Guardian publishes misleading article about rape

[Nyac]

Claims the conviction rate for rape is 58% when in fact only one in ten reported rapes are prosecuted, so the conviction rate for reported rape is 6%.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/19/myths-about-rape-conviction-rates

Also called the reactions to the prosecution of a women who withdrew her rape allegation as "hysterical".

That's not an attrition rate, that's a conviction rate. Unless I've completely understood the word attrition, the attrition rate refers to cases that don't go to court for whatever reason e.g. because the police no crime them.

"I know it's been a hard week here, but it would be a shame to eat ourselves up getting defensive."

Claiming you're making some kind of feminist point by having a go at people on tone here, I think is a mistake.

This woman doesn't appear to have any trouble speaking, given that she's published in the guardian. She also doens't have a problem in using misogynistic terms like "hysterical" about arguments she disagrees with. Perhaps direct your criticisms to her tone first?

Considering the word "attrition" means "The action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure." (google Attrition definition) I think nyac's definition is correct.

It's used in this document as " the number and
proportion of cases that fail to reach court and result in a guilty verdict. " [[http://www.rcne.com/downloads/RepsPubs/Attritn.pdf source is here", can search document. So wouldn't that mean the attrition rate is 94%?

I see there is an argument over the semantics but it's not one I'm that interested in in this discussion. If you want to call it a conviction rate I'm fine with that, but I'm not going to go out of my way to police my language to meet your definitions instead of someone else's. I'm more interested in other points the author was making.

I'm not "having a go at" anyone (and I'm sorry if that bit about hard week wound you up, it was supposed to be a reach out in friendship, not a phrase to rub you up the wrong way). I am saying I think you are missing good points in the article, that the tone of the posts here is hostile to a consideration of those points and that I think that is a shame. And I have already said I disliked the author's use of "hysterical".

Actually, I'd say an argument over the meaning of a word is a pretty important one, especially with a word such as attrition, where you seem to think it means the opposite to what nyac and I think it means.

If nyac and I have the correct meaning of the word, it means that we're reading what you're saying as 94% of cases end in a conviction. If you have the correct meaning of the word, it means you're reading what we're saying as something completely different.

Anyway. Now off to re-read the article.

Criticism of texts happens, btw. Especially from English students, or those who want to understand what they're reading. Doesn't mean they're criticising the authors personality if they mention a negative aspect of the text.

But it's the name of a statistic. So it means whatever it is defined to mean. I would tend to agree with you that a common English definition of attrition would see it as 94%, I was merely repeating the use from the article for the sake of ease. I don't care what it's called in the context of this discussion, but I do care about getting the stats confused because everyone is using something different.

The Home Office definition:

A Gap or a Chasm: Attrition in reported rape cases

"The attrition process

Using police designations and the ent ire data-set, more than on e-f ifth o f reported c as es (22%, n=575) were ?no crimed? and one-third (33%, n=882) were undetected. Just under o n e - t h i r d ( 3 0% , n = 7 87 ) h a d b ee n d e t ec t ed , b u t i n 1 2 p er c en t o f c a s es ( n = 32 0 ) no proceedings were brought . In a further o n e- f ift h o f ca s es ( 1 5% , n=3 99 ) there wa s not complete information on case outcomes, either because the police failed to complete pro formas or the case was not concluded at the end of the research. Additionally, there were a small number of self-referrals who had reported at an earlier point but it was not possible to a s c e r t ain p rec isely wh en , o r what th e cas e out com e was , as well as a smal l number of cases that were being investigated in a difference police force area."

There's only one definition. The other is the incorrect one.

OK, this article in the Guardian uses the "conviction rate" the same way we do in terms of talking about rape; wrt those reported, not those that reach court, putting the conviction rate for the most violent crimes (not just rape) at well below 10%.

BRB, flitting between research and MN... And Stardust...

OK, this puts the CPS conviction rate for burglary at 87.1% nationally. They've defined this as the CPS conviction rate, so that's not for all reports. Perhaps it may be worth using this to define between the differences? EG, when explaining the rate from those that reach court, define it as such? Otherwise, if we all have a different understanding of a word, the message of an article will get muddled.

I must admit I had been wondering this through the thread, as I understood the attrition rate to be the number of cases that fell by the wayside during the process. The ones that didn't get anywhere. I thought that maybe in the article she was talking about a different stat but she hadn't said which one.

The attrition rate for rape is not 6% or 12%. It is a very high number.

sorry, link for last comment

So having just looked at her article again, it is entirely wrong.

If she wants to use the 12% stat (which I think is convicted of any crime after a report of rape) the attrition rate is 88%.

Seeing as the crux of her article is that the language used is misleading... well... um... Not a very persuasive argument then!

It's a simple matter of defining it

Conviction rate for cases prosecuted
Conviction rate for cases reported to police

First stat = 58%
Second = 6% (Or 12% if you include conviction for other offences)

I would like to point out that the data in these reports is 10 years old. Can anyone link to more recent reports?

Cases which are reported to the police have a 58% charge rate which means they should go to court.

What happens between charge and trial date the. Reduces to 6%

Correction Sharon. From the Stern Review, 2010, cases reported to the police have a 26% charge rate. Of those, 58% of cases result in a conviction. 50% of those convictions are for rape, 50% are for other charges (eg assault) Was linked on first page. Will try and find original data

the 6% conviction rate is from all cases reported to the police between 2008/2009.

"There's only one definition." [hmmm] The bit you quote is not a definition. It's the beginning of the outlining of a process. Even the document you link to talks about two different ways they could define attrition in that report. Others may define it in other ways for other purposes.

I only talked about the attrition rate being 6% not 12% because Flapper30 had pointed out the article said 12% and I thought the important thing to point out was that that percentage, regardless of what it is rightfully called, claimed to be different to 6% because it included all convictions, not convictions for the crime that was actually reported (i.e. rape). I thought, and continue to think, that this back and forth over the semantics in this context muddies the water.

oh wow. Cross post lots. sorry.

Thanks frothy, was half way through Stern review then got sidetracked trying to get head round attrition rates

It's ok. sorry if the first bit of my reply sounded snappy... dyslexia's playing up today, and can affect the way I reply... Just re-read it and thought... "oops..."

SQ ^"Seeing as the crux of her article is that the language used is misleading..."

I don't think that is the crux of her argument. Her argument is that reporting rape is always shown negatively in the press. Her examples include the 6% vs 58% conviction rate and she defines the 6% as "attrition", but her argument isn't simply that it should be called "attrition", her argument is that using that number instead of focusing on the other adds to the negative presentation and will deter people from reporting rape.

But her argument is that saying 6% (or even 12%) is the conviction rate is simply wrong, as the conviction rate is usually defined as the amount of cases that are prosecuted that result in a conviction.

So she is quibbling over the use of the term "conviction rate" for the 6%, even though that is the % of rape reports that end up in a rape conviction.

And I don't think many women misunderstand the 6%, TBH.

She has however totally misunderstood what a very important figure - attrition rate - actually means. So pot kettle frankly.

Fact is that rape reports are increasing. And the way she talks about the woman who was imprisoned for a false retraction is unsympathetic, to say the least. Both to the woman and the people who were horrified at what happened to her.

In our area 60% of rapes reported have been charged year to date which is in an inner city area. I obviously can't give you attrition rates.

Has anyone ever seen the documentary " bowling for columbine " Regarding gun crime in America? The theory was that society is more fearful depending on how the media portray crime.

This is interesting based on the discussion above on how you portray outcomes of reporting rape.

I think the Home Office Conviction Rates are wholly misused by the press in general and there ought to be a lot more pressure for the government to calculate and report more fully on what happens to reported crime than it currently does. The Home Office Conviction Rates are really only useful in terms of measuring whether CPS are good at deciding whether they have reasonable chance of conviction for cases. Very high rates would indicate they were only going to court with completely sure things, very low rates would indicate they were taking every case they could to court, regardless of whether they had the evidence and skill to prosecute it with a reasonable expectation of success. This isn't a figure that is particularly interesting, for any crime, except when talking about how well CPS perform in this aspect of their role.

6% is a truer indication of what people mean when they talk about conviction rates in everyday conversation. And I agree that women don't generally misunderstand this figure.

But we don't hear in the media about the also exceedingly low rates of reported burglaries, car crimes, assaults, or any other crime that end with a conviction. This means that there is skewing in the way the resolution of rape cases is portrayed compared to other crimes that may deter more women from reporting.

I disagree that she talked about Sarah in an unsympathetic way - I thought talked about the media reporting and official reactions, not the case itself or Sarah. And I thought her points (though, again, I don't like her use of hysterical) about the media coverage are salient.

I'm just not sure what the argument is here.

If you report rape at the moment you have a one in twenty chance of seeing a conviction. You are more likely to have your report no crimed, or not investigated properly or not prosecuted.

It's pretty simple.

The fact is women don't report rapes in part because of the pathetic outcomes the legal system produces. The fact that there is almost always a witness to the crime of rape, surely suggests that the conviction rate should be much higher. It's not because a large number of people, including people in the criminal justice system, subscribe to rape myths and believe that women lie about it.

There seems to be a backlash against feminist analysis of rape investigation and prosecution in this country. This article is part of that.

So your argument is that the point of this article is stop feminist analysis of rape investigation and persecution?

While I say the point of this article is to counter the media narrative that discourages rape reporting. I don't think the article does a great job of making its point, especially with the conviction rate bits. And some of what she is saying comes across to me as suggesting the media should simply spin the story so women feel better about reporting rape, which I strongly disagree with.

But I think her issues with the Sarah case reporting were reasonable. I thought it was reported in a salacious and negative way that would inappropriately make make women fear about reporting rape now. There was little focus on either how this particular prosecution came about (the focus was all on Sarah, not the decision makers who were responsible) or how a country-wide change to process has been brought in because of it.