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Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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 Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:15 am Post subject: Rape victims 'failed by police and courts' |
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This is rather depressing stuff. One wonders if it is worth reporting sexual assualt at all, for all the good it seems to do for the victim.
Rape victims 'failed by police and courts'
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More and more rape suspects are escaping justice each year despite record numbers of women prepared to come forward to report a sex crime.
A damning report into the investigation and prosecution of rape cases in England and Wales shows that victims are being failed at almost every stage of the criminal justice system.
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The damning statistics
* Only 5.3 per cent of reported rapes end in a conviction.
* Reported rapes increased from 9,734 to 13,712 between 2001 and 2005.
* Two thirds of reported rapes do not proceed beyond investigation.
* 86 per cent of reported rape victims know their suspected attacker.
* Between a third and a half of cases that reach court end in acquittal.
* The detection rate of reported rapes dropped from 41 per cent to 30 per cent between 2001 and 2005.
* 32 per cent of rapes reported to the police were wrongly recorded as 'no crime'.
* In cases in which the CPS offered no evidence nearly a third should have gone to trial.
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Another depressing story: Rape victim: 'I spent hours giving a 40-page statement' |
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Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:35 am Post subject: |
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This article looks at the problem of the exaggerated perception of the prevelance of false accusations versus the reality of how few rapes are actually ever reported, and how few of them are ever successfully prosecuted.
Leading article: Prejudice, myth, and a system that fails the victim
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There has been some discussion in the House of Lords of late over what should be done about women who falsely accuse men of rape
There is a far greater scandal in our criminal justice system than the small number of men who are victims of malicious accusations: the vast number of men who are committing rape and getting away with it. Less than six per cent of rape allegations in the UK result in conviction, one of the lowest rates in Europe. Few would suggest that 94 per cent of allegations of rape are false. This failure by our courts to hold so many to account must therefore be acknowledged as an outrage.
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The crime of rape is still shrouded in myth and prejudice. A disturbingly huge proportion of the population believes it is somehow the woman's "fault" if she gets drunk and is subsequently raped. And as the fallout of the Blackwell case shows, there is still a willingness to believe that malicious accusations of rape are common. It is because of this context that Lord Goldmsith's decision to reconsider the granting of anonymity for accusers is so dangerous. Such a hostile signal from the law is likely to discourage women from coming forward.
More women than ever are reporting rapes to the police. But anonymous surveys still suggest that only a small proportion of women who have been abused in this way are coming forward. Our criminal justice system is still not securing justice for the victims of rape. Ministers should devote their energies to putting this right before they turn their attention to other problems.
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Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:41 am Post subject: |
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How can juries understand rape unless the full horror is explained to them?
Another damning numerical indication that the system is failing:
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Unless you believe that about 11,400 women report false allegations each year, and only about 600 true ones (and a surprising number of people seem keen to do so), you have to believe this force is doing something right.
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And here the writer (herself a rape victim) argues for changes in the system to cope with the uniqueness of the crime. A recent report has suggested changes, but these are being resisted by the judges.
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I don't know this stuff to be true because experts have told me so - though they do - but because I experienced exactly those difficult feelings when I was raped as a young woman myself. Almost 25 years later, I still feel them. I did put up a fight, I was punched half-senseless for my pains, and if anyone could have seen and heard what had happened they would have had no trouble in calling it rape.
But I never went to the police, and never told a soul what had happened for many weeks, because I was simply mute with the misery of it all. (This is why O'Brien also suggests waiving the prohibition of hearsay evidence in rape cases, so that family and friends can give evidence about what they were told prior to an approach to the police.)
Do those who have neither experienced rape, nor have had its psychological effects explained to them, really have an understanding of such symptoms and their implications? I don't believe that they do. It is perfectly sensible that juries should have the psychological effects of rape explained to them, and the judges who oppose such a measure simply display the depth of their lack of understanding.
The idea of telling strangers about what had happened to me not once, but again and again over a period of months, was unbearable to me, and it is in response to this particular problem that O'Brien has suggested it should be permissible in court for video screens to show the first interview of a rape victim with the police. Again, the judges are against this, not just because of their fears that juries might be "influenced" but for the repugnant reason that some people are particularly good at "faking distress". Presumably such people would be just as good at "faking distress" in the witness box as in a police station, so the suggestion is meaningless and insulting.
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:50 am Post subject: |
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| There is a far greater scandal in our criminal justice system than the small number of men who are victims of malicious accusations: the vast number of men who are committing rape and getting away with it. |
This is an argument for saying that, to be on the safe side, it's ok to jail a few men who are falsely accused of rape.
Rape is a terrible crime. But there is no crime so horrible that it justifies punishing somebody for something they didn't do. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 1:01 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
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| There is a far greater scandal in our criminal justice system than the small number of men who are victims of malicious accusations: the vast number of men who are committing rape and getting away with it. |
This is an argument for saying that, to be on the safe side, it's ok to jail a few men who are falsely accused of rape.
Rape is a terrible crime. But there is no crime so horrible that it justifies punishing somebody for something they didn't do. |
Well, when it's so difficult to prosecute rape that an outside observer might draw the conclusion that acquaintance rape is effectively decriminalised, that's a big problem. If a man rapes a woman he knows, odds are very much in his favour that he won't ever be punished for it. |
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