Superintendent Harrison said that the detectives in the report, who were not identified, had been transferred from the special victims section, as had some of their supervisors. The Police Department’s public integrity bureau, which worked with the inspector general’s office in preparing the report, is now investigating the detectives, who could potentially face criminal charges. The department is also conducting a review of all the cases the detectives handled in the special victims section, Superintendent Harrison said.

“As the chief of police, I am deeply disturbed by the allegations in this report,” he said.

The report described how victims’ charges of sexual assault were ignored, referrals from medical personnel were dismissed, and evidence was not processed; in some cases the detective would mark down in a report that evidence had been sent to the state laboratory, though no records could be found that the laboratory received anything.

In one case, a 2-year-old was brought to the emergency room on suspicion of having been the victim of a sexual assault and was found to have a sexually transmitted disease. The detective did no follow-up and closed the case.

In another, a nurse collected DNA evidence from a victim in a rape kit, but the detective apparently never submitted the kit for testing. In a log book, the detective explained that the kit was never submitted “because the sex was consensual.” That same detective, the report said, told at least three different people that he or she “did not believe that simple rape should be a crime.”

These findings are not new to the New Orleans police force, which is under federal court supervision after having been found to have a pattern of inefficient, abusive and corrupt police work.