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Program launched to help give victims of sexual violence confidence and justice

'This is just another enhancement of how police respond to victims of sexual violence,' official says of Canadian Framework for Collaborative Police Response on Sexual Violence

On the 30th anniversary of one of Canada’s most horrific acts of violence against women, the framework was launched for a new program to make it easier for victims of sexual violence to seek justice.

The Canadian Framework for Collaborative Police Response on Sexual Violence was unveiled at a press conference Friday in Barrie.

Launched by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), the project will bring many organizations together to combat sexual violence and allow victims to feel more comfortable when reporting them.

Violence against women advocate case review project lead Sunny Marriner was one of the people instrumental in making the initiative a reality.

“Certainly, today being 30 years since that tragic event, it is quite fitting that this huge initiative has been launched,” said Marriner. “It has definitely been a long time coming but now that it is here, maybe we can help victims speak out with confidence.”

It was reported at the event today that close to 95 per cent of sexual violence goes unreported, most times because victims don’t feel they will be able to make a case against the suspect.

“Its been a long process and certainly for survivors reporting sexual violence it has been a very difficult process,” said Marriner.

“Over the last 45 years, survivors who encountered barriers had to go forward and advocate for themselves. In a sense, we were leaving them responsible to fix system problems for all of us," she added. 

The idea behind the case review component to the framework is that every sexual violence case that doesn’t proceed to a charge is reviewed by independent subject matter experts from front-line sexual assault centres.

Advocates who are trained in sexual violence, particularly in their community, will be involved in the process as justice is sought.

“What that means is we have lessened the chances of cases falling through the cracks when those cases could have had other investigative steps taken,” said Marriner.

Barrie Police Chief Kimberley Greenwood says that the new framework doesn’t just apply to future cases, but that any situations from the past can be reviewed under the new policy

“Allegations with regards to historic sexual violence will be investigated and we will use the same framework whether they’re current, recent or historical investigations,” said Greenwood.

In April 2017, the CACP committed to a three-pronged approach to addressing the gaps in police practices related to the investigation of sexual assaults.

The first involved revising the classification of founded and unfounded criminal incidents in the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey to address data quality and reporting issues, a process that was completed in 2018.

The second was to develop police training to help promote trauma-informed investigations, which is currently underway.

Greenwood says that having collaborative investigations combined with the resources now available will be yet another progression of sexual violence investigations since she came on the police service.

“I personally spent many years investigating sexual assault investigations, child abuse investigations and there have been significant changes over the years,” said Greenwood. “This is just another enhancement of how police respond to victims of sexual violence.”