Rapists getting off (so to speak)

[joggerjayne]

Just heard on the News ...

They are thinking of offering reduced sentences to rape defendants who plead Guilty.

This is to try to improve the current conviction rate, currently ... (wait for it ...) ...

... 6% !!!!!

So ... 94% of all rape charges are unsuccessful.

So, either ...

(1) the CPS are wrongly charging a lot of innocent people (which is awful) or

(2) the CPS are failing to secure convictions of guilty people (which is awful).

Could this be the most ineffective legal syatem in the world?

Or can anywhere beat a 94% failure rate ??

[jackthehat]

I have no idea about the conviction rate in other countries.......but the very nature of the crime makes it so difficult to successfully prosecute; he said/she said.

[joggerjayne]

I wonder if the CPS tell victims that, if they go ahead, the chances of success are less than one in ten ?

[Hopkirk]

This is for all crimes, not just rape.

[hc4361]

I don't believe that only 6% of rape cases that get to court are successfully prosecuted.
I do believe that only a very small number of people charged with rape by the police actually get to court because there is little or no evidence to present to the court.
This can be the case even where the victim has physical evidence of violent sex and the samples prove beyond doubt the identity of the attacker.
The attacker claims it was consensual; the victim claims it was rape. Especially difficult to prove if the rape occurred within an established relationship (such as marriage) or during a date.

This is devastating for the rape victim who rightly feels the attacker has got away with it.

If the case does get to court then the trial can be extremely harrowing for the victim, in some cases the victim feels the trial is worse than the rape.

I think it is an excellent idea if it secures a conviction.

[Kerosene]

The CPS are not "wrongly charging" or "failing to secure convictions" because:

1: The CPS job is to analyse the evidence gathered by other agencies and, bearing in mind that it is public funds being used to finance any prosecutions, decide whether or not the presented evidence would stand a realistic chance of eventually bringing a prosecution to bear.

2: Any case put forward for prosecution is thereafter at the mercy of the courts to decide whether or not the evidence is strong enough to secure a conviction.

3: The CPS cannot "fail to secure" a conviction if the evidence presented to them is not strong enough. It is solely the matter for magistrates/Judges/juries to test the strength of the evidence and to come to a judgement on the basis of it.

[Twenty20]

I believe you got this slightly wrong.

The statistics are that in 94% of rape CLAIMS there is no criminal conviction. This doesn't mean that 94% of men charged with rape get found not guilty. It's the statistics before the claim of rape gets to court.

This could be for a whole host of reasons - e.g. the rapist was never found; there wasn't enough evidence; the woman is falsely claiming rape, etc etc.