Law and the criminal justice system

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The criminal justice system should provide justice for victims. It is intended to hold perpetrators to account, reducing impunity, and thereby helping to prevent crimes. There have been important developments and promising practices in law and in the criminal justice system concerning rape and other forms of sexual violence, but challenges remain. Three issues are addressed here: the changing approaches to rape in law; the reform of practices in criminal justice systems; and the new forms of treatment of convicted rapists. The legal and criminal justice practices in conflict zones are further addressed next, in Chapter 5. The principles underpinning the law on rape have been developing, drawing on concepts of human rights and gender equality, although not uniformly so. The definition of rape in law has been developing, albeit unevenly, removing marital exceptions and moving towards a consent-based definition. The care with which victim-survivors are treated in the criminal justice system has implications for its effectiveness because of its consequences on the attrition of cases through the Criminal Justice processes. There are promising practices within the criminal justice system that treat victim-survivors with more respect and better prevent secondary victimisation, but there is still considerable ‘attrition’, which means that many cases of rape reported to the police do not lead to a conviction. New forms of treatment of convicted sex offenders, including rapists, are emerging, however, that attempt to reform and rehabilitate them. Rape is illegal everywhere. It is a crime in its own right, without reference or justification to any other legal principle or standard, in many national and some international legal regimes.