John Yates, at the time the ACPO national lead for rape and serious sexual offences and also responsible for such cases in the Met, said in the Guardian earlier this year that in order to tackle the devastatingly low rape conviction rates, the police force needs to completely re-invent its response to rape and sexual abuse cases.
It reports that in a study of 33 countries Britain has the worst conviction rates of all. Yates compared the situation to the complete overhaul that was needed after the Stephen Lawrence enquiry revealed embedded racism in the police. The rape conviction rate isn’t just symbolic of failings in funding and focus, it is symbolic of a deeply engrained culture that encourages people to mistrust women when they accuse men of rape.
The recent Worboys and Reid cases have highlighted that rape is a repeat offence unless the perpetrator is apprehended, but also that women are repeatedly being ignored by police when they report sexual violence. The Soham murder case emphasised this too - Ian Huntley had sexually assaulted a woman previously, but her case was thrown out.
Failure to support women
If police are failing to support women when they report abuse which falls in to the ‘stranger rape’ category, then just imagine how much worse it is when the case involves friends, family and, in particular, alcohol.
The advent of DNA evidence means that it can now be proven whether or not penetration has occurred when a woman accuses a man of rape. Where, in the past, juries would decide on the full collection of evidence in court, now the CPS is dismissing more and more cases before they even reach trial. This is because the prosecution now rests solely on the issue of consent, and attitudes in the police and in the CPS mean that cases are dismissed on snap decisions about a woman’s character, how much she had drunk, previous history with the defendant, a history of mental illness and a series of irrelevant factors to whether or not she was actually raped.
More funding needed
The recent government announcement is welcome, and represents the collection of a variety of initiatives and attempts to improve the conviction rate. While it is good that this government clearly takes the issue seriously, they must realise that while some of the policies are there, the funding is not. Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, recently announced £1.6million for Rape Crisis Centres and The Survivors Trust sexual violence charities across England and Wales, but this is still not enough, and it will take more than just checks on police to convict rapists.
The revelation in the Times newspaper in May, that rape victims are to be asked why they think the criminal justice system is failing them, seems a further step forward. Although, there also seems to be serious flaws with this approach - as surely the biggest problem lies with the women whose cases aren't carried forward by the police to the point where they'd be deemed qualified to comment.
Believing in women
When women aren’t being believed by the police and the CPS, no wonder it is estimated that 95 per cent of rape cases aren’t even reported in the first place.
It is time we got serious about tackling the rape conviction rate. The government must see through its intentions and deliver a dramatic increase in funding, and a complete overhaul of attitudes in the police. We need not just a few more sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) but a SARC in every police force area. The government has pledged to achieve this by 2012, but it must happen now. We need a fully funded rape crisis centre in every area, too. There is so much that needs to be done, and there are a plethora of organisations calling for change - such as Women Against Rape, The truth about rape, the Fawcett Society, Rape Crisis and many others. We must make rape the political priority it deserves to be.
All of us have a responsibility
Tackling the rape conviction rate is not something that the government and police can do alone. We must all take a responsibility to challenge the increasingly widespread belief that it is common for survivors to make false allegations - the figure for false accusation is actually widely regarded to be just two per cent. We must also challenge the belief that survivors of rape have sometimes provoked the rapist. An Amnesty International poll found that 26 per cent of those asked said that they thought a women was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing. It seems that the media, in particular, are increasingly dismissing women for reporting rape at all. A recent article by India Knight in the Times was provocatively entitled ‘Face it, girls — a drunken romp isn’t rape’. The 2008 Lilith Report on press reporting of rape emphasises that when the press do report rape, they are highly selective and only report ‘newsworthy’ cases, or cases of men being falsely accused. We must challenge the view that it is common for women to cry rape - whether we hear it from our friends in the pub or whether we read it in the paper.
6.5 per cent of all reported rapists are convicted. An estimated that 95 per cent of rapes aren’t even reported. Tackling this problem is bigger than just targets alone - we must change the culture which belittles and dismisses women when they try to report rape.