Violence against women - low conviction rates blamed on Police misogyny.

[MiladyBerserko]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/140d1e60-bb1b-11ec-94e5-2197dead5942?shareToken=cbf614d4f29e5902707f025a54a53ab2

Good but horrific article on female barrister's experience of dealing with violence, murder and rape of women

It's sickening. Will there ever be any political appetite to make serious root and branch changes to the police though? And will individual police forces actually be made to make radical changes? I'm pessimistic about the potential for change, sadly.

Yes, shocking article. Don’t think she’s saying it’s solely down to police misogyny, talks about various factors to do with the police and CPS.

Powerful statement that rape has, essentially, been decriminalised.

That's truly horrific. Thank you for posting it.

for all the brave women fighting this.

@Loopytiles

Powerful statement that rape has, essentially, been decriminalised.

Isn't it coming to this in many other countries, too? If only a few percent of rape cases go to court in the UK, what is the actual risk a potential perpetrator might contemplate before attacking someone?

So sorry for the above comment. I didn't have glasses on and read 'police' as "Polish!"

Also important to read this, reflect on how very difficult it is to get a rape conviction, and then consider how very serious and serial offending a sex offender a male has to be to get sent to prison for several years because of it .

Because those are some of the male people we're busily locking female prisoners in with.

Is it just me who missed out on 2016 being a high-water mark for this?

The rates of men being charged after being reported for rape are less than half what they were in 2016. Anyone following the revelations about police culture after the Sarah Everard murder will be unsurprised to hear this. Johnson is part of the team acting for the Centre for Women’s Justice, pushing for the inquiry into Everard’s death to be widened in scope to examine whether the police are institutionally misogynist. She is also critical of Boris Johnson, who ruled that misogyny should not be made a hate crime since it would “overload” the police. “Violence against women is seemingly such a prolific problem the government has decided to do nothing about it,” she writes.

Can I remind anyone who is interested that we need feminist magistrates? I know it's the lower courts and we have to start changing the culture wherever we can. Family courts and everywhere.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10433569/Officials-search-4-000-new-magistrates-huge-recruitment-drive-beat-case-backlog-courts.html

magistrates.judiciary.uk/

This is a hard read. The story at the end about, "Kiera" is harrowing. I wonder how that poor woman will ever recover from abuse at the hands of her partner and the courts.

What was the shift from 2016 onwards that resulted in this rapid downwards trend? Was there different guidance given to the police/CPS around that time?

Thanks for posting. A shocking but not surprising article. Sounds like a book worth reading in full.

@RoseslnTheHospital

What was the shift from 2016 onwards that resulted in this rapid downwards trend? Was there different guidance given to the police/CPS around that time?

Not hugely informative beyond we need to work in partnership, who knew etc.

We have worked hard to understand and address the reasons behind the stark drop in the number of offenders brought to justice since 2016.

The cross-Government rape review found the reasons for the decline were complex and wide ranging and identified changes that are needed at every stage in the criminal justice system. I am confident that our prosecutors are making the right legal decisions, applying the legal test fairly and objectively in order to bring even the most complex and challenging of cases whenever it is possible to do so. However, without doubt, there are things we at the CPS could have done differently - either better or more quickly - to get a grip on the drop in rape prosecutions.

We were slow to respond, and we could have communicated better with police and stakeholders on how we were managing the pressures of these cases. We recognise that some of our action plans for the police were disproportionate. Stronger partnership working and case quality is the key to driving the improvements we need, and is central to our comprehensive action plan to improve every aspect of how we manage these sensitive cases.

www.cps.gov.uk/publication/rape-strategy-update

www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/no-stone-left-unturned-transform-rape-case-handling-says-director-public-prosecutions

This might be their aspirations but given the enormous backlog of cases (iirc, Secret Barrister mentioned a 7 year court backlog for some cases like rape) I've no optimism of justice for women.

My understanding is police collect the evidence, CPS decide when to charge (not the police) and barristers appallingly cross examine victims of sexual offences. With total disregard to what they have been through. A victims relationship history of, I think 10 years, is requested (not by the police) but CPS. So barristers can use as ammunition in court to discredit them. I think it's a really unbalanced article to sell her book. Don't get me wrong, some recent police stories have been hideous, but, I can't get out of my mind, once when I had to give evidence in court as a witness, the male barrister was watching the cricket results, during a violent robbery trial. Both victim and defendants were male so god knows what he'd be like if they were female.

Several comments to the article worry about possible false rape accusations.

This is a burning issue for some men, who believe that false rape accusations are extremely common, impossible to defend against, and likely to ruin the accused men's lives and reputations.

It is eerily similar to how women might view the threat of rape: It is common, often impossible to defend against, and likely to ruin the raped women's or girls' lives and also their reputations in many countries.

The difference, of course, is that false rape accusations are actually nowhere near as common as rape is.

The studies I have seen (up to roughly 2018) on false rape accusations give different percentages, depending on which country they come from and how the issues were defined and who did the evaluation of what is false, but none of them ever gave figures above single numbers in percentages.

The higher figures (around eight percent, I believe) use a different definition of a false accusation that the one the men in the comments at the Times are using: One where the rape is believed to have happened but the wrong person was identified as the rapist, either by the victim, a witness, or the police investigation.

The lower figures, including the one cited in the article, exclude these cases where the suspect was falsely identified and only cover cases where it is believed that no rape took place (what those cases are depends on the laws of the country in which the study was carried out, but they are closest to the kinds of cases some men worry about).

That article wasn't really the place for diving into "false accusation" claims.

Useful discussion here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3529873-Rape-statistics-and-false-allegations

On several threads there have been discussions about the number of women whose partners/family members have compelled the making or withdrawal of a rape complaint to the police.

That article wasn't really the place for diving into "false accusation" claims.

No, of course not. I just noticed them popping up in the Times comments the way they usually do in comments attached to articles about sexual violence.

Thank you for the link.

This is a burning issue for some men, who believe that false rape accusations are extremely common, impossible to defend against, and likely to ruin the accused men's lives and reputations.

The issue In have with this argument is that men are more likely to be raped than falsely accused of rape but that never seems to concern them.

@FOJN

This is a burning issue for some men, who believe that false rape accusations are extremely common, impossible to defend against, and likely to ruin the accused men's lives and reputations.

The issue In have with this argument is that men are more likely to be raped than falsely accused of rape but that never seems to concern them.

Quite, and that's why I find the almost instant comments about this attached to articles on sexual violence against women so ironic.

It's similar to the speed with which anything about FGM results in comments demanding that feminists also fight against male circumcision, i.e., in both cases the two issues are somehow argued to be symmetrical and of equal levels of harm when they are not.

@FOJN

This is a burning issue for some men, who believe that false rape accusations are extremely common, impossible to defend against, and likely to ruin the accused men's lives and reputations.

The issue In have with this argument is that men are more likely to be raped than falsely accused of rape but that never seems to concern them.

Which does always make me suspect what they're actually worried about is justified rape allegations which would not be prosecuted normally but will be if we actually tried.

The bloke who tried to assault me in my teens would not worry now but if we actually tried to prosecute assaults, he would worry. I can see him complaining about 'false' accusations. Particularly as he's a very successful man now.

Given the state’s failure to protect women from domestic violence, she icily sums up some top tips to avoid risk in the book. These include: “don’t leave, he might kill you; don’t stay, he might kill you; don’t be pregnant; don’t exist after football games; don’t be female”.

So horribly, horribly accurate.

@RoseslnTheHospital

It's sickening. Will there ever be any political appetite to make serious root and branch changes to the police though? And will individual police forces actually be made to make radical changes? I'm pessimistic about the potential for change, sadly.

My Swiftian Modest Proposal, it's time to kill several birds with one stone.

There's a dearth of employers who want to take on women of a certain age or those who've been absent from the job market for a time with caring responsibilities.

Employ droves of women. Train them up in specific tasks and create new roles. There are lay observers who:

[inspect] the treatment received by detained persons in court custody suites and escort vehicles. Lay Observers report on whether or not detainees are treated with decency and respect and their welfare is appropriately managed.

publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/public-appointees-needed-for-the-lay-observers-2/

Have more of these trained lay observers for Police functions. What would happen to the culture if a large number of women were trained and employed as chaperones (civilian would be fine).

Have enough women that the present culture isn't sustainable.

The Police have had decades to change their culture and they haven't. It's time to disrupt the police and to change the culture for them.