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1. Rape Victims and the Modern Justice System On the evening of November 21, 1936, thirty-eight year old Anna Brasy, a white woman who sang soprano in her church choir, finished practice and went home. She lived with her mother and brother in a Lincoln Square apartment on Chicago’s north side. She went to bed, but later woke up when she heard her bedroom door open. She turned and saw a man standing over her. He was holding a knife and told her not to scream or he would kill her. After forcing her to remove her pajamas, he raped her. He brutally beat her, tied her hands with the cord from her bathrobe, and demanded money. She told him that she had some in her closet. Although the man agreed to leave when he heard this, after taking the money he continued to attack her. He started to choke her as well, but left abruptly as Brasy struggled to free herself. She woke her mother and brother. When her brother saw her condition , he called the police while Mrs. Brasy tended to her daughter. When the police arrived, one officer immediately took Anna Brasy to the hospital and another investigated her bedroom and the alley outside the apartment, searching for the perpetrator. After several months in the hospital, Brasy had still not identified any of the suspects that the police brought there for her to view. When her mother received an anonymous tip about the attack, Brasy informed the police. Shortly after, they arrested twenty-four-year-old Robert Conroy, a white man Brasy ultimately identified as her assailant.1 Anna Brasy’s experiences were extreme, and public attention to the case reflects a great deal of concern about urban crime and violence, especially sexual violence, during the mid-twentieth century in Chicago. Although it involved a level of brutality that did not mirror all Chicago rape cases that ended up in court, the similarities between Brasy’s experiences and those 22 chapter 1 of other rape victims—even those who did not spend months recovering in the hospital—suggest that authorities pursued rape investigations more aggressively than previously understood. Although current assumptions about the past have doubted the diligence with which male authorities investigated rape allegations, court and media records prove this to be untrue. The State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago organized a Sex Bureau in January 1937 in order to deal with sex crime cases in the city, forcefully responding to the publicity surrounding a series of attacks against women in downtown hotels since the previous summer.2 This initiative coincided with the establishment of a distinct Sex-Homicide Division within the Chicago Police Department, organized to “capture the night prowlers who have been raping and killing women.”3 Five detectives were permanently assigned to the Sex Bureau, with additional officers transferred in temporarily when difficult cases like Anna Brasy’s continued until a suspect was identified.4 With regard to identification of suspects, it is during this period that the Bertillonage system of suspect identification via body measurements (named after its nineteenth-century creator, Alphonse Bertillon) was being replaced with fingerprint identification, although investigators continued to rely on multiple forensic identifiers in their search for missing criminal suspects.5 In keeping with these techniques, the police kept on file “the fingerprints, measurements, and photographs of every person accused of a sex crime in the city” in the hopes of catching what a local newspaper called “moron attackers .”6 Such a derisive label and the published concerns about ongoing attacks suggests that, in spite of Matthew Hale’s historical warning about unproven accusations, many people were alarmed about the realities of sexcrime violence. Chicago authorities kept busy in an attempt to curtail sexual violence in the city, and they responded to women’s complaints, even when victims were not so brutally beaten as Anna Brasy. ExtensivedetailsofChicago’smanyrapeinvestigationsarelosttothehistorical record, however. Investigations ended or grew cold when police could not locate viable suspects, or charges might be dropped when a victim withdrew her complaint, due to reasons often left vague.7 Moreover, as part of the professionalization of the modern justice system, by the 1930s nearly 80 percent of all Chicago defendants pleaded guilty, usually to a lesser offense than the original charge.8 Nonetheless, prosecutors brought forward and tried several cases successfully, even if these were a fraction of the rape complaints investigated or even reported to the police throughout the mid-twentieth century...

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