What’s behind Australia’s low rate of sexual assault convictions

Just 5 per cent of sexual assault cases reported to police result in custodial sentences in NSW, and it’s a similar story across Australia.

In fact, most sexual assaults reported to authorities do not proceed to court, with victims, police or prosecutors withdrawing complaints or cases long before justice is served.

The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research tracked sexual assaults reported to NSW police in 2018 through the criminal justice system.

Of the 5869 reports made to police, only about 16 per cent resulted in legal action, with 3369 charges laid against 969 alleged offenders.

Less than 10 per cent of these charges resulted in a criminal conviction.

Researchers found most cases ended during the police investigation stage.

For matters that did progress to court, only 41 per cent of defendants had a proven sexual offence against them.

Experts say while more people are reporting sexual offences to police, the proportion of successful convictions against offenders is unlikely to increase given the nature of the crimes.

Melbourne Law School professor Jeremy Gans said the major difficultly prosecuting sexual assault cases was evidence.

Professor Gans said sexual assault cases had the unique problem that consensual sex happened in private and usually just involved two people in a room.

He said other crimes usually had more witnesses or evidence such as injuries or stolen items that could be tracked.

Professor Gans said the alleged victim’s word was the main evidence and that was harder to prove beyond reasonable doubt than all the alternatives available for other crimes.

“Ultimately, the trial is going to turn into a dispute between two people,” he said.

Professor Gans said this had an enormous impact on victims because for them, the crime wasn’t alleged.