Rape investigations a 'burden' on the Met

[MrsKCastle]

BBC link here

The article has a serious point about how reports of rape are increasing
and more funding is needed. But FFS, a burden? Am I alone in thinking this makes it sound like it's an inconvenience and they should be able to get back to more serious policing?

I think the word 'burden' was badly misused here. The report is saying that officers' caseloads are too big for them to investigate properly. The response to the report is saying that more officers will be allocated to sexual offences investigations and that it will be prioritised. So, good things (in theory) but very badly worded.

The report was written by Eilish Angolini who was Solicitor General and then Lord Advocate in Scotland. Basically she was the 2nd most senior and then the most senior Crown law officer in Scotland.

She was considered to be very good at her job.

Sorry, I should have clarified that the report itself is clearly very useful and will hopefully bring about some improvements in dealing with rapes/sexual assaults.

What has annoyed me is more the BBC reporting of it- the language used and the choice of headline seems to me to diminish the issue. Rape is presented as a burden on the police- not as a serious crime that needs to be dealt with.

It's a crap headline.

I know that they're probably using it to try and get over that the Met don't have enough resources to deal with rape, but it comes across exactly as the OP says - as though women complaining about rape is a terrible burden for the police.

Because men raping women isn't a burden at all for women.

Unfortunate. And actually, pretty unbelievable.

They are all educated at the BBC. They do understand the nuances of words and sentence construction. Surely they can't be unaware of how it sounds?

I think it's a massive burden on the police, the court system and society.

But it's not women causing the burden, it's the rapists. Maybe they should be forced to repay all the costs involved because sending the fuckers to prison isn't enough of a deterrent.

I heard it described as a epidemic today on the radio. That the met are so overwhelmed they are fearful of what the outcome might be. They also want the issue of consent while drunk enshrined in law as that might lower the numbers. Some men apparently haven't heard that sex with a drunk woman is rape. The met put the increase partly down to more of types of cases.

Oh ffs. Yes bloody crap reporting and a headline that will feed every misogynistic bastard male in the country. Thanks so much BBC.

It's kind of good that they are raising the issue of low police resources, every public service in the country is severely stretched and struggling. And more tory cuts to come, what joy. I wonder whether there are reports highlighting this problem in other areas - did the focus on rape come from the BBC or the police ? I could see that with improved attitudes to dealing with sexual crimes it could be an issue now.

Where are the headlines complaining about public service funding in other areas? Why just more lazy-arsed 'blame the victim' reporting, and why in this area above all? Where are the headlines complaining that burglary and murder are straining the met? We are so poorly served by our media, right now, just when we need it.

Has anyone else read Nick Davies "Flat Earth News"? I'd recommend it. About how real journalism has been destroyed in favour of this lazy-arsed churnalism, for money, as usual.

Will look it up, thanks, TBR.

Yes I saw this yesterday and agree that the headline makes it sound like women are unfairly burdening police with complaints (or in the reader's mind probably "complaints") of rape, and this is preventing them getting on with their proper jobs.

The article itself doesn't say that and the report is very welcome and I hope that words are turned to actions. Appalling headline though.

Sorry to be back, but I just picked this up from an earlier post of yours "disbelieving victims (which it identifies as a problem), and it attributes a large part of this to officer burnout & empathy fatigue stemming from overwork."

Ha ha ha ha bloody ha. And for their next excuse...

It is great that they are finally seeing it as a problem. There was a thread with a nice quote from gm police a while ago acknowledging it in rather better fashion though. It is a start.

Ah, not just me who twitched at that, then. OK article about good report - with dreadful headline.

One of the links below the BBC article was to a local newspaper (Hull, I think), running the same story verbatim with same headline.

So I'd say headline came from press release. Did that come from the Met press office?

A v good question Pausing. Seems likely doesn't it. In which case there might just be one crucial individual, either unthinking or misogynist, in the Met press office. I wonder which it is. The power of media and information...

Leaving aside the semantics, and the undertones of the words used for a bit. I'm kind of shocked that the Police haven't been aware that this workload hasn't been on the horizon for a good while*. It's not as if we haven't known for years that rape is massively undereported, and that the conviction rate is stupidly low. Tackling these two fundamental problems with law enforcement should require huge resources and should've been accounted for.

*Maybe I'm just giving the Police too much credit for forward thinking/planning and awareness?

I think that it wasn't previously seen as a particularly important crime so didn't get allocated funds. They have targets to meet (or they used to) which are crime specific eg knife crime / burglary / probably varied a lot depending on which force. Rape and sex crimes haven't been high up on anyone's agenda unfortunately and of course there are large groups who don't think they should be - society is set up to minimise this crime and the police are there to police what society cares about.