Day of Blogs

A recent Washington Post article exposed the dismally low rate of rape convictions in Britain — a measly 6% of rapes reported in Britain and Wales resulted in a conviction. Even worse, there was what many dubbed a “postcode lottery” — where you lived severely affected whether or not your rapist would ever be brought to trial and/or convicted. But the government has promised to make changes and increase the conviction rates:

The government has been working to provide specially trained police officers, teams of experts and prosecutors across the country, said Coaker. The focus now was on ensuring that the same procedures were followed by every force.

“Every force has a responsibility to ensure that every single officer who comes into contact with a rape victim is supportive and believes the victim,” he said.

[. . .]

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates said police had made “significant advances” in the way rape was investigated but admitted more needed to be done.

“Rape is a uniquely difficult crime to investigate,” said Yates, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers’ spokesman on the issue.

“But the fact that it’s difficult means we need to up our game and redouble our efforts to ensure victims can have confidence in the way they are approached by those working in the criminal justice system.”

So what do you think?  While obviously withholding my judgement until I can see the results, it does sound somewhat promising to me.  Namely, I appreciate that while noting that rape is a unique crime which poses challenges for investigation, Yates didn’t just stop there as they so often do with a whine, as though it’s an excuse.  In fact, Yates is absolutely right — the fact that rape cases pose unique challenges isn’t a reason to just throw up your hands and say fuck it, it’s a reason to work your ass off at figuring out how to do it properly.  There are problems at every level when it comes to rape and the judicial system — but while judges and juries need serious sexual violence education, police are the front line.  They take the reports, they conduct the investigations.  Police can’t necessarily help a victim to win a case, but they can easily help hir lose it.

Of course, the question is whether these are just very positive-sounding words or something that will be backed up with real action.  I do of course hope for the latter, but I won’t be holding my breath until I see the evidence.