AUSTIN, Texas — Austin police are working toward better solutions for tackling sexual assault cases through data transparency.
While it’s a small step in a laundry list of goals the department, the Travis County District Attorney’s office, and advocates, hope to achieve it through its Collective Sex Crimes Response Model project.
The project was created as part of a 2022 lawsuit settlement to implement more than 100 changes to the department’s Sex Crimes Unit.
“There’s been quite a history here in Austin around how sexual assault cases are handled,” said Hanna Senko, a project manager and one of the plaintiffs who sued the city along with multiple other sexual assault survivors. “I will say that that’s quite frankly, a national issue, and so where we are today is really a positive step in the right direction.”
Senko added that ensuring the department shared its data was important for several plaintiffs in the lawsuit from a transparency and accountability perspective.
Austin police business process consultant Allison Roper said the data can be interpreted in different ways. There are title codes, which are assigned to each case and reference a particular sex crime. However, police found that some crimes were being investigated that were not being labeled under rape, sexual assault with an object, or sodomy.
“What we found and what we want to make sure people understand is that there was a period of time where those cases were being investigated under the sex assault info title code, but the title codes weren’t being changed,” Roper said.
According to Roper, police are trying to improve the way the data is presented so they can provide a clear picture of what’s happening in the community.
Another issue that the department is looking into is underreporting. KVUE asked if immigration status would have an impact on that reporting due to the sweeping immigration measures made by the Trump administration. Police Cmdr. Deanna Lichter said it wouldn’t.
“We need to do a better job of our outreach and making people understand that when you become a victim of crime, we don’t care about immigration status; we care about the crime,” Lichter said. “What I would like to see is eventually that those people who seek services eventually choose to report to us, and that we were able to get them some measure of justice.”
Austin’s Public Safety Commission also sent a recommendation to city council that police, the SAFE Alliance, and the district attorney’s office should submit sexual assault data to the commission quarterly.