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orrfan1240 karma

We included several of the sheriff's comments in the story. He agreed that some of the cases had been exceptionally cleared when they should not have been, but said that's just an issue of coding. He also said this was an issue in the past, with some prior supervisors, but is not an issue any longer.

He said he is satisfied with the quality of his department’s rape investigations and called working on cases where victims don’t cooperate “a waste of time.”

He also said some of the cases his agency classified as exceptionally cleared would not even have been reported as rapes by other agencies, saying that his agency is at least reporting all the rape reports it gets.

orrfan1223 karma

Yes, across the state of Florida as a whole, rape cases are more likely to be exceptionally cleared than crimes such as murder, aggravated assault, robbery, motor vehicle theft or burglary.

The arrest rate for rapes across Florida is lower than for murder, aggravated assault or robbery (which are considered the other violent crime categories).

orrfan429 karma

Thanks for sharing your experience with the system.

orrfan245 karma

Hey! I reached out to our engagement producer, Ashley Dye, for their take:

Thank you for that praise! When I shifted to overseeing our social media a few months ago, I wanted to continue improving the Times' relationship with redditors. Luckily, the newsroom sees how valuable it can be to have discussions with y'all, especially in AMAs, to a) learn some pretty cool and thoughtful stuff from the community and b) show how we do our work so we're even more transparent. The reporters, even the ones who hadn't really checked out Reddit before, come away feeling grateful for the experience. Definitely expect to see us more.

Anyway, I remember the Miami Herald doing an AMA about a year ago, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel did one back in December. I hope they, too, do more on here — plenty of Florida newspapers do solid work worth reading. I'm biased to the Times (and our newspaper does say "Florida's best" lol), but I also love to see others thrive, too — that benefits everyone.

orrfan213 karma

I can direct you to a 2018 national look at exceptionally cleared rape cases that was done by ProPublica, Newsy and Reveal: https://www.propublica.org/article/when-it-comes-to-rape-just-because-a-case-is-cleared-does-not-mean-solved