Only a tiny fraction of reported rapes lead to a charge, let alone a court case. It’s time to overhaul this broken system
It is not news that the system for investigating and prosecuting the crimes of rape and sexual assault in England and Wales is broken. Concerns about the large number of these offences that go unreported, and the low rate of convictions, date back decades and have long formed part of wider feminist critiques of the justice system. But the position with regard to rape prosecutions has, rather than improving, recently grown markedly worse. While the number of rapes reported to police almost tripled between 2014 and 2018 – an extraordinary statistic that deserves more attention than it has received – the proportion of such reports leading to criminal convictions has plummeted.
In 2019, 55,259 rapes were reported to police in England and Wales; the same year saw 702 rape convictions. Currently, there is around a one in 70 chance that a complaint of rape will result in even a charge, let alone a prison sentence. Little wonder that a report by an alliance of women’s groups, published earlier this week in the hope of influencing a government-commissioned review that is due to be released shortly, describes the situation as an “unprecedented crisis” in which these crimes have been effectively decriminalised.
