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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue

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Results for sex offenses (u.k.)

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Author: Great Britain. Ministry of Justice

Title: An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales

Summary: This report brings together, for the first time, a range of official statistics from across the crime and criminal justice system, providing an overview of sexual offending in England and Wales. Most of the information presented in this report has been previously published in other official statistics bulletins. The report is structured to highlight: the victim experience; the police role in recording and detecting the crimes; how the various criminal justice agencies deal with an offender once identified; and the criminal histories of sex offenders. Providing such an overview presents a number of challenges, not least that the available information comes from different sources that do not necessarily cover the same period, the same people (victims or offenders) or the same offences. For example, the results from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) are based on self completed questions from a representative sample of adults (aged 16 to 59), asking about an individual’s experiences of sexual offences in the last 12 months. The police recorded and court information cover all sexual offences, as legislated for in law, committed against any individual irrespective of age or when the crime took place, but exclude the large volume of crimes not reported to the police.. O ther issues that prevent direct comparisons include:  the CSEW focusing on the most recent experience of adults as a victim of sexual offence in the previous 12 months (thus, for example, does not include sexual offences experienced by children or those aged 60 or over);  police recorded crime figures being based on offences per victim (i.e. for each victim in a given incident, a crime is recorded) in the year the crime was reported, irrespective of when the offence took place;  the criminal justice outcome information (e.g. cautions and convictions) being on an offender basis at the date of the final outcome, again irrespective of when the crime took place. The latter two points mean that figures between the police and court sources will differ, as there will be crimes involving more than one victim or more than one offender, or possibly multiple victims and offenders relating to a single crime. It is not currently feasible to track individual cases from initial recording by the police through the CJS. When interpreting the flows of offences and offenders through the CJS, it is important to note the various stages of attrition and the inherent challenges associated with detection and prosecution of crime, in particular with sexual offences. Second, the issue of ‘downgrading’ of offences (when a decision is made by the Crown Prosecution Service, between the initial hearing at the magistrates’ court and the first hearing at the Crown Court, that the initial charge is incorrect and should be changed to another offence) as they move through the system presents analytical challenges and requires careful consideration when interpreting the statistics. For example, one method of calculating rape conviction rates often used by commentators shows the number of people convicted of rape as a proportion of all rape crimes recorded. Given the different currencies of the two number and the effect of downgrading of offences through the CJS mentioned above, this method is incorrect and misleading in terms of presenting evidence on convictions for rape. For the purposes of this report, the results from the last three years’ CSEW have been combined to provide a large enough sample to enable more reliable findings to be presented. Elsewhere, the report mainly covers the period 2005 to 2011(for police recoded crime 2005/06 to 2011/12), as 2005 was the first full year following the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Where readily available, longer time series have been provided. Detailed statistical tables are provided in the spreadsheets alongside this bulletin. Tables referenced in the text are included within the bulletin, whereas others referenced are found only within the spreadsheets. I t is acknowledged that any sexual offence will be a traumatic experience for the victim. For ease of reference however, throughout the report, sexual offences have been referred to as falling into two groups:  “Most serious sexual offences”, covering all rape, attempted rape and sexual assault offences; and  “Other sexual offences”, which includes sexual activity with minors (excluding rape and sexual assaults), exposure, voyeurism etc. A full description of the offence types included, with reference to the relevant legislation, is included in the glossary in the spreadsheet tables accompanying Chapters 3 and 4. A number of summary sexual offences, such as kerb crawling and letting premises for use as a brothel, have been considered outside the scope of the publication. Within each chapter, introductory information is provided (in italics) to give a overview of the chapter content, the basis of the statistics included, and the relevant data sources. Further background information can be found in the ‘Background to the criminal justice system’ and ‘Data sources and quality’ sections of this bulletin.

Details: London: Ministry of Justice, 2013. 73p.

Source: Internet Resource: Statistics Bulletin: Accessed January 17, 2013 at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/criminal-justice-stats/sexual-offending/sexual-offending-overview-jan-2013.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/criminal-justice-stats/sexual-offending/sexual-offending-overview-jan-2013.pdf

Shelf Number: 127286

Keywords:
Crime Statistics
Rape
Sex Offenders
Sex Offenses (U.K.)
Sexual Assault
Sexual Violence