Federal prosecutors in New York and Washington have opened a civil rights investigation into the New York Police Department for Special Victims and its handling of cases of sex abuse, officials said Thursday.
Investigators will investigate allegations that include “failure to perform basic investigative steps and rather shame and mistreat survivors and re-traumatize them during investigations,” according to a news release from the Department of Justice. They will examine the department’s policies, procedures and training and evaluate interactions between officers, victims and witnesses.
“The department has received information claiming that flaws in SVD that have persisted for more than a decade have deprived survivors and the public of the rapid, thorough and effective investigations needed to protect public safety,” the department said. justice said in the release.
Some victims have argued for years that the police failed to adequately investigate their allegations. Four years ago, the city’s investigation department found that police leadership preferred rapes in which the perpetrators were strangers over those in which attackers knew their victims. Some detectives also treated victims, the department concluded, handled their cases insensitively, or dismissed their stories.
“Victims of sex crimes deserve the same rigorous and unbiased investigation of their cases that the NYPD offers to other categories of crime,” Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in the news release. “Relentless and effective pursuit of perpetrators of sexual violence, exposed by gender stereotypes or differential treatment, is essential for public safety.”