Sex assault and the badge

Here and across the county, sexual misconduct by police officers is a hidden crime, poorly investigated and often unpunished.

An Inquirer review found more than 400 examples over the past five years of police turned predators. From New York to Los Angeles and in this region, from Bucks County to Burlington County, rogue police have used their badges to exploit women and extort sex.

The cases form a chilling pattern: The abusers tend to target vulnerable women such as prostitutes, drug users or those who have been drinking, knowing the victims probably won't be believed even if they complain. Many victims never come forward at all.

"The women are terrified," said Penny Harrington, the former police chief of Portland, Ore. "Who are they going to call? It's the police who are abusing them."

Again and again, the review shows, supervisors miss warnings about these predator cops. Often, it's not until after the worst offenders commit multiple crimes that supervisors go back and discover a clear and worsening pattern of abuse, often starting with come-ons to women drivers and escalating to rape.

Most departments do little to identify such abusers, and even less to stop them. Few departments address the issue in training and few identify and track sexual abuse complaints - making it easier for offenders to escape punishment, and find new victims.

In one of the few studies on the issue, two criminologists from the University of Nebraska at Omaha found that departments often turn away women who do complain. As a result, the study said, "Rogue officers are able to continue their sexual predatory activity because the department looks the other way."

Because many of the assaults began with traffic stops, they called their report "Driving While Female" and concluded that the problem "parallels the national problem of racial profiling."

To read their original 2002 report, go to http://www.policeaccountability.org/drivingfemale.htm

A follow-up report from 2003 may be found at http://www.policeaccountability.org/dwfteen.htm

To report police misconduct by a police officer, contact that department’s Internal Affairs division. In Philadelphia, the Police Department has a guide to filing complaints against police on its website.

» READ MORE: http://www.ppdonline.org/hq_misconduct.php

Complaints against Pennsylvania state police officers may be reported to the bureau's Internal Affairs division. Instructions on filing a complaint may be found at http://wwww.psp.state.pa.us/psp/cwp/view.asp?a=3&q=170432

Complaints against New Jersey state police officers may be reported at http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/comp/complain.html