All police forces will introduce specialist rape and sexual offence investigation teams to hunt down perpetrators, under sweeping reforms announced today by the Home Secretary.
As part of the government’s Violence against Women and Girls Strategy due to be launched later this week, the full power of the state will be deployed in the largest crackdown on violence perpetrated against women and girls in British history.
This will see specialist investigators apprehend, investigate and lock up rapists and sex offenders across the country.
Devastatingly, on average, every day, 200 rapes are recorded by the police – and more go unreported.
Offenders of these vile crimes are among the most prolific and dangerous criminals in our society. Yet the tools and tactics used by law enforcement to pursue them are outdated, too often leaving men and boys to wreak havoc without any consequence.
The dedicated rape and sexual offence specialist investigators, deployed in every police force in England and Wales, will replace an outdated system, where officers often did not have the specialist knowledge to investigate rapists and sex offenders, leaving predators to walk the streets.
The Home Secretary has instructed all police forces to bring in these dedicated specialist teams to better support victims and relentlessly pursue perpetrators.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said
This government has declared violence against women and girls a national emergency.
For too long, these crimes have been considered a fact of life. That’s not good enough. We will halve it in a decade.
Today we announce a range of measures to bear down on abusers, stopping them in their tracks. Rapists, sex offenders and abusers will have nowhere to hide.
Domestic Abuse Protection Orders will also be rolled out across England and Wales, placing mandatory curfews, electronic tagging, exclusion zones and notification requirements on abusers, with offenders who break orders facing up to five years in jail.
These pioneering orders cover all forms of domestic abuse including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking and ‘honour’-based abuse and, with no maximum time limits placed on the orders, victims can be provided with protection for as long as they need.
A new crack team of online operatives will be deployed to use covert and intelligence techniques to tackle violence against women and girls online tackling preparators. With nearly £2 million investment, a brand-new network of officers will have the technical capability to target the most technologically sophisticated offenders.
This builds on the Home Office’s successful undercover network on child sexual abuse that has arrested over 1,700 perpetrators.
The measures set out today are essential as the government pushes forward on its unprecedented mission to halve the issue within a decade.
This builds on action already being taken, including launching facial recognition technology to help police apprehend dangerous predators, including sex offenders, and bringing in Raneem’s Law to embed domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
Last year, the Home Office also announced a raft of measures to tackle stalking and provide greater support to victims, including giving women the right to know the identity of their online stalker and making strangulation a criminal offence, as part of the Crime and Policing Bill.
