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Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

govwaste.co.uk

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Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#151

Post by gadders »

sago wrote: post #145
gadders wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor car and property crime may not be investigated, but rape and sexual assault are taken seriously.

I've no idea what impact you think that makes on my point. Rape may be 'taken seriously' incidentally (though actually you probably mean certain stereotypes of rape), but its conviction rate is still so low that, unfortunately, a rapist in the UK has a very high probability of getting away with their crime. The police certainly have improved in the professionalism with which they address rape, but rape prevention and…

The conviction rate for rape is 58%, higher than that for other crimes at 57%, so rapists have less chance of getting away with their crime.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7442785/Rape-co...

Re: Spending by the UK government on the siege against Julian Assange

#152

Post by sago »

gadders wrote: post #151
sago wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've no idea what impact you think that makes on my point. Rape may be 'taken seriously' incidentally (though actually you probably mean certain stereotypes of rape), but its conviction rate is still so low that, unfortunately, a rapist in the UK has a very high probability of getting away with their crime. The police certainly have improved in the professionalism with which they address rape, but rape prevention and…

The conviction rate for rape is 58%, higher than that for other crimes at 57%, so rapists have less chance of getting away with their crime. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7442785/Rape-co...

My apologies, I thought the context of discussing whether someone would get away with a crime they had committed or not (in the context of a conversation about whether crimes are even investigated) would make it clear I wasn't talking about conviction rate at trial.

You're right, if a rape case gets to court, the conviction rate is high. Using "conviction rate" in my comment was unnecessarily ambiguous, I apologise. But I wasn't referring to conviction rate at trial.

As you point out, conviction rate at trial is roughly the same over a broad range of offences. Which is mostly a consequence of the British system of Crown Prosecution. It bears little relationship to the ratio of reported crimes to convictions, nor the likelihood of a particular criminal getting away with an offence. Elsewhere I show Ministry of Justice figures for this broader sense of 'conviction rate' for burglary, which is under 5%.

Your last clause does not follow from the statistics you cite, obviously. And you still haven't addressed the issue of what impact your contention has on the point you responded to originally.

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