There's a good discussion of this by Rachel Sylvester in The Times today (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-need-tougher-laws-to-make-them-safe-v7d2hz7wl).It's behind their paywall, so I'll include a couple of paragraphs:Vandals who damage war memorials face up to ten years in jail: double the five year sentence given last month to a man who strangled his wife to death. There is nothing in the government’s proposed legislation to increase jail terms for domestic homicide, which is at its highest level since 2016, or to address the fact that rape convictions have fallen to a record low.Dame Vera Baird QC, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, has warned of a “decriminalisation of rape” and suggested that many women now “regard the streets as lawless when it comes to male behaviour”. Although police recorded 55,130 rapes in 2019-20, there were only 2,102 prosecutions and 1,439 convictions in England and Wales — less than 3 per cent.Baird fears that a clause in the crime bill, which gives additional powers to the police to download mobile phone data, may make matters worse by discouraging rape victims from pursuing cases for fear that their sexual history will be used to discredit them.
Richard Carter ● 1842d