A review into the Crown Prosecution Service (CPSI) has found that the UK justice system as a whole is ‘close to breaking point’ because of underfunding. The research shows cuts are partially to blame for the current record low in rape convictions.
The study, by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI), was commissioned as part of a government review into rape overseen by the National Criminal Justice Board (CJB). However, women’s rights groups - including the Centre For Women’s Justice (CWJ) - say it fails to uncover the actual reasons for low conviction rates.
The CWJ has previously accused the CPSI of being too risk-averse and only taking cases to court that are easy to win. However, the CPSI has hit back at those claims, saying police are not referring as many cases to them because they’re under-resourced.
Chief inspector Kevin McGinty said the justice system is so ‘under-resourced it is close to breaking point’ and that police resources ‘may have gone beyond that’ allowing a damning number rape allegations to be lost in the investigative process.
The report also criticised prosecutors for making unnecessary demands for complainants' medical records and mobile phones.
They addressed concerns the CPS was being too selective in cases it prosecutes by sampling 250 cases. In 2% of those cases, the decision to prosecute was found to be ‘wholly unreasonable’, down 8% from 2016 – suggesting a slight improvement in the way the CPS chooses cases.
However, women's rights groups have argued that other reports have found a faster decline in the number of cases being chosen to prosecute compared to referrals from the police. ‘The report is profoundly disappointing in many ways,’ Sarah Green, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) said in a statement.
‘It recognises that the statistics – on many thousands of rape allegations and prosecutions - alone raise huge questions about justice being done, but it insists there is quality CPS decision making. At the same time the report refers to its own survey of CPS managers saying their units are not well staffed.
‘The report appears to leave many questions at the police's front door,’ Green continued, ‘even though the Government’s own analysis of the whole justice system performance in relation to rape earlier this year as the first stage of the Rape Review, found clearly that the numbers of rape cases arriving at the CPS and going through to charge and prosecution have declined at a faster rate than the decline in referrals from the police to CPS.’
The EVAW said the report fails to investigate the real problems, saying it does not reflect the specialism required for good rape investigation case building. ‘It makes no reference, for example, to what is happening with younger defendants, whom the Government analysis observed are much less likely to be charged in same scenario cases,’ the statement read.
‘Rape is a difficult crime to evidence and prosecute – no one has said otherwise – but it is also an enormous volume crime and it does enormous harm. It cannot remain a mystery or in the “too difficult box”.'
Urging the government to step up their attention to the Rape Review, the CJW Director Harriet Wistrich also added concerns about the lack of independence in this review and insufficient inquiry into the real causes.
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