Infuriating R4 programme overlooking women’s experience of sexual violence

[MimiGC]

Broadcast this morning (18.1.26) on BBC Radio 4 - a piece about how violent crime is falling in London and emphasising that people perceive violent crime to be a bigger problem than it actually is. So far, so good. But nowhere do they mention that unlike murder, knife crime, etc, crimes of sexual violence and domestic abuse have not gone down, they have gone up. They go give examples of other crimes which buck the trend and are rising (phone theft and shoplifting), but no mention at all of the crimes which overwhelmingly impact women. I’ll be complaining pronto.

Yes I heard that and thought the same

Although to add they were clearly talking about the virus approach to crime and I don’t think most gender based crime prevention can use the same approach

but it would have been nice for them to recognise that not all types of knife crime were targeted

But partly what this is about is how the media reports about crime in cities.

They go for the news stories with the idea of what will get the public attention, ie buying into existing prejudices, young men from BME communities dealing drugs or whatever.

Most crimes against women are sexual or domestic. They happen behind closed doors.

And although members of the public may express outrage about perceived "gangs" which often dont actually exist, they are more likely to shrug their shoulders about a woman returning home from a night out being assaulted.

Its almost as thought everyone knows these acts of violence are a crime, but it is somehow "normal".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2g52294xzo

Well it’s not helped by the police often referring to these incidents as ‘an isolated incident’

Came across this by chance.

Despite being one of Britain’s smallest police forces, Cleveland Police recorded the highest rate of sexual offences per head, according to Home Office data.

The force covers Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Hartlepool and Redcar – communities on Teesside and North Yorkshire already struggling with violence and drug crimes.

London places below the national average with a rate of three sexual offences per 1,000.

Full article https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37388326/uk-sex-crime-capitals-revealed/

the picture is complicated by the fact that (I believe, I was listening with only 1 ear) they were using people's reports of crime they experienced (to a survey), not the reports to the police
so a rise in people experiencing crime may or may not be reflected in a rise of reports to the police

when the police say 'its an isolated incident' they are trying to reassure the public- we know who has done this and they aren't interested in targeting random members of the public

when the police say 'its an isolated incident' they are trying to reassure the public- we know who has done this and they aren't interested in targeting random members of the public

yes I’m aware of that but the language they use could be changed. Something like ‘this is a domestic incident with no risk to members of the public’

My issue with it is that it was framed as ‘violent crime has gone down’, when what they really meant was the types of violent crime which typically affect men (street murder, knife attacks) have gone down. The types of violent crime which typically affect women (rape, sexual assaults) have not gone down, but this wasn’t mentioned. It implies that sexual crimes are not crimes of violence, when they bloody well are!

This is purely anecdotal but my experience in London is that certain types of sexual harassment were tolerated as normal. E.g of someone is rubbing against you try to move away etc. I am sure it is still massively underreported/not taken seriously but at least CCTV etc now means you are more likely to be able to report someone grabbing at you as you go past. And it then goes down as a sexual assault stat. Whereas before it just was
The other side of it is things like mobile phones making new sexual offences like up skirting which weren't really possible before.

Basically, I'm not sure if sexual violence has gone up or reporting of sexual violence has gone up. Both in terms of police statistics and in what people consider to be sexual assault if they are asked. Which isn't to say it isn't still unacceptably high. I don't mean to sound like "in my day we took a slap on the bum as a complement" etc.

But yes, there absolutely is a problem with them not at least discussing those statistics when talking about violent crime more generally.