better.’
“And then we’ll go back and re-open them and continue.”
This sounds like a great program, said Commissioner Mary Lee Booth.
One thing that concerned her, though, was that many individuals who are sexually assaulted — particularly women — do not always report their experiences to police. She hoped that that problem would improve, although she knew victims faced many deterrents, including believing that justice would not be served.
“And having to go through the pain and all of that of telling the story publicly,” she added.
The police chief did not think those reported numbers were improving since the MJPS receives few complaints from people, while there are even fewer convictions afterward.
“And it’s incredibly difficult for people to have to re-live that and speak publicly,” added Bourassa. “We want to see that improved, so we’re hopeful this is another step in improving those processes so that survivors have positive outcomes.”
The next Board of Police Commissioners meeting is Thursday, Aug. 11.
