Why do police find it so difficult to investigate rape?

Brown, Jennifer ORCID: 0000-0002-6395-0244 and Fleming, Jenny (2024) Why do police find it so difficult to investigate rape? In: Aplin, Rachael, (ed.) Policing Public Protection: A Companion Guide. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, CH. ISBN 9783031745034 (In Press)

Text (Brown_why-do-police-find-it-so-hard-chapter--accepted) - Accepted Version Repository staff only until 22 November 2026. Download (1MB)

Abstract

This chapter backgrounds the iterative cycles of concern-review-recommendations that has beset the police’s poor record in rape investigations in England and Wales for many years. It sets out the individual, contextual and organisational barriers that inhibit implementation of the often-repeated recommended reforms. Stereotypic rape schema continues to influence police approaches to complainants and suspects, resulting in the continued attrition of cases i.e. the failures in reporting in the first place, the dropping of allegations, and not passing cases to the prosecuting authority (the Crown Prosecution Service). Of note is that officers continue to engage in focal concern and downstream thinking which together with the operation of heuristic biases influences decision-making strategies that anticipate the characteristics of a rape that are perceived as more likely to result in a guilty verdict. Officers are also hampered in their investigations by organisational factors including inadequate infra-structural support such as ineffective training, lack of adequate supervision and analytic capability, and their experience of stress reactions to excessive workloads and exposure to traumatic material. The chapter concludes by discussing recent attempts to improve rape investigative practice (Operation Soteria Bluestone) and identifies some necessary conditions for these innovations to land successfully.

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Divisions:	Mannheim Centre for Criminology
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	17 Oct 2024 13:24
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2024 13:24
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/125792

Actions (login required)

View Item