More than one “woman” a week prosecuted for rape?!?!

[Cwenthryth]

I just saw this on Twitter

twitter.com/profalices/status/1442415750497509380?s=21

Between 2012 and 2018, 436 individuals prosecuted for rape in England and Wales were recorded as women.
www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/committees/current-and-previous-committees/session-6-citizen-participation-and-public-petitions-committee/correspondence/2021/pe1876_h-professor-alice-sullivan-submission-of-27-august-2021

I’m shocked at this statistic. Yes, a small proportion of these may be women charged with rape by joint enterprise. Prof Sullivan posted on Twitter she has requested to separate out those cases. But, as under the law in England and Wales, rape is a crime committed with a penis….. so these (alleged) rapists are “bodies with penises” being recorded as women in crime stats. So transwomen, right? So what does this mean….436 (alleged) transwomen rapists in 6 years? That is more than one a week. In England & Wales.

Have I misunderstood that? I’m really shocked.

Signed. Despite being a MN regular I had missed this completely.

Yes female women can be done for rape. If they are directly involved.

It is very rare. I can remember one case. It was headline news because the papers get very interested when women do things like that.. Because it's so unusual.

A male would need to be there as well to carry out the rape. So even if it's one woman one man in all those cases that's still loads of women with penises.. Women in these stats used to be incredibly low for this reason.

Also.

If there was a genuine increase in women being involved in rape. Such a big increase.

Then surely it would be s cause of concern and also of big interest to press.

Why? Who? What's going on? Because it would be unprecedented and a large change in behaviour and a very concerning one.

Finally.

ONS always separated rape as one table in stats.

A PP has said they are now including assault by penetration. (Which has been a crime for ages and does have same max sentence).

If they have done that then it indicates to me. That after years of separate reporting. They have mixed another crime in with the only one we have that points to a certain sex of the criminal. I can only think if one reason they would do that.. And if that is the reason then this problem is even bigger than we realised.. Because it means actively looking to obfuscate sex of criminal in the only place we can even start to ascertain it.

I'm not confident with stats so those who are please put me right!

On the link it says "Yet, between 2012 and 2018, this data shows that the proportion of rape defendants classified as women varied between 1.2 per cent and 1.8 per cent. During this seven-year period, 436 individuals prosecuted for rape were recorded as women."

If actual females are continuing to be charged at a comparable rate to before, that would still point to more than 1% of those charged being TW, on average. (This is an assumption of course, but a reasonable one based on previous stats)

But TW are not 1% of adult males are they? I thought the figure was below that. If so, would that suggest that TW appear to over-represented in the rape charge stats? (maybe comparable to the way sex offenders are over-represented in the TW prisoner population?)

I can't find rape stats only.

I might have a look later if I get laptop out. Look into source data. Need the police/ CPS stats not the ones from the survey.

@SheldonesqueTheBstard

Ah?

As for statistics? I would like to know how many women prosecuted for rape had a penis.

All of them!!!

@SheldonesqueTheBstard

I would also say that it is dangerous not to find and correctly portray facts when reporting such crimes.

This!

[quote deadleaves]@Datun thanks for that you tube link - I've just posted it to my facebook.

Are there links to the rest of the talks at the Scottish Parliament rally?[/quote]
I'm sure there are, but I'm afraid I don't have them. You might find them on the For women Scotland Twitter.

Note though that the data if headed correctly and no reason to think not.

Says rape prosecution. Not crime survey and only rape.

The crime survey is not about prosecutions it's collecting data from a sample of the public. To try and get a wider picture of what's going on. As hardly any report etc.

If you look at the small print for the "rape" stats, you'll probably see that it encompasses offense codes 14 ("rape") and 21D ("sexual assault - penetration"). (Not sure of the code numbers - that's just an illustrative example. I've looked at this in the past, so recall how it worked).
Can you highlight where this small print is in the specific links I provided? Here is the data Prof Sullivan is referring to
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/sexualoffendingcrownprosecutionserviceappendixtables
And in table 1 there, it distinctly says “sex of defendants and victims in rape prosecutions”, with no footnote about conflating other charges.

I'd also agree that there needs to be huge care with these statistics; after all, these numbers are over several years. I also recall the furore over a hideous violent crime earlier this year which was committed by a woman, and a frequent indecent exposer in South London who i think is also female. Sometimes these are offences by women.

I have googled amateurishly to try and find statistics on female sexual offenders before and to the inexpert eye it is incredibly difficult information to find. That may be because i believe eg there are 128 women in prison for sexual offences (as opposed to 13500 men) and so it might be difficult to maintain any kind of privacy in the data.

Honestly, I trust that Prof Sullivan will not be misrepresenting these statistics.

@Cwenthryth

If you look at the small print for the "rape" stats, you'll probably see that it encompasses offense codes 14 ("rape") and 21D ("sexual assault - penetration"). (Not sure of the code numbers - that's just an illustrative example. I've looked at this in the past, so recall how it worked). Can you highlight where this small print is in the specific links I provided? Here is the data Prof Sullivan is referring to www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/sexualoffendingcrownprosecutionserviceappendixtables And in table 1 there, it distinctly says “sex of defendants and victims in rape prosecutions”, with no footnote about conflating other charges.

Thank you!

That's the one. Table one.

Would be good to find the data before that.

Crime survey is nothing to do with this.

This data is rape prosecution data.

Yes of course women commit crimes.

With rape a penis is required.

Any women being prosecuted is rare. And would always involve a male or more than one male who carried out the actual rape.

IF loads more female women are being prosecuted for rape due to their role in assisting a penis person.

Then I have no doubt it would be big news. Because women doing crimes that are almost always committed by men get disproportionate attention by the media.

(With a great effect on the public of the idea it's more common than it is, while the men rarely get in the main news just for rape).

Have you seen the response? The CPS can’t fulfil Prof Sullivan’s request for information on how many of the 436 were natal women charged with being an accessory to rape, versus how many were “bodies with penises” because they don’t have that information. They’d have to go back through all the case files (too time consuming, too expensive).

So we have no actual data. The CPS is not keeping any statistics on which of these crimes are committed by women and which by bodies with penises. I find this horrifying.

@Cwenthryth

If you look at the small print for the "rape" stats, you'll probably see that it encompasses offense codes 14 ("rape") and 21D ("sexual assault - penetration"). (Not sure of the code numbers - that's just an illustrative example. I've looked at this in the past, so recall how it worked). Can you highlight where this small print is in the specific links I provided? Here is the data Prof Sullivan is referring to www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/sexualoffendingcrownprosecutionserviceappendixtables And in table 1 there, it distinctly says “sex of defendants and victims in rape prosecutions”, with no footnote about conflating other charges.

You see it in at some places, eg figure 3 in:

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/sexualoffendingvictimisationandthepaththroughthecriminaljusticesystem/latest

Mind you, that was CSEW data.

This linked document has the actual offense codes: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/977203/count-sexual-apr-2021.pdf

It is quite possible that my recollection was based on the CSEW data rather than the CPS data. I'm not seeing hints of the same conflation in the CPS data.

Oh thank you Catabogus.

I would volunteer to do that job, I'd take a week off and do it quite happily, and I bet I'm not the only one who would. Admittedly you can't have random volunteers wandering around CPS case files, but as a long term public sector worker, if there's one thing the pandemic has taught us it's 'where there's a will there's a way'.

I was wondering if they would allow access for anyone else to analyse the files for this data!! Maybe Sex Matters might be interested?

I would doubt it.

Privacy, data protection, I mean I'm sure they would say no.

I also wonder if there is even a central database. Big orgs esp public sector are a nightmare to get joined up. Historic systems, different things going on in different areas. I mean maybe they do maybe they don't.

And if the files can be seen then what will that do?

Police only record gender and it's self ID..I would imagine that this tracks through the system.

So it would need to be each file gone through for eg victim testimony to see what the rape involved.

And anyone outside the justice system looking at that will be a hard no and that's a good thing. Rape victims are anon for a start. Incredibly sensitive testimony.

So sorry I don't think that's a a starter.

I would also suspect the CPS stats are compiled from reports from various areas or branches of whatever as per the police.

I mean all this is guesswork and happy to be wrong but that's my take from how things usually work.

The CPS data was linked earlier on the thread. An Excel with the full info.

Crime survey does mix together rape and assault by penetration in the stats.

I feel like they didn't used to BUT I could well be wrong there. I don't know if in the survey they ask about rape and assault by penetration in the questions ie they are mixed from the start. Or if separate and merged in the analysis.

The CPS data linked earlier is clear that their data for rape is rape IE not with anything else.

I think that insistence that the rape stats IE just rape should not be assumed to point to xyz. And that no conclusions however caveated should be drawn at all. Even by random individuals on the internet. Is a bit of an attempt to stop the conversation.

With stats and analysis, they are often not able to go to the nth degree. Often there are extrapolations that need to be made. With an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the particular data set, any changes in the metrics etc, a knowledge of the full definitions in use, and knowledge of any things that are known to account for past unusual figures. Then reviewing numbers and relating to real life is standard.

Example-

After Jimmy saville there was a large increase in reports of child sexual abuse, especially historical (and can mean not long ago).

The police always pointed out this did not indicate an increase in children being sexually abused now or recently. It meant that people were reporting more.

Or census stats being extrapolated in order to plan eg resources needed for maternity care in the next 10 years.

So I'm not getting this complaint really.

Also.

I've seen on twitter threads saying these stats are deliberately / or out of stupidity being framed wrongly.

The arguments I've seen are:

Only ~5000 people people in England/ Wales have GRC. And 436 of them have been prosecuted for rape?! Ludicrous claim.
(This is nothing to do with GRC. Not sure why they're saying that. Out of ignorance or on purpose).

• Females can be done for rape too. Obviously person who released this figure doesn't know that! Hopeless.

(Ignoring that. Female prosecution for rape very unusual. And the women who are, need to have been assisting a male or males who carried out the rape as required a penis. Also ignores the statically unquestionable fact that males are responsible for the vast vast vast majority of sexual offences).

• That the data is rape + assault by penetration.

(No, that's the crime survey data. This is CPS data).

Sorry for multiple essays! A lot to say.

I mentioned this to DS this evening (part of a discussion about crime). He was not impressed.

Perhaps Sex Matters as an organisation could get clarification on what the data means? If they could write a template letter I would write.
Statistics are so important. If it is true that 436 'women' have been convicted of rape but were actually male this is awful and should be a huge red flag. How long would it take to review those 436 cases. Some would be very clear, if it was a female assisting a male but those 436 cases need scrutiny.