Review of rape investigations in England and Wales showed that they pass unfairly: a significant part of such cases does not reach the court and does not receive due development, the Guardian reports.
“We will not calm down until real changes have been achieved – from supporting victims to a more complete and stringent investigation,” said Robert Bakland, Minister of Justice of Great Britain. He on behalf of the government apologized for the fact that many sacrifices did not see justice because of system errors.
According to the publication, now the victim is much less likely sees that her offender is punished than it was 10 years ago: the number of punishments on such affairs is in a historic minimum. In 2016-2017 there were 5.1 thousand of them, in 2019-2020 – just over 2.1 thousand. What is happening, the authors consider, can be considered “actual decriminalization of sexual crimes.”
It is noted that the role could play the requirement of the Royal Prosecutor’s Service – to increase the percentage of convictions up to 60 percent. Now this indicator reached 68.5 percent. This happened due to the fact that investigators began to spend significantly less forces for investigations, closing and not arguing to the court more “weak” cases. In addition, security workers cut funding, which reduced the total number of sentences for any cases by 46 percent over the past 8 years.
At the same time, it is observed that more victims – 43 percent against 25 percent earlier – now take a letter of rape, as well as longer than before the results of the investigation are waiting. In average, they have to wait about 5 months, and in some cases the term comes to 4 years.
Earlier Guardian managed to find out that victims during the investigation regularly have to share with the investigators by all their personal data, including correspondence on social networks and phone calls – such is the usual requirement for business development.