FFWD Weekly
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City by David Bright Sex crimes have always been a part of Calgary’s history. Politicians like to deny this, of course, comparing today’s apparent decline in morality with the mythical "good old days" when rape and sexual molestation never occurred. And this view of the past is supported by the existing histories of Calgary, where no mention is made of the seamier side of city life. But it was there, all the same. Of course, compared with today’s graphic coverage of sexual assault trials, newspapers 50 or 60 years ago were a lot more circumspect in their language. Occasionally you find reference to "a most heinous crime" or "a vile deed," but no details are ever given, and their infrequent appearance might suggest that today’s politicians are right after all. Other sources, however, provide a far different picture of life in Calgary. The police occurrence books – the daily record of all crimes reported – reveal a world of rape, sexual abuse and indecent exposure that was hidden from the public’s gaze. Take the inter-war years 1918-39, for example, the so-called good old days. More than 250 sex crimes are recorded, and this is likely just the tip of the iceberg. It’s well established that reported assaults represent only a small fraction of all those that occur, and in Calgary, many victims who did complain to the police did so only after repeated abuse. What can we say with certainty about the pattern of sex crimes in this period? For a start, given the harsh nature of Calgary winters, it’s no surprise that the majority of assaults – 80 per cent, in fact – took place in the warmer spring and summer months. More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that less than half of all assaults took place after dark, the time usually associated with sex crimes. With one assault in five occurring in the morning hours, daylight alone was no protection against attack. Most reported assaults took place out of doors, and some areas of the city were especially high risk. Calgary’s many public parks, the bushes along the banks of the Bow River, the various schoolyards and street-railway stations were all prime locations for sex offenders. The sad fact was that then, as now, young children were particularly vulnerable to attack, accounting for three-quarters of all victims, and their assailants struck where they could be sure of finding them in large numbers. Above all, it is clear that the majority of victims – more than 90 per cent – were female, while every single reported offender was male. There were a few cases of indecent assault of young boys – such as in 1927 when 14-year-old Fred W. reported that a man had grabbed him at Nose Creek Hill and "endeavored to take out his Privates" – but the typical assault involved an older man and a younger girl. This key pattern perhaps explains why it was so difficult to secure a conviction of sexual assault in inter-war Calgary. Fewer than 30 per cent of reported assaults ended with the offender going to jail; the proportion of all assaults was obviously far smaller. The reasons for this low conviction rate are varied, but the main ones are easy to identify. First, victims often had difficulty in describing their attacker to the police. "No description except he was wearing a cap," reads one report entry for 1926, while another girl in 1930 claimed to have been chased from a skating rink by a man who "wanted to have sexual intercourse with her," but was "unable to give any description of this man." Descriptions that were given – "foreign-looking" or "looked like a Jew" – were of little value. Second, it was often the victim’s word against that of her attacker, and without corroborating evidence, police were reluctant to press charges. In 1939, for example, Else G. complained to the police that her father had been raping her regularly, but when questioned the man simply denied the accusation. The police left it at that. Finally, even if a case did come to court, focus often shifted from the accused assailant to the moral character of the victim. In 1930, 16-year-old Doris L. accused two young men of driving her out of the city and then raping her. She identified them by name and the police picked them up. When it came to trial, however, one of the attackers described Doris as "a flapper who ran around with nothing to do and if she was a good girl she did not act that way." The boy’s lawyer took up this theme, accusing Doris of being a loose woman who was sexually experienced beyond her young years. The trial ended with no conviction. In short, the pattern of sex crimes in inter-war Calgary is disturbingly familiar. Not only were young women especially vulnerable to sexual assault, but they were also victimized by the criminal justice system. Police refused to press charges based on their unsubstantiated accusations, while the courts were often more interested in probing a girl’s sexual background than the merits of the case itself. Sixty years later, those attitudes are still evident in the infamous "bonnet and crinolines" remarks made by Mr. Justice John McClung. Perhaps the good old days were not so different after all.

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