cases that was a topic of a report released this year by human rights watch now to discuss more about this issue i'm joined by sara dirt sure it senior counsel of the u.s. program of human rights watch and the author of this report capitol offense police mishandling of sexual assault cases in the district of columbia a sarah welcome the show so to be clear your report focused on d.c. police mishandling sexual assault cases not on d.c. police actively being a part of sexual assault cases but given what you've learned about the police force on this issue do these or arrests that i talked about in the intro of sexual misconduct in the like surprise you they don't entirely surprise me because what we found was that. scores of cases were not being investigated and that victims were often being treated. really poorly when they reported which indicated not that the policies in d.c. were bad but that the police department actually didn't have a culture that took sexual assault seriously now as part of this report you spoke with sexual assault survivors how did they describe some of the treatment they received by police. sadly a number of sexual assault survivors told u