UK: Labour to end ‘culture of defeatism’ over rape convictions

Article here. Excerpt:

'Police would lose the power to unilaterally “drop” rape investigations, even if they think there is insufficient evidence to proceed, under Labour plans to revolutionise the way sexual crimes are handled.

At present there is no obligation for police to refer cases to the prosecutors before a decision is made to drop a case. But under proposals to be put forward by the shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry on Monday, officers would have to get the agreement of the Crown Prosecution Service to end an investigation.

Ms Thornberry will say that she hopes the plan would end the culture of rape and sexual violence being an “optional” crime to investigate and help end a “culture of defeatism” where the authorities believe there will never be a large number of rape convictions because it is “too difficult” to prosecute.

Ms Thornberry will make the announcement at Labour’s Women’s Safety Conference, which will also be addressed by the shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. In an article for The Independent, Ms Cooper says Labour would also introduce compulsory sex- and relationship-education and turn the next generation of boys into “feminist” men.'

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Prosecutorial and investigative discretion exists for two reasons: state resources are limited and at least when speaking of western countries, keeping state resources limited acts as a practical hindrance to overzealous or frivolous police or prosecution actions (idle hands...). When law enforcers and/or prosecutors have time on their hands and budgets to justify, naturally they become more zealous in pursuing criminal complaints that otherwise are insufficient to warrant investigation or even have refuting evidence available. That way, their reportable statistics stay higher and are used to request the same or larger budgets as time goes on. It's already happening in the US, with some police depts. or gov't agencies using methods and equipment out of proportion (at times, a lot out of proportion) to the function. To keep the funding for the extra police, training, and hardware, the dept. has to report the specialized equipment and training was actually used.

Mix this with the PC zeal/hysteria around sexual assault, a button-pusher par extraordinaire, and you have a vested interest wedded to a moral imperative. Hell hath no fury.

An accusation's all that's needed. Suddenly, police investigators descend no matter how frivolous or outlandish the accusation is, or even readily demonstrated as not even possibly truthful. Do you think that'll matter if people like her get their way?

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