Following is an excerpt of from a recent Washington Post article.

Research on “police sexual misconduct” — a term used to describe actions from sexual harassment and extortion to forcible rape by officers — overwhelmingly concludes that it is a systemic problem. A 2015 investigation by the Buffalo News, based on a national review of media reports and court records over a 10-year period, concluded that an officer is accused of an act of sexual misconduct at least every five days. The vast majority of incidents, the report found, involve motorists, young people in job-shadowing programs, students, victims of violence and informants. In more than 60 percent of the cases reviewed, an officer was convicted of a crime or faced other consequences.

Former police officer turned professor Phil Stinson conducted a national analysis of more than 500 officer arrests for sexual misconduct over a three-year period. He found that half involved on-duty misconduct and noted that off-duty misconduct is often facilitated by the power of the badge or the presence of an official service weapon. A fifth of arrests involved forcible rape, another fifth forcible fondling.

In a second study, funded by the National Institute of Justice and analyzing more than 6,700 officer arrests nationwide during a seven-year period, Stinson found that half of arrests for sexual misconduct were for incidents involving minors. According to a 2010 Cato Institute review, sexual misconduct is the second-most-frequently reported form of police misconduct, after excessive force.

“Over the years I would see it all,” former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, “Breaking Rank.” He described cases in which cops fondled prisoners, made false traffic stops of attractive women, traded sexual favors for freedom, had sex with teenagers and raped children. “Sexual predation by police officers happens far more often than people in the business are willing to admit.”

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