NCJ Number
214057
Date Published
January 2006
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study examined police and court data in New South Wales (Australia) in order to identify the stages of case processing in which sexual-offense cases were dismissed without a defendant being found guilty in court.
Abstract
The study found that most cases that involved allegations of sexual offenses did not go beyond the investigation stage. Only 15 percent of allegations involving a child victim and 19 percent of incidents that involved an alleged adult victim resulted in the initiation of criminal proceedings against a suspect. Of the small percentage of cases that reached court, the conviction rate was low, with just under 50 percent of the defendants being found guilty. Criminal proceedings were less likely to be initiated when a young child was the alleged victim, when the incident was reported more than 10 years after it occurred, when the offender was a stranger, and when there were no aggravating circumstances. These factors were apparently linked to the quality and availability of evidence, which in turn influenced the prosecutor not to continue with the case due to poor prospects for obtaining a guilty verdict. The author advises that more effort should be made to strengthen the evidence in cases at the investigation stage. She recommends a more comprehensive effort to collect evidence and obtain victim testimony. Court data were obtained on the number of sexual-offense cases at various stages of the criminal justice process in 2004. Data show the attrition of cases from the first report to police until the decision about whether to continue criminal proceedings and from appearance in a court to final disposition. Police data on alleged sexual offenses (n=7,884) distinguish incidents with alleged child victims and alleged adult victims. 7 tables, 3 figures, 18 notes, and 8 references