What’s the conviction rate in rape trials? One in 20?
Think again. How about 50%?
Excellent piece by Camilla Cavendish on how people play with the numbers in order to force a change in the law.
Convictions in Rape Trials
In
5 responses
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OK, good about clarifying exactly what the claims made in the press about the conviction rate for rape being only 5.5 per cent refer to – as The Observer had reported it:
“An analysis of Home Office figures reveals that only 9.7 per cent of all ‘serious woundings’, including stabbings, that are reported to the police result in a conviction. For robberies the figure falls to 8.9 per cent and for rape, it is 5.5 per cent.”
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1784623,00.html
As the linked piece by Camilla Cavendish in The Times makes crystal clear, deconstructed the quoted 5.5 per cent conviction rate relates to: “the number of convictions secured out of the total allegations made, not the number of convictions secured out of the cases tried.”
Fair enough – but we still have this to worry about: “more people are being found guilty of rape: up from 655 in 2002 to 728 in 2005. Conviction rates are falling only because allegations have jumped by 40 per cent in that period.”
How come a 40 per cent increase in the allegations of rape? And how does that connect – if at all – with recent reports about British drinking habits and the extraordinarily high rate of pregnancies among the under 18s in Britain compared with the rest of Europe:
“LONDON (Reuters) – Highly educated British women are more likely to binge drink in their 20s but curb the habit by the time they reach 40, researchers said on Thursday.
“But the reverse is true for women with fewer qualifications who make up the bulk of female binge drinkers in middle-age, scientists at the Institute of Child Health found.”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=2DC8BD91D566CAC1ABC88917CA71E1EE
“The British are Western Europe’s biggest binge drinkers, a new study has revealed. According to market analysts Datamonitor, drinkers in Britain consume 6.3 units of alcohol – equivalent of 2.2 pints of lager – each time they visit the pub.”
http://www.999today.com/health/news/story/3014.html
“Britain has the highest rate of pregnancy in Europe for under-18s which peaked at 41,089 in 1998. Meanwhile, cases of the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia, which can wreck fertility, have tripled in a decade.”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23382403-details/Health%20experts%20condemn%20plans%20to%20set%20up%20sexual%20health%20clinics%20in%20schools/article.do
Someone is trying to fudge the relevant issues IMO. -
Innocent until we change the rules
There is currently uproar throughout the media regarding the fact that only 1 in 20 rape cases results in a conviction. You can barely pick up a paper without there being some editorial or other claiming it is too difficult to get a guilty verdict, or…
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Interesting contrast with this story – in which it seems that a Guardian journalist comes close to recommending women carry guns to fend off rapists :-O
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2003229,00.html -
Guns may not be of much use in preventing rape as the (alleged) perpetrators are usually already known to the victim. “Stranger rape” in Britain is highly unusual according to various official research studies. For example:
“The 1998 and 2000 British Crime Surveys included computerised self-completion questionnaires designed to provide the most accurate-ever estimates of the extent and nature of sexual victimisation in England and Wales. The questions were asked of both men and women aged 16 to 59; findings on the victimisation of women only are presented here. . . Women are most likely to be sexually attacked by men they know in some way, most often partners (32%) or acquaintances (22%). Current partners (at the time of the attack) were responsible for 45% of rapes reported to the survey. Strangers were responsible for only 8% of rapes reported to the survey.”
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r159.pdf
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/sexual/sexual06.htm -
The Guardian wants to infest our streets with armed, drunk women?
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