Austin and Travis County are encountering new federal challenges in their sexual assault response efforts. The Public Safety Commission recently discussed local data regarding sex crimes with presentations from the Austin Police Department, the Travis County District Attorney's Office, and The SAFE Alliance. Increased reporting of sex crimes may not indicate a rise in incidents but rather reflects improved services and reporting comfort among victims. Challenges remain in victim readiness to pursue cases further, with significant numbers of survivors opting not to continue after reporting.
This is an imperfect and temporary solution for cumulatively sharing all of this data. What we need is a long term solution where all of this is housed, so that everybody can see all of this data transparently from month to month.
We do not believe there is an actual increase in sex crimes throughout the city at this time. Due to the known underreporting nationwide in sex crimes, we believe that an increase in call volume actually reflects an improvement in services from APD. More people are feeling comfortable to report these cases to the police.
What we see here is actually a reflection of improved data quality and management... We recognize this encompasses a wide range of situations, and we want to better understand how to support survivors and effectively move their cases forward.
Of 81 felony-level cases from January through March, 37 survivors told APD that they did not want to pursue their cases further. We always make sure to provide survivors with guidance on reopening case.
Collection
[
|
...
]