WRPS officers to get training on questioning victims of sex crimes

Waterloo regional police will train 100 officers in trauma-informed investigation techniques in September in response to a report by the region's sexual assault task force.

"Police will see differences in the way they interview, and they'll see a different kind of response," said  Lori Haskell, the clinical psychologist who will be leading the two days of training. "How we understand and envision trauma really gives a lot of direction to how we do our work."

'Inappropriate techniques'

The task force, which reviewed 78 cases of sexual assault that had been recorded as "unfounded" by police, identified several "inappropriate techniques" used by officers when investigating cases of sexual violence. 

The group recommended training in trauma-informed investigation as one way to improve police operations, along with 10 other recommendations.

• Cases flagged by sexual assault task force won't be re-opened
• Task force releases final report on 'unfounded' sexual assault cases

Haskell said it's not unusual for police to do the following when investigating a crime: 

• Ask a victim to tell their story from start to finish without leaving out any details. 
• Interpret gaps in a victim's story as evidence of deception and interrogate those gaps.
• Insist that a victim be interviewed without being allowed to first go home and sleep.

She said those interview techniques do not serve the best interest of people who have experienced trauma and can actually hurt the outcome of the police investigation.

Start with senses

"Most people want a straight-forward narrative, and most traumatized people do not tell their experiences in a straight-forward narrative," Haskell told CBC News. 

"Most of my clients come in and they'll say, 'I'll never get the smell of his body out of my head.' That's where they start. They start with these moments that are just deeply ingrained in their brain, and then, they slowly build out from those fragments, from those sensory pieces. 

"And that's how they need to be interviewed. Because if you start to try to impose a different type of frame on someone's experience, you shape and change it."

Haskell has already trained 14 Waterloo regional police investigators, as part of a pilot project. 

Now, she will run two full-day workshops for 100 criminal investigators in September.

WRPS officials say they intend to eventually have every member of the force trained.