Feminism, power and politics in policing rape research: time for a paradigm shift

Over the last 40 years, academics, activists and policymakers have attempted to improve police and criminal justice (CJ) responses to rape, yet attrition in rape cases continues to rise (ONS, 2021). Rape attrition studies have increasingly scrutinised the CJ process, initially in smaller scale, local research (for example, Lees and Gregory, 1993) and more recently through national analysis of the CJ outcomes of police reported cases (for example, ONS, 2021). While this has greatly enhanced understanding of why cases may drop out, the focus has increasingly been on explaining attrition in the hope of improving CJ outcomes, rather than victim-survivors’ voices and what they want from the process. Similarly, to explore attrition at the police stage, surveys have been undertaken with officers to understand their attitudes, including rape myth acceptance (for example, Sleath and Bull, 2012); again, with a focus on improving substantive CJ outcomes. In this article we call for researchers, activists and policymakers to pause and reflect upon the political and ideological reasons behind a focus on particular research questions using particular methodologies; and whether there is a need for more victim-survivor centred, indeed person-centred, research and practice where the focus is more on procedural justice rather than substantive justice.Key messagesAnalysis of case files has indicated where rape and sexual assault cases drop out of the criminal justice system from reporting through to potential conviction, with most cases dropping out at the police phase (for example, Hester, 2013).Surveys explore rape myth acceptance among police officers’ (for example, Sleath and Bull, 2012).While some of these studies are mixed methods (for example, Kelly et al, 2005; Hester, 2013), the majority are quantitative and focused on substantive justice outcomes.What gains less attention in policing rape research is whether victim-survivors gain procedural justice within the criminal justice process, including fairness of treatment and attention to wellbeing.The impacts of being a police officer working with rape cases, in terms of burnout and staff welfare, has started to gain some attention (Foley and Massey, 2020) and potential impacts of this on the victim-survivor is starting to be evidenced (Anglioni, 2015).What is needed is to rethink what the CJS should be focused on and what research should be focused on: to move from a focus on substantive justice outcomes to procedural justice and person-centred practice.