The Austin Police Dept. (APD) loves arresting the homeless for the crime of sleeping or sitting; arresting two to three times as many blacks as whites for petty crimes; searching two to three times as many black drivers as whites (studies show whites/blacks use drugs at the same rate AND that blacks don't carry drugs in the car more than whites -- in fact, a recent DPS study shows they carry less; meanwhile, Travis Co. seems to love jailing blacks a lot longer); arresting police watchers for the crime of aiming cameras at cops; and arresting folks for warrants issued for the inability to pay fines.
APD's arrest numbers for jaywalking, public intoxication and invalid drivers licenses abound - and are all ticketable offenses, not requiring expensive and pointless jail time/we even have a "sobering center" now; but this makes us no safer as a society - it just looks good in their crime reports.
APD hiring more and more patrol officers to arrest people over and over again does nothing to curb crime. Hence crime not going down.
They don't seem to be arresting those who truly pose a public safety threat, by and large.
They aren't solving ("clearing") violent crime cases...getting them off the streets such that crime goes down. Most property and violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, to the tune of 80%. APD's more recent reporting shows they are on par with the national average in clearing violent crime (a few years ago they were under), but what does "clearing" even mean?
Fed-fed Credibility
Not too long ago, we found how how much APD was lying about how many sexual assault cases they solve, but the FBI lets them lie, by defining "clearance" EVER so liberally. From what entities do report about violent crimes, inflated as the numbers may be, it's still pretty paltry, as noted in the article, "There's nearly a 40% chance you'll get away with murder in America."
Meanwhile, sexual assault survivors suffer in silence more often than not, because fighting for justice significantly compounds their trauma. If they do report, they rarely cite any sense of satisfaction with the process. In fact, I've never heard a survivor say APD and/or the Travis County District Attorney (DA) came through for them.
The investigation that spawned the audit seemed to smack APD upside the head, as if they didn't understand what they were doing. Poppycock, at least according to whistleblower Elizabeth Donegan, head of the sex crimes unit, who said she "had been pressured by superiors to change rape cases from 'suspended' to 'exceptionally cleared.'"
If only we put all that effort of massaging statistics into solving cases...
The Real Numbers
In reality, we're talking about less than 1 in 100 arrests made for every rape report, with the DA only accepting a third of APD's referrals for prosecution; and less than a quarter of rapes are reported to police, according to national studies. So that's potentially thousands of known rapists roaming our streets. Yet, those homeless folks, pesky protestors and jaywalkers -- we got them handcuffed and tied up in court!
APD says the numbers are low because survivors don't follow through (were they drunk and dressed provocatively too, Chief?). If you have DNA evidence, you follow the evidence to other cases; to other survivors of that suspect - maybe one of them will testify. It takes resources; and work -- and WILL.
- 17 APD detectives are currently assigned to investigate +/- 1,000 sex crime cases reported annually, while 12 are assigned to the +/-30 murders committed annually. Is that WILL?
Two-Headed Snake
Nationwide, and here is no exception, District Attorneys are beholden to the police, as opposed to acting as oversight agents for good arrests, proper evidence collection/handling, etc., as per the ABA's Standards on Prosecutorial Investigations. We know they are beholden as they take a LOT of money from law enforcement unions for their campaigns, and they regularly fail to indict police, much less bring criminal cops to trial. Police have a higher rate of domestic violence and assault, yet we don't see that increased rate of prosecutions; in fact, it's very rare we see any.
- DA Moore hasn't said 'boo' re: an indictment of Jason Dusterhoft - the
demoted, then fired, APD Assistant Chief
Rapists come in all colors
APD and our "progressive" DA(s) have routinely shamed and belittled survivors (it's no wonder survivors don't want to report); skirted ethics and flat out lied to avoid having to follow a case through to trial. Are they that afraid of hard work? Is something bigger at play here? The more criminals we keep on the street, the more job insurance these folks have? The optimist in me would rather it be downright incompetence, I guess.
#METOO
Suddenly, the will seems to be bubbling up, according to the latest promises from our Chief and City Council. After being caught lying about the numbers; after survivors repeatedly spent enough time at city council testifying (see item #77); after stories publicly emerged on how truly awful it was to report to police/prosecutors; after survivors filed a class action lawsuit against them (which is likely the REAL kicker); and after #METOO finally seeped deeply enough into society's fabric to puncture the blue shield, we are starting to see something.
Systematic failures by APD and the DA on sexual assault cases have been droning on for decades. The clearest one being the rape kit "backlog" ...a term that implies they are just 'behind' on testing, yet it's more likely they never planned on testing them since they weren't funding the lab to do so.
But after being shamed by the community and City Council into doing their job, APD recently announced "SUCCESS!" in testing a big portion of the backlog. For years, rapists have roamed free, but APD is to be lauded for finally starting to do something about it (?). They "successfully" got DNA hits on 35% of kits tested (the national average is 50-60%, suggesting serious degradation: not so much a "success"), but they failed to update us on how many arrests have been made or how many suspects they have detectives assigned to investigate, even.
After three public safety audits over the past +/-15 years that told APD to train/hire more detectives, they finally started doing so in the past two years. Time will tell if that makes a small dent.
And now the DA says she's on board, having taken 10 such cases to trial in 2018 v. 2017's pitiful one.
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| DA Moore was endorsed by EVERY women's group in Travis County |
Prosecution IS Prevention When it Comes to Violent Crime
Until we start REALLY arresting and convicting offenders, not just a possum's handful, we'll see more victims. The more offenders get away with it, the more they will repeat their atrocities and the more empowered those with violent predilections will become. Until we see "RAPIST CONVICTED" headlines more than once every few years, we're not going to PREVENT rape.
Every year at budget time, I look at APD's self-assigned annual "Goals," hoping just under their goal of decreasing pedestrian fatalities by 1%, they'll actually state a goal of increasing their violent crime clearance rate - heck, what's say 1%? Every year, I'm unsurprisingly disappointed.
Every year at budget time, APD can afford more boots on the ground, more helicopters in the air, more body armor for dealing with those pesky protestors, but can't test evidence that may well result in a conviction of a violent offender? The state's budgetary solution: crowdfunding??? (Didn't make much of a dent in testing rape kits, btw).
We can't prevent crime if we don't solve it; and prosecute and jail (or better yet, REFORM) the offenders...and to do that, we have to fund and fix the process.
NOTE: open Statesman links in a private/incognito window to get past the firewall
