Rape victims wait almost hree years

[BovaryX]

The Telegraph reports that rape victims are waiting more than two and a half years for a decision on prosecution. This is causing victims to withdraw charges. The Telegraph has analysed Ministry of Justice figures which reveal that the time lag between the offence and the suspect being charged is now 932 days. It was 569 days ten years ago. Vera Baird, the Victims' Commissioner, warns that these delays are retraumatising victims and that they are unacceptable. She urges the police to prioritize sex offence investigations over less serious crimes Rebecca Hitchen says this:

We know that this means survivors withdrawing from the system and losing faith in the ability of our current system to deliver justice

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/01/rape-victims-waiting-almost-three-years-see-suspects-charged/

The reason this is extra horrifying to me is I recently read a piece written by a woman who went through this and apparently you are not able to access counselling on the NHS before charges are filed. I'll try and find the source (does anyone else remembers reading it to? Pretty sure it was posted on FWR)

@smeerf if that's true I would happily start contacting my local MP to get changes.

That's astonishingly stupid!

The statistics cited below are from the article. There is a serious problem with rape cases and apparently the government have launched an investigation. The counselling aspect is also mentioned in the article. It suggests that counselling is delayed because it can affect the evidence? I am not sure what that means, but perhaps the defense can access the counselling notes?

In the three months to June 2016 there were more than 500 rape cases taking place in the courts of England and Wales. But in the same quarter last year that figure had fallen to fewer than 200. The most recent figures suggest there has been a 32 per cent drop in the number of police referrals to the CPS. Last year almost 60,000 women and men came forward to report rapes, but there were fewer than 2,000 convictions - the worst figure since records began in 2008

That’s a harrowing read. Imagine the daily burden of living with that hanging over you for two and a half years.

I am still not sure what is underlying the numbers though- there was the piece about collecting evidence, but what about the delays at the CPS, what is causing those?

It’s very stark that rape has been deprioritised as compared to other crimes. It really was a bit of a blip in the 90s and 00s where it looked like the tide was turning enough for it to be taken seriously. We’re pretty much back to where we were 30 years ago.

Investigating an allegation of rape is a very complex task. It is expensive, manpower-heavy and resource-heavy. A huge investment is required even before the decision whether to proceed with investigation can be taken, let alone then progressing it to a prosecution with a fairly low chance of success.

OTOH investigating crime-non-crimes and checking people's thinking is quick, manpower-light and cheap, with a very high clear-up rate due to the vanishingly low amount of evidence required.

It's obvious where the focus should be, in order to validate budgets via performance.

Jelly

Quite so. One of the things cited in the article is that the police are spending huge amounts of time trawling through social media. It gives an example of a six month delay while waiting for the victim's school records. Given the dysfunctional state of rape investigations, it is likely that some if not many victims do not involve the police at all.

Smeerf, is that true? Surely not. What would be the reasoning behind that?

The defence can claim a victim has been 'led' in counselling sessions if they discuss what happened to them in counselling.

It is possible to access pre-trial therapy which basically means the victim is allowed to talk about everything BUT the offence - how they are feeling about the case etc but nothing at all about what happened.

I've had counselling for sexual abuse and pre trial therapy would have been awful for me. Sexual abuse is all about shame and secrecy and I feel pre trial reinforces the idea that you have a terrible secret that must not be named.

Absolutely not the counsellors fault and I'm sure some people have positive experiences. But in my view it's just another one of the many ways the system punishes the victim.

Well if ever there was proof that rape is as close to legal as possible...

It is just unbelievable, rape and sexual assault cases are handled so badly by authorities.
Having that hanging over your head for so long, sometimes your mind starts to wonder ‘if they believed me, this would be done by now - so what’s the point?’ And give up rather than wait for a legal battering.

Seeing the difference between timescales for other crimes make it all the worse.
We have known for far too long that the conversion rate from reports to convictions in rapes is astonishingly low, so why has nothing been done about it.

It's legal in all but name.

There's no appetite really in society or within law enforcement to prosecute anything but the most extreme violent cases. Even then men often are given the benefit of the doubt in a really extreme way.

Essentially a lot of people believe rape myths.