Fewer Than One In Five Sexual Assaults Result In Arrest

Highlights

Fewer than one in five sexual assaults were cleared by arrest per a National Institute of Justice study of six jurisdictions across the country.

Fewer than one in four defendants charged with sexual assault in North Carolina can expect to be convicted of that charge or a related reduced charge.

There are so many violent crime cases where the offender is not held accountable that it boggles the mind.

Author

 Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.

Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Aspiring drummer.

Article

This article is not solely about sexual assaults. The data indicates a problem as to offender accountability for most violent crimes.

We live in a day and age of crime scene television shows where experienced analysts have the latest in technology and tons of time to pursue criminal cases. This is pure fiction.

It’s not to say that sophisticated investigative techniques and experienced investigators don’t exist, they do. But what the fictionalized television shows don’t tell you is that we have an overwhelmed, inadequately funded criminal justice system where most crimes, including sexual assault, do not end in arrest let alone prosecution of the original charges or prison time for those convicted.

It’s as if the #MeToo movement never existed.

Sexual assaults and rapes are traditionally one of the most underreported crimes and the data below shows why. The National Institute of Justice research (below) provide results on case attrition for 2,887 female victims who reported sexual assault. The police cleared 1,404 cases, 544 were cleared by arrest, 860 were exceptionally cleared, 1,215 were listed as open/inactive and 56 were listed as continuing investigations.

See FBI Definitions for examples of “exceptionally cleared” cases.

The data is puzzling considering that most crimes, including sexual assault involved offenders known to the victim. A greater percentage of robberies (52%) were committed by strangers compared to aggravated assaults (42%), simple assaults (37%), and rape or sexual assault (24%) per Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Thus the vast majority of sexual assault victims know their attacker. If victims know who attacked them, and if physical evidence is available, one would think that these cases would be a slam dunk. The data below indicate that the great majority of sex assault cases do not end in arrest or prosecution or incarceration.

Perspective

General: The great majority of crimes are not reported to the police, Bureau Of Justice Statistics. The vast majority of reported crimes do not end in arrest, Crimes Solved. The overwhelming percentage of charged offenders are plea bargained (they pleaded guilty to a lesser crime). Most felonies do not get prison time, Prosecution Statistics.

Arrests: Less than two out of five reported crimes do not end in an arrest, Arrests.

Out of close to five million criminal incidents (4,902,000), less than two million (1,822,000) involved an identified suspect.

There are jurisdictions where fewer than one in three homicides end in arrest, per the Washington Post.

Prosecutions: Federal Data: 16 to 50 percent of federal crimes are declined from prosecution, per “Federal Justice Statistics.”

State Data: 34 percent of state felony cases are not convicted (approximately nine percent involve a deferred adjudication or diversion outcome), per “Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties,” see Arrests Not Prosecuted.

Rape Kits and DNA: Tens of thousands of rape kits go untested per USA Today.

Over a hundred thousand DNA cases were backlogged per the National Institute of Justice.

Incarceration: The average violent offender serves less than three years in prison, Violent Offenders.

Conclusions

It’s beyond my ability to explain attrition in sexual assault cases when the vast majority of victims know their attacker and in many (most?) cases, physical evidence is available.

But attrition applies to all known violent criminal cases; it’s not just a problem for sexual assault.

There are so many violent crimes where the offender is not held accountable it boggles the mind. Offenders who get away with sexual assault or other serious crimes understand the limitations to the point where it encourages additional criminal behavior.

I will always tell a victim to report their crime to police and to engage in actions to put the person behind bars. But when asked about the probability of “justice,” the data above makes it seem like open season on women.

Per the Raleigh News & Observer (below) advocates complained that the system does not adequately look out for their interests. “They don’t feel like it’s justice” when their attacker is convicted of something else, said Monika Johnson Hostler, executive director with N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

But just getting any conviction at all is remarkable in a system that provides the odds of success to the offender, not anyone else.

We have a justice system that is clearly broken, understaffed and overwhelmed by the number of cases. Think about that the next time you watch NCIS.

Contact

National Institute of Justice Summation Of Sexual Assaults

The researchers provide results on case attrition for 2,887 female victims who reported sexual assault. The police cleared 1,404 cases, 544 were cleared by arrest, 860 were exceptionally cleared, 1,215 were listed as open/inactive and 56 were listed as continuing investigations.

Police declared 212 cases unfounded. Of the 544 adults arrested, charges were filed in 363 and declined in 115 cases. In cases with charges filed, 189 ended in a guilty verdict. One-hundred-fifty-two of the guilty verdicts were the product of a plea bargain, seven involved a guilty finding by a judge and 25 involved a guilty finding by a jury.

Legal or evidentiary factors are significant predictors of arrest. A cooperative victim was the strongest predictor of arrest across all six sites in the study, National Institute of Justice.

Study

The problem of sexual assault case attrition persists. For decades, studies have consistently reported that the majority of sexual assault complaints are not reported to the police and those that are reported are unlikely to end in arrest and as a result very unlikely to end in conviction.

In 2010, Spohn and Tellis were funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to conduct research with the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s departments (LAPD & LASD) designed to understand better both how the criminal justice system processes sexual assault complaints and where case attrition occurs. Their findings revealed that attrition continues to be a problem and that further investigation into the differences in rates of case attrition across a multitude of jurisdictions was warranted.

In 2012, we were funded by NIJ to replicate this study in a sample of six jurisdictions across the country. The main objectives of the study were to:

Examine and document the extent of sexual assault case attrition at multiple sites and the factors that influence attrition (e.g., political and geographical location, organizational structures, and operational approaches).

Investigate the case complexities and evidentiary factors that impact attrition in sexual assault cases and how they vary across sites. This includes understanding victim recantation, the possibility of false reports and other investigative complexities as well as their effect on officer and district attorney decision making.

Explore the case, victim and offender factors associated with police unfounding decisions.

Examine the use of ‘clearance by exceptional means’ and all other outcomes in the police and prosecutorial processing.

Understand the experiences of survivors with the criminal justice process across multiple sites.

Explore and document the experiences of police detectives and district attorneys who investigate and prosecute sexual assault cases across multiple sites.

Understand how community characteristics (e.g., ethnic and racial composition of the community; presence of special victims; new immigrant populations) impact patterns of attrition of sexual assault cases?

Document the challenges of conducting replication research regarding sexual assault case attrition and demonstrate how replication research be made relevant to the field and be used a starting point for future research including providing a baseline for future studies of changes in the administration of justice (e.g., the new UCR definition) and the impact of these and other innovations and changes on SV case attrition.

Our replication did little to allay the concerns that arose from the Spohn and Tellis findings. We found considerable attrition in the early stages of case processing. Although our site comparisons revealed some interesting differences in case attrition, a consistent finding for all sites was that, only a minority of reports of sexual assaults (less than one in five) were cleared by arrest.

In the Los Angeles agencies examined by Spohn and Tellis and in replication study, at least 30% of cases where it is presumed that probable cause for arrest exists, in fact, did not result in arrest but instead were “cleared by exceptional means.”

Our smallest replication sites had lower rates of clearance by exceptional means than did larger jurisdictions but revealed greater attrition at later stages in the process. While this study identified some key differences in attrition timing across sites, our findings generally revealed significant levels of sexual assault case attrition, National Institute of Justice

Prosecutors and Police Interviews

We interviewed 18 sexual assault investigators across six sites. Our interviews made it clear that these are challenging cases to investigate and clear by arrest. The investigators offered their perspective of the challenges faced both by police and by victims.

From their responses, it is clear that they believed that with increased resources, victims could have more support throughout the process and detectives would be able to better investigate the complaint.

The complicated relationship with prosecutors also emerged throughout the interviews as well as the clear presence of a downstream orientation. We interviewed 24 prosecutors from the 6 jurisdictions. The prosecutors offered to the interviewers their understanding of the problem of case attrition and provided justifications for the process they employ in their decision-making.

They emphasized the importance of the victim in all cases, stating the cases begin and end with the victim. They indicated the critical importance of plea-bargaining in adjudication of these cases, an observation born out in the quantitative data analysis we conducted.

Although prosecutors stated that they were not assessed based on their conviction rates, they emphasized the need to determine and take forward those cases that will be most likely to reach a guilty verdict.

The prosecutors were clear that many cases could not be taken forward for a variety of reasons which are reflected in our quantitative data analysis (e.g., issues that speak to victim credibility) but also stressed the need they felt to reduce the number of cases that a unit takes forward to a manageable level given the resources they had available, problems of prosecutor burnout, and the likelihood of conviction.

Low Conviction Rate Found in NC Sex Assault Prosecutions

From The Crime Report: Fewer than one in four defendants charged with sexual assault in North Carolina can expect to be convicted of that charge or a related reduced charge, the Raleigh News & Observer reports in the first in a four-day investigative series.

Carolina Public Press’ analysis of state court data also found that in 38 counties, there were no recorded convictions at all during the 4½ years included in the analysis, not even on plea deals reducing original sexual assault charges to lesser offenses. The analysis specifically examined rape charges involving threats, force, intimidation or an incapacitated person.

The series examining sexual assault prosecution and convictions in North Carolina was produced by a team of 11 media partners across the state.

The study found that nearly one-third of convictions came from people facing sexual assault charges who agreed to plead to a reduced charge that did not constitute sexual assault, and that several jurisdictions face a substantial backlog of dozens of cases — some of which may never go to trial.

Victim advocates complained that the system does not adequately look out for their interests. “They don’t feel like it’s justice” when their attacker is convicted of something else, said Monika Johnson Hostler, executive director with N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault.