Each year in Minnesota, more than 2,000 women report being raped or sexually assaulted. Hundreds of them discover a crushing fact: They stand little chance of getting justice, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A review of more than 1,000 sexual assault cases, filed around the state in a recent two-year period, reveals chronic errors and investigative failings by Minnesota’s largest law enforcement agencies, including those in Minneapolis and St. Paul. In almost a quarter of the cases, police never assigned an investigator. In about one-third of them, the investigator never interviewed the victim. In half the cases, police failed to interview potential witnesses.
Most of the cases — about 75 percent, including violent rapes by strangers — were never forwarded to prosecutors for criminal charges. Overall, fewer than one in 10 reported sexual assaults produced a conviction. Victims see it as a betrayal. “I still struggle to feel safe,” said one victim. “Not only because I don’t know the identity of my rapist, but because I don’t trust the law enforcement officer assigned to my case.” The paper’s review identified more than 50 cases in which the suspect was someone who had been named, charged or even convicted in a prior sexual assault. Yet these men were rarely arrested when they turned up a second or third time in a police report. Some committed more assaults before police finally caught up to them. The Star Tribune asked 13 veteran investigators from across the country to review more than 160 of the Minnesota case files. Combined, they found that police adequately handled just one in five cases.