Attrition of sexual assaults from the New South Wales criminal justice system

By Brigitte Gilbert

There has been increasing concern over the low conviction rate for sexual assault. This paper uses data from the NSW Police Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS) and the NSW Criminal Courts datasets to track the progress of sexual assaults reported to the NSW Police Force in 2018 through the NSW criminal justice system. The study examines the attrition of incidents, defendants, and charges from the reporting stage through to the sentencing of a proven matter. Attrition rates are tracked separately for contemporary child sexual assault, historic child sexual assault, and adult sexual assault offences.
   There has been increasing concern over the low conviction rate for sexual assault. This paper uses data from the NSW Police Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS) and the NSW Criminal Courts datasets to track the progress of sexual assaults reported to the NSW Police Force in 2018 through the NSW criminal justice system. The study examines the attrition of incidents, defendants, and charges from the reporting stage through to the sentencing of a proven matter. Attrition rates are tracked separately for contemporary child sexual assault, historic child sexual assault, and adult sexual assault offences. The study findings show that: • In 2018, 5,869 incidents of sexual assault were reported to NSW police. Of these, 872, or 15%, resulted in the commencement of criminal proceedings against one of 969 defendants and involving 3,369 individual criminal charges for sexual assault or a related sex offence. • Only a small proportion of reported sexual assault incidents resulted in a criminal conviction, with just 8% of reported contemporary child sexual assault incidents, 7% of reported historic child sexual assault incidents, and 6% of reported adult sexual assault incidents resulting in a proven charge. • The largest point of attrition was seen during the police investigation stage, with no legal action taken against an accused in 85% of reported sexual assault incidents. This was consistent across contemporary child, historic child, and adult sexual assaults. • The second largest attrition point was during court proceedings, with two out of five defendants having all their charges withdrawn by the prosecution, dismissed due to mental health, or ‘otherwise’ disposed of. A slightly higher proportion of defendants appearing in historic child sexual assault matters (49%) had all charges against them withdrawn/dismissed or otherwise disposed of, than defendants appearing in contemporary child sexual assault (43%) and adult sexual assault (43%) matters. • For the small number of matters that did progress to court, only a minority of defendants (41%) had a sexual offence charge proven, either by way of a guilty plea or guilty verdict. A lower conviction rate was observed amongst those charged with adult sexual assault (38%) compared with defendants charged with contemporary child sexual assault (43%) and historic child sexual assault (44%). • The majority of defendants (77%) found guilty of sexual assault were sentenced to prison. Prison sentences were imposed for 72% of defendants found guilty of contemporary child sexual assault, 87% of defendants found guilty of historic child sexual assault and 80% of defendants found guilty of adult sexual assault  

Bureau Brief No. BB170

Sydney: The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), 2024. 23p.