According to a new investigation from the Associated Press, over the six years from 2008 to 2014, 1,000 police officers were punished for sexual misconduct. Over half of these officers were punished for sexual assault, the remaining officers were punished for charges ranging from possessing child pornography to having sex while on the job.
That’s a terrifying number when you consider that the majority of sex-related crimes are dramatically underreported.
As the AP states:
The number is unquestionably an undercount because it represents only those officers whose licenses to work in law enforcement were revoked, and not all states take such action. California and New York — with several of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies — offered no records because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. And even among states that provided records, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were identified via news stories or court records.
What the report highlights is that while the majority of cases probably go unreported, throughout the year, there are instances so severe and so ridiculous that police departments cannot avoid dealing with them – though they may try.
For more on this, read the article from Vox titled: “Report: 1,000 police have lost their badges for sexual misconduct. Reality: The problem’s much bigger than that.“
