Thread by @gmhales

Some discussions in the press about how charge/summons rates vary by police force area.

Here I've prepared some charts to look at rape and other sexual offences, for the 3 years from 2018/19 to 2020/21 (inclusive).

First, rape charge rates.

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A very wide range of charge rates (as at July 2021: these data are periodically refreshed).

Durham are in a league of their own, with a 7.1% charge rate. Wilts, Kent, A&S and GMP all under 2%. Met Police on 2.3%. #crimestats

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Here's the same data with the 3 years separated out.

Note that rape offences that reach a charge typically take a long time to investigate, so those reported in 2018/19 have had longer to reach a conclusion, and not all rapes recorded over the 3 years are finalised yet.

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Note that I've not accounted for crimes that have 'not yet been assigned an outcome' in this analysis (they are still counted in the denominator), and the charge rates will increase as more time passes.

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I wondered if the rate of rapes (per 100k population) recorded by the police might be a factor, thinking lower rates might equate to more time to investigate each allegation.

In fact, there is no correlation at all.

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Finally, I also looked at the 3-year charge rate for other sexual offences (ie all sexual offences except rape). A somewhat different picture, though Wilts and especially Kent still way down on the rest.

The offence mix could be a factor, as could varying charging practices.

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The source for the data: Home Office Crime Outcomes in England and Wales Open Data, as at July 2021 (the most recent available as of today). gov.uk/government/sta…

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As with most things I've posted on here in recent years, I've done this analysis in my own time. If you'd like to support my work, you can help by buying me a coffee ko-fi.com/gmhales.

Thank you.

Here's the Telegraph piece from yesterday, which singles out the Met and Lancs. I think it unhelpfully conflates violent and sexual offences. telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/0…

For comparative purposes, here is the charge/summons rate by force for violence with injury offences. The Met are above average. I'm not sure that fits with the Telegraph portrayal of it being "the worst force in England and Wales for solving sexual and violent crime".

@pwilkinson_pcc the charts above will be of interest

If you want to see the full breakdown of crime outcomes for rapes across 2018/19 to 20/21, here it is (ranked by % charged/summons).

I've picked out the % 'not yet assigned an outcome' in pink: 5 forces over 25%, Wilts 42%.

Since a number of people have suggested that regional CPS practices may be important, here's the force rape charge rates colour coded by CPS area

It's interesting, for example, to note the Durham/Northumbria/Cleveland group towards the top, and the Sussex/Surrey/Kent group towards the bottom. A fairly mixed picture overall.

I've now grouped the police force rape charge/summons rate data by CPS region.

The composition of the CPS regions, for reference cps.gov.uk/about-cps/cps-…