I should be shocked but I am not. Research from the Fawcett Society shows that it is a postcode lottery when it comes to rape victims accessing justice.
Data obtained by the equality campaigning group, the Fawcett Society, reveals that in the worst area, Dorset, fewer than one in 60 women who went to police in 2007 saw an attacker convicted of rape. Although the conviction rate rose slightly to 7% across England and Wales from 2006, the figure fell in 16 out of 42 police forces, 12 of which had a conviction rate below 5%. In Warwickshire the figure was 2.9%, and Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire all had a rate of 3.1%.
The response from Detective Superintendent Mark Cooper, Dorset’s director of public protection, stated that the 2007 conviction rate of 1.6% ‘did not look good’……
So what are you going to do?!
Fawcett Society are right when they conclude that it is an absolute scandal that women are being denied justice along with the ignorance, sexist double-standards and ‘victim blaming’ that exists in this society when it comes to rape.
And the uphill struggle rape victims have to go to receive basic support especially with the continued threat of closures and lack of funding regarding Rape Crisis Centres.
How many women are put off from reporting a rape because of this??
