Halifax’s Board of Police Commissioners wants Halifax Regional Police to provide a report on sexual assault investigations and the reasons why charges aren’t laid in some of those cases.
The board is also looking for legal advice on if it can direct HRP to use a violence-against-women model that police have been stalling on for almost two years.
A request is going to the Board of Police Commissioners’ meeting on Monday afternoon. The request, which is being put forward by board commissioner Harry Critchley, asks that Halifax Regional Police Chief Don MacLean prepare a staff report on the breakdown of the number of allegations of sexual offences that are investigated by the department’s Sexual Assault Investigative Team (SAIT) that don’t lead to charges. The board also wants the report to include reasons on why changes aren’t laid in those cases.
A second part in Critchley’s request asks about concerns around the jurisdiction of the board regarding getting a legal opinion regarding if it can direct MacLean to implement a Violence Against Women Advocate Case Review (VACR) model in the department.
VACR reviews cases that don’t lead to charges
The VACR was created by the Improving Institutional Accountability Project (IIAP) to improve equitable access to the justice system for survivors of sexual assault “through objectively measurable improvement in policing violence against women.”
The VACR model includes adding a subject matter expert from the community who reviews sexual assault cases that don’t lead to charges, as well as those cases those experts say should be re-investigated or reopened.
From the request:
VACR promotes collaboration, knowledge sharing, learning and systemic change through the added link in the investigative chain which provides an ongoing a safeguard process to catch police reported sexual assault cases before they slip through the cracks instead of analyzing what went wrong: after a complaint is filed; after survivors go to the media; after a scandal; or after a perpetrator or serial offender assaults again.
VACR has been endorsed by the Canadian Association Chiefs of Police in 2020 and has been included as a best practice in their Canadian Framework for Collaborative Police Response on Sexual Violence for all municipal police services to adopt and implement.
The Canadian Association Chiefs of Police endorsed VACR in 2020, adding it to its Canadian Framework for Collaborative Police Response on Sexual Violence.
HRP had presentation on VACR in 2022
This is not the first time Halifax Regional Police has been asked to use a VACR model.
In June 2022, Sunny Marriner, the Canadian lead on the Violence Against Women Advocate Case Review (VACR) model, gave a presentation on VACR to the Board of Police Commissioners.
Then in July 2023, Supt. Andrew Matthews went to the board with three options for a VACR model in Halifax, and the board said it preferred the option in which all sexual assault cases were reviewed.
But as the Examiner reported in October 2023, the department wasn’t progressing in its decision to implement the VACR model.
At that time, MacLean told the board police should have an idea of when they can implement a VACR by the end of 2023. Critchley, meanwhile, told MacLean that if police needed more staff for a VACR program, it should ask for that in the next budget.
However, there is no mention of a VACR in police’s 2024-25 proposed budget.
The police have managed to convince the HRM lawyer that budget is budget, and not time for policy discussion, and that policy discussion is both operational and always requires budget, and operations are forbidden from being discussed and budget is only for budget time.
And the HRM lawer regularly blocks the Commissioners from escaping this loop of nothing, despite, and rather obviously, them not working for either HRM generally or the lawyer specifically.
This makes a lot of sense. I thought charges have to be laid regardless if the victim wants to press them or not. Then it’s up to the courts to sort it out. These trials tend to be very nasty with much victim blaming.