Sexual offending in England and Wales

The Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics undertook a forensic and detailed analysis of aggregated data from a series of national UK crime surveys. Although the Report was produced in 2013, it is without doubt still worthy of consideration as it brought together, for the first time, a range of criminal statistics relating to sexual offences in England and Wales, in a neutral way. Its conclusions include:

• only 15% of females who had been victims of the most serious sexual offences reported them to the police;

• the detection rate for sexual offences was significantly lower than non-sexual violence against the person;

• cautions are used by the police even in serious sexual offences cases; and

• 1 in 5 women between the age of 16 and 59 have been victims of sexual assault at some point in their lives.

The Report can be found here.