You probably have never heard of Carol Tracy, but if you are male, her work could destroy your life. She has been running an ‘experiment’ in Philadelphia since 2000, and she wants to expand it across the country If she is successful, men are at a much greater risk of being arrested for false allegations than ever before.

Carol Tracy is referred to as the one woman who changed how rape is handled by the Philadelphia Police Department [Source: Billy Penn article]. She runs the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia, and has developed what is called the ‘Philadelphia Model’ which is being emulated in cities across the U.S. She has testified to Congress about the Philadelphia Model and she has recently been recognized with an award from the American Society of Criminology [Source: Legal Intelligencer article].

Prior to 1999, the Philadelphia Police Department had a poor reputation in regards to rape investigations. In some cases, violent rapes were not fully investigated, and the perpetrator went on to attack, and sometimes kill, more women. In her testimony to Congress, Tracy gives examples of brutal rapes that were not taken seriously by the police. To remedy this, she discusses an unprecedented situation in Philadelphia where four women’s groups, her own Women’s Law Project (WLP), National Organization of Women (N.O.W.), Women Organized against Rape (WOAR), and the Penn Women’s Center, all private organizations, oversee the work of the Philadelphia Police at the Special Victim’s Unit (SVU). She claims their role is to ‘instruct’ the police on how to ‘investigate’ cases handled there with the goal of attaining an arrest warrant. However, it appears the role is to try to turn every report into an arrest, regardless of the evidence.

The goal is to teach police to follow the ‘victim-centric’ model which lowers the bar for an arrest to be made, then political pressure can be applied to the District Attorney to prosecute all rape cases, regardless of the merits of the case. Carol Tracy doesn’t believe that false allegations are a problem, and therefore her involvement in police matters has created an environment were police are instructed to make arrests where there is not sufficient evidence, and even where there is contradictory evidence.

The result of Carol Tracy’s actions is destroying innocent men’s lives (women almost never get arrested for rape or sexual assault and her work does not aim to change that), and it creates an environment where false accusers are free to do damage, while true victims are faced with the damage to public sentiment caused by these false accusers.

The Origin of the Philadelphia Model

The Philadelphia Model began following a horrible rape and murder:

In May 1998, 23-year-old Wharton student Shannon Schieber was raped and choked to death by a man who had broken into her home. She was the serial rapist’s fifth victim, and he went on to assault seven more women after her. In 1999, an Inquirer investigation revealed that if it weren’t for shoddy police work in what was then called the Sex Crimes Unit, Schieber’s life could have been saved, had they known a serial rapist was assaulting women in the Rittenhouse Square area. They didn’t know there was a pattern, in some ways because two rapes prior to Schieber’s had been down-graded by detectives, using a non-criminal code because they either didn’t believe the victims or for some other reason decided not to pursue it. [Billy Penn article]

John Timoney, the new Police Commissioner at the time, spoke out against the shoddy police work and the mistreatment of the victims by police. To quell a political firestorm, he allowed Carol Tracy to put together the group of women’s rights activists which would have full access to the police files of sexual cases, with the stated goal of improving the policing of these crimes.

The move was meant to highlight the fact that the Philadelphia Police were taking rape investigations seriously, and they were completely changing the manner in which these crimes were being handled.

The Philadelphia Model in Practice

Starting in 2000, the group of lawyers from the four women’s rights groups would meet annually to review all sex crime reports, make sure they were coded properly, and if no arrest was made, they would press the police to find evidence to make an arrest. The first year, the group reviewed the raw files of 1,822 cases of rape, indecent assault and other crimes dating back five years.

Given the supposed gross misconduct in the police department, one would expect that a large number of the cases to be reopened and many arrests to be made. However, the review of 1,822 cases led to only 62 arrests, or 3.4% of the total number of cases. 27 of these cases had the charges dismissed or withdrawn. 33 of these arrests led led to conviction, or 1.2% of the cases reviewed. In other words, this committee agreed with the decision of the police department to not pursue charges 96.6% of the time. Hardly a case of gross police misconduct. [Source: Philadelphia Inquirer]

Even though there was no gross misconduct found, the group continued their work. The effect on arrests is not widely publicized, but rather relegated to side notes in random newspaper articles. Something else was not widely publicized about this group: the extent of power this group holds over the process.

Police Commissioner Timoney let the cat out of the bag by saying,

“We’re putting together a committee of women . . . and [will] actually, quite literally, let this women’s group be the final say on our classification.” [Source: Philadelphia Inquirer]

In contrast, the committee refutes this by saying,

“However, Philadelphia women’s leaders said that they understood their role to be one of oversight, and that police would retain ultimate authority for classifying incidents.”

So, who are we to believe? It is unlikely that the Police Commissioner misspoke about such a claim. The statement about the women’s leaders ‘understanding’ provides much more wiggle room. Bear in mind that these ‘women’s leaders’ are lawyers, and prosecutorial immunity does not extend to private individuals. Therefore, admitting to what the Police Commissioner said would open them up to the threat of a lawsuit.

The doublespeak from Women’s Law Project reminds one of 1984. In one article, Carol Tracy touts,

“[The committee] brought transparency and independent scrutiny at a time when the public had lost confidence in the police.” [Source: The Guardian]

In another article, Terry Fromson, managing attorney for the Women’s Law Project, admitted that the collaboration is not transparent, but rather,

“The entire process is carried out under a strict confidentiality agreement, so neither side can release any details.” [Source: The Marshall Project]

To contrast this, the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) in Baltimore releases an annual report listing individuals involved with SART, as well as their methods and goals. [Source: SART Annual Report] If everything that the Philadelphia committee was doing was above board, there would be no reason to cloak their activities in such secrecy.

Philadelphia’s annual committee meets behind closed doors. The names of the participants are not disclosed publicly. It is not known whether members recuse themselves in cases where they know the suspect. There is no accountability for their actions.

This group is not beholden to the public, and through a veil of secrecy, is able to execute their agenda without scrutiny from the public. The accused do not know that this committee has been involved with their case, and therefore has no clear form of recourse against potential misconduct by the committee.

“It’s wonderful,” said Barbara DiTullio, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women. She said the plan could make Philadelphia a model for police departments across the country. “It may put pressure on other cities,” she said.

While this is a big win for the women’s groups in Philadelphia, not all voices were so thrilled with the unprecedented move to allow private citizens such a role in the criminal justice system:

Experts on police policy are hard pressed to come up with a precedent for special interest groups being invited to influence police procedures. They draw analogies to black militant groups being asked to evaluate racially motivated crimes. William Geller, a deputy director of the Police Executive Research Forum, admitted that he knew of no other department in the United States that gave “an outsider a voice in the process of coding…” Gerald Arenberg of the National Association of Chiefs commented, “I’m not sure that private organizations should be involved in this work. You need experts to decide whether or not there is a case.” [Source: Wendy McElroy]

The committee has come to be known as a rubber stamp on allegations of rape, greatly increasing the chance that innocent victims of false accusations will be arrested and be forced to stand trial. Pushing these false allegations through to trial could be why Philadelphia’s conviction rate for rape cases is an abysmal 25%.

The Effect on the Crime Rate

Beginning in the mid-1990’s, the crime rate in the U.S. began to fall drastically. At the same time, there was a national movement to address rape through public campaigns like ‘No Means No’, and drastic changes were made in how police departments handled rape complainants. The culture changed at that time, and rape began to be taken much more seriously.

Philadelphia saw a sharp increase in rape arrests since the shift of focus in 1999. In 1998, 358 rape suspects were arrested. In 2000, the police arrested nearly 700 rape suspects out of 1,127 reported incidents [Source: Philadelphia Inquirer]. This may seem like the committee was hugely successful, but there were other changes happening at the same time. Stories of rape were in the news which often leads to more people coming forward with similar accusations.

Showing that Philadelphia was taking rape seriously, the Sex Crimes Unit’s personnel grew from 63 to 86, and many officers were replaced with detectives. In an unprecedented move, Commissioner Timoney assigned that years crop of 45 new detectives entirely to the Sex Crimes Unit. [Source: Philadelphia Inquirer]. The trend began to recede, as there were only 508 arrests for rape in 2002. [Source: Philadelphia Inquirer].

The number of rape complaints continued to rise in Philadelphia, with the most marked increase occurring between 2012 and 2013 when the FBI changed the definition of rape, and the numbers went from 957 to 1,241. The latest number available is for 2015, where 1,247 reports were made. [Source: Philadelphia Police]

Over the period 2001 to 2012, the rate of reported rapes per 100,000 people dropped from 331 to 244, or 26%, while the rate in Philadelphia dropped from 698 to 535, or 23%. [Source: City Data] The Philadelphia Model is lagging the decline in the national average rather than leading it, and even though Philadelphia has a one-of-kind model led by women’s groups, the rate of rape remains double the national average.

Extremist Views on False Accusations of Rape

The prevalence of false allegations of rape is a hotly debated topic. On the one hand, there is surprisingly little research on the topic, while on the other hand, many rape accusations in the media wind up being false. While rape is generally a hard crime to prove, the false allegation of rape is even harder to prove. Further, false allegations are not treated as a crime by most police departments, and police are directed to NOT investigate false allegations of rape.

In 2007 the FBI put the number of ‘Unfounded/False’ claims at 5%, but in Philadelphia the rate was 10% [Source: Times-Picayune]. This means that even with the committee of women’s advocates admittedly biased toward believing the accuser having the final say in the classification of these reports, Philadelphia still has double the national average of reported false reports of rape. These are only reports that have been proven through investigation to be false. This does not include cases that are found to be false during prosecution or the suspect is found not guilty. Therefore, the percentage of actual false allegations is higher than 10%.

Since there were 1,247 rape reports in 2015, this means that at least 125 people were falsely accused. However, Carol Tracy refers to false allegatios as a ‘myth’ that has been disproven. [Source: The Intelligencer] It is very odd that a person working directly with a police department that saw at least 125 cases that were provably false would refer to their existence as a myth.

Carol Tracy is part of a movement that entirely writes off the damage caused by false accusations, deflecting to the argument that rape is so under-reported that investigating and punishing false accusers may scare true victims from coming forward.

Given this ideology, it is likely that the committee overlooks evidence of false accusations and does not consider it in making the determination to arrest. Given the lack of oversight or rules, the committee is free to cherry pick evidence that will lead to the arrest of a person who, given the totality of evidence available, is clearly innocent. This person will be arrested, may lose their job, have to pay bail, and hire an attorney, simply because this committee chooses to deny any evidence that points to a false accusation.

The experience of going through an arrest and trial for a false accusation is described by victims of false accusations as being similar to that of rape itself. The shock, fear, feelings of guilt, questioning, self-doubt, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and the feeling that the control of your life has been torn away from you are common to both types of victims. It is odd that these so-called rape advocates would turn such a blind eye to the very real problems caused by false allegations.

Or when you consider the money trail, it isn’t so odd after all.

Who Benefits from False Rape Allegations?

Looking through the list of those involved in false allegations, who benefits the most? Certainly not the falsely accused. The police force and court system do not benefit from adding a false accusation to the books and wasting resources on such cases. The defense attorneys get a client, but guilty clients are more profitable.

The false accuser must gain some benefit, but unless their goal is money, that benefit is usually gained with the initial report to police. They want to cover up adultery, want to see a man arrested as payback, or have their alibi for something as simple as missing work.

The group that benefits the most from false accusations is the very group given the unchecked authority to determine how sex crime reports will be classified. Each allegation that turns into an arrest creates another ‘customer’ for these groups’ rape advocacy operations. These type of organizations generally raise funds based on the number of people assisted, and they provide services such escorting to court for which they must be somehow compensated. One of the groups, WOAR, is directly funded by Philadelphia’s District Attorney’s Office itself. [Source: WOAR website]

Extreme Bias in Approach to Rape

Carol Tracy talks about the under-reporting of rape, and few will doubt that rape is under-reported. There is a glaring omission from discussion of this problem: the under-reporting of rape by male victims.

Roughly the same number of men are raped or sexually assaulted each year as women (rape and sexual assault numbers have to be grouped together because the legal definition of rape excludes ‘coerced to penetrate’, which is essentially the rape of a man by a woman). 95% of the perpetrators of male rape and sexual assault are women. However, only 3,634 women were arrested for sex crimes in 2014, versus 52,939 men. [Source: FBI 2014 Statistics] It is estimated that women make up 40% of all sex offenders [Source: GoodMenProject], but only account for 6.4% of all arrests.

A common reason for men remaining silent about these assaults is that they fear they won’t be believed, and in many cases, the perpetrator threatens the victim that if he tells anyone, she will claim that he raped her, thereby taunting him with the notion of ‘Who do you think they’ll believe?’

Not only does Carol Tracy’s committee embolden false accusers to destroy a life with impunity, it allows rapists to use the legal system to further torment their victim. From this we can deduce that Carol Tracy does not really care about bringing rapists to justice. She shows a strong bias against men, and her sexist approach to a serious crime has become cemented in the Philadelphia’s criminal justice system.

False Accusations Also Harm Rape Victims

In the end, false accusers, and Carol Tracy’s staunch defense of false accusers, harms not only the falsely accused, but also true victims of rape. When a police officer is forced by these extremist policies of Tracy’s committee to treat a false accuser’s outlandish claims, inconsistencies, and impossible stories with the same severity as a victim with a coherent story that shows no signs of deception, of course the police officers are going to become jaded, and this will affect how they handle true victims.

Police took their jobs to uphold the law, and instead they are directed to knowingly assist in the perpetration of a crime, then will have to go arrest an innocent person, fill out knowingly false paperwork, and show up to testify at trial for a crime that blatantly was not committed. No amount of special training or oversight can expunge the disgust that builds up over time. Even when the officer catches a false accuser in a lie, they cannot take any action against them. Victim-centric policing instructs police to actively cover up these lies. Eventually, disgust pollutes their work with true victims, and they unjustly bear the brunt of the anger towards false accusers.

This immunity for false accusers affects juries’ prejudice. Since false allegations are a crime without a punishment, true rape victims have to work harder to overcome the inherent doubt in jurists’ minds. All of the work that Carol Tracy is doing does not lead to a higher conviction rate is countered because jurors inherently doubt rape complainants. Her model focuses on increasing numbers of arrests, not focusing on the actual investigation that could prove a case false early, and if not, would turn up better evidence for trial.

The Failure of the Philadelphia Model

The Philadelphia Model has been in place for 15 years. Since they operate in obscurity, it isn’t easy to tell what effect their work has had on rape. However, the goal of rape laws is to reduce the number of rapes.

Nationally, the rate of rape in the U.S. dropped 21% between 2001 and 2013. Given that Philadelphia has allowed women’s groups to unprecedented access to bring their ‘expertise’ to the police officers handling rape cases, one would expect to see a larger drop in rape and sexual assault reports over 15 years. Instead, Philadelphia saw a 23% increase over the same period of time.

Starting in 2013, law enforcement began using a much more permissive definition of rape, which made it easier for rape victims to get the perpetrator arrested, but also made it much easier for false allegations to turn into arrests. From 2012 to 2013, Philadelphia saw a whopping 44% increase in the rate of rape, while the rest of the country saw a decline of 9%. [Source: City Data] Given that the rule change makes it easier for a person to make false allegations, this could be evidence that the Philadelphia Model increases false accusations, as it is not likely that the rate of rape increased 44% in one year.

No matter whether these reports of rape of true or false, the increase shows the failure of the efforts of the Philadelphia Model. If rapes didn’t go down, they didn’t achieve their goal. If rapes did go down, then false reports went up, and men are increasingly being menaced by false allegations.

This model is failing rape victims, the falsely accused, the police force, the court system, the taxpayers, and anyone concerned about due process and the precedent of private lawyers having full access to criminal investigations and their outcomes.

What to do about it?

The dangerous precedent that this committee has set needs to be publicized and scrutinized. The public needs to assess the erosion of the standards of law enforcement, and demand accountability of outside groups dictating how the police will carry out their work.

It is in everyone’s interest to reduce the number of rapes, so The Philadelphia Model provides 15 years worth of experience in one way of approaching the problem. Research should be done to find where the program has succeeded and failed. Crunching the numbers on number of arrests and outcomes of prosecution would be helpful. We need transparency in order to do this.

Given the history of the committee, it is unlikely that the committee and Police Commissioner will open up the activities to public scrutiny. However, there is a treasure trove of data in the police reports which would shine light on the committee’s activities. Given that the committee meets once a year, a researcher could comb through the arrest reports following the meeting each year to see when the evidence was gathered. If there is a gap of several months between the initial statement and then the collection of some piece of evidence just after the meeting, then it is a safe bet that the committee handled this case.

This would tell us what they are advising the police to collect, and what is the quality of the evidence. Is it legitimate evidence, or just arbitrary evidence used in order for them to justify rubber stamping the arrest recommendation?

Ultimately, we cannot rely on politics to correct this. The change will most likely come from civil court. Given the secretive nature of the committee’s involvement in legal proceedings, they are most likely vulnerable to a class-action lawsuit, made up of falsely accused men who have been arrested on recommendations that did not meet the legal definition of probable cause. A class action lawsuit would force participants in this annual meeting to divulge the inner workings of the committee, potentially exposing a money trail leading to the member organizations.

In the absence of investigation, this model will likely take hold in other cities. Philadelphia is being touted as the ‘model city’ in how rape is handled by extreme feminist groups across the country. There is no doubt they see a feeding frenzy spreading this model, and the increase in funding that will come with it.

Just as Title IX eviscerated the rights of the falsely accused on campuses, the Philadelphia Model wants erode due process off campus.