The handling of rape cases by police and prosecutors will be scored for the first time under new strategies to elevate the amount of rape cases reaching court.
Ministers need the amount of suspects being billed to return to 2016 degrees and”scorecards” measuring”timeliness, quality and prey engagement… and execution of this action program” will be printed every six weeks to demonstrate how the justice system is acting.
The past year this figure had dropped to 1,490.
The UK administration’s action plan on the issue attempts to reverse the decrease in cases reaching court, a situation it describes as”entirely unacceptable”.
It includes:”We owe to each victim and are incredibly sorry that the system has reached this stage.”
Last nighttime Justice Secretary Robert Buckland and Home Secretary Priti Patel stated they”won’t take failure anymore” since they declared a pilot scheme to decrease cross-examination of victims at court using recorded interviews.
Mr Buckland stated that rape cases must be like burglary cases, in which the attention is on the accused.
Writing in the newspaper now, she said:”Any’scorecards’ would inflict subtle pressures on authorities and prosecutors, possibly to bring forward less-than-sound instances, resulting in more acquittals; or to bring forward just surefire scenarios, leaving hard ones by the wayside. Comparisons will be inescapable, blowing off that distinct areas serve vastly different people with varying caseloads.
“Buckland insists that these aren’t league tables by a different title, instead a manner of areas learning best practice from one another. However, in fact, a’shame variable’ would put in the justice system. Worse, the attention would change to dents, from inherent issues like disclosure of electronic evidence.
“What is required above all is more money: for expert rape components; for courts fighting with enormous backlogs; and also for police researchers. Without that, the effect of reforms will probably be marginal. Rape will stay’too hard a crime’ to violate and perpetrators will still escape the entire force of law”
