If I could have one wish for the new year, it would be for Britain’s criminal justice system to be reformed in a way that would ensure the arrest, prosecution and conviction of every single rapist in the country. I do not mean, of course, any man accused of rape, but every man who has actually committed rape.
One of the most prevalent and persuasive myths about rape and sexual assault is that a large number of allegations are false and men who have been publicly accused of rape but could not be convicted in a court of law are the victims of grave miscarriages of justice.
According to the United Nations, “globally, an estimated 736 million women – almost one in three – have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life.” Despite such shockingly high figures, there is still a presumption that many women make false allegations about male violence – in particular, rape.
In the United Kingdom, the government estimates that false allegations and cases of mistaken identity make up just 2 to 4 percent of reported rapes – a figure believed to be broadly accurate across countries. Of course, men’s rights activists and other anti-feminists never mention this figure in their unhinged rants about how women routinely lie about being sexually assaulted and raped.
Currently, in England and Wales, the conviction rate for rape is at an all-time low. Of those reported to police, known to be just small a minority of sexual assaults actually committed, only 1 percent end in a conviction. That means, if we also take into account the small percentage of false allegations, well over 90 percent of rapists get away with their crimes. These men are bound to be emboldened by their ability to evade justice and will almost certainly do it again. Given the terrible, devastating impact that rape often has on women subjected to it – resulting in chaotic lifestyles, drug and alcohol abuse, and other actions fuelled by trauma – victims of rape are more likely to end up in prison than their rapists.
The biggest obstacles to securing rape convictions in the UK are prejudiced jurors and the reluctance in every level of the justice system to prosecute “difficult” cases – such as those involving women in prostitution, drug and alcohol users, and teenage girls, all of whom are often seen as unreliable witnesses.
Contrary to what is often said in defence of the low number of cases getting to court, there is no such thing as a sex crime prosecution that is “too difficult to prosecute”. In the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service only takes sex crime cases to court if it believes there is at least a 50 percent chance of a conviction. This often means that the more complicated cases, or those involving victims who are considered imperfect, are dropped.
The advantage of the system in the United States is that prosecutors in Special Victims Units work exclusively on sex crimes and receive intensive and ongoing training from experts. These prosecutors play a pivotal role from the moment a rape is reported, working with police to investigate the case and developing an intimate understanding of the details of the crime. This gives them an obvious advantage when it comes to presenting their case clearly and persuasively in court. By comparison, in the UK, the first time the complainant will meet the prosecutor is at the trial.
This is why I advocate for the use of specialised prosecutors in sex crime cases in the UK too. The UK does have prosecutors trained in rape and serious sexual offences, but all that is required is to have attended a training course. These prosecutors also take on a range of other cases, and their “expertise” is, therefore, limited.
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