What Can We Learn from Police Data About Timeliness in Rape and Serious Sexual Offence Investigations in England and Wales?

Abstract

The issue of timeliness in rape and other serious sexual offence investigations has been raised in a number of inspections and reviews, and there are policy imperatives to decrease delays, but there has been little exploration of police data to understand what contributes to them and enable practical recommendations or options. This paper explores what official data from two police forces participating in Operation Soteria Bluestone tell us about the timelines of these investigations, what this reveals about the gaps in policing data, and what additional knowledge can be gained from qualitative methodologies, in this instance case file analysis and case reviews.

Look-alike modelling in violence-related research: a missing data approach

“…Information is self-reported by victim-survivors upon initial contact with RCEW, most commonly over the phone but sometimes online or faceto-face, and data are inputted to the RCEW database by frontline support workers. Rape Crisis centres collect individual level data for their service users in pre-determined coding categories based on a person-centred non-intrusive principle, which means frontline workers only ask questions that are appropriate, or rely on information victim-survivors choose to disclose [30].…”

“…We aimed to test our proposed approach to data integration by combining survey data what survivors choose to disclose is recorded [30].…”

“…The CSEW, previously known as the British Crime Survey, is a nationally questions that are appropriate, or rely on information victim-survivors choose to disclose [30].…”

“…Information collected typically includes socio-demographic and protected characteristics (gender, age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, religion, marital status, accommodation, employment, language, immigration status, socioeconomic status), experiences of sexual violence and abuse (SVA), victim-perpetrator relationship, impacts from experience of SVA, risk level, referral routes, engagement with different (statutory and nonstatutory) services and contact with the criminal justice system. Data on experiences of SVA are collected in two main ways; information is gathered on the 'presenting incident' (the main experience of violence the victim-survivor is seeking support for at the time of initial contact with RCEW), and elsewhere in the database further details can be entered under 'incident summary' about separate 'incidents' or experiences of violence, if disclosed [30]. Most information is inputted into their case management system at the point of intake based on the victim-survivor's report and, where necessary, the assessment of the support worker.…”