The influence of the security forces in sexual crime reports
| Autor | Olatz Cibrian Ejido |
| Páginas | 973-994 |
973El sistema de justicia ante la victimización sexual
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e influence of the security forces
in sexual crime reports
CIBRIAN EJIDO, OLATZ
DERECHO20/21
1. INTRODUCTION
According to the World Health Organization, Sexual Violence is defined as “any sexual
act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or
otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their
relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work”.
e unrecorded crime rate or dark figure in this kind of offenses has always been very
high, resulting in a lack of reliable data. At European Union level, until 2014, the only infor-
mation available was the official numbers based on reported sexual violence. Considering the
unreported number could be five times the number of reported sexual violence, there was no
real, exhaustive and comparable data to allow EU to adopt specific politics to confront sexual
violence and more specifically, violence against women.
To address this problem, in 2014, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
(FRA) published the first EU-wide survey on gender violence in order to gather comparable
data. e survey was conducted to 42,000 women from all over the 28 EU Member States and
covered questions about the scope, frequency and seriousness of violence practiced against wo-
men in the EU. e items referred to the suffering of physical, psychological and sexual violence
by the victims, experience of childhood victimization, sexual harassment and new methodolo-
gies used for committing these abuses such as Social Media.
e results showed that sexual violence is a common crime in the European Union with 3,7
million women suffering from it during the year prior to conducting the survey, that is, 2% of the
total women population between 18 and 74 years in the UE. ere is also an important prevalen-
ce of victims during childhood. About 12% of the survey respondents claimed to have experien-
ced some kind of sexual incident by an adult before the age of 15. is percentage could represent
up to 21 million women in the UE. e real number is assumed to be higher as this percentage
does not include sexual offences carried out by individuals under 18 years old or family members.
Furthermore, it has been found that after the age of 15, 1 in every 20 women (5%) has been raped
and among them, almost 1 in every 10 victims was attacked by more than one perpetrator.
974El sistema de justicia ante la victimización sexual
e influence of the security forces in sexual crime reportsC E, O
Narrowing the scope to Spain, the latest data comes from the “Macroencuesta de Vio-
lencia contra la Mujer” conducted in 2019 in order to establish the percentage of women who
has suffered or that currently suffers any kind of violence because of their gender. e sample
consisted of 9.568 women above the age of 16. e results stated that victims who suffered from
partner sexual violence at some point in their lives represented an 9,2% and that among them,
around 87% suffered it repeatedly. Outside the scope of partner violence, 13,4% of the women
experienced sexual violence at some point in their lives, being the perpetrator a male in 46,1%
of the cases and him being a relative in 33,1% of the cases, a friend or acquaintance 27,8% and
17,4% strangers. When the perpetrator was a woman, friends or acquaintances had the higher
percentage with 30,7%.
Even with improved police statistics and other criminal justice data, their usefulness to
describe the real prevalence of sexual violence is limited because many incidents are not repor-
ted. is is why victimization surveys such as the one conducted by the FRA are important to
improve these estimations. Not only they record the number of women who report incidents to
the police but also the number of the ones who do not. erefore, they have become one of the
most reliable methods for gathering information about the scale and nature of violence against
women in a general population.
Among the reasons of sexual violence victims’ reluctancy to report is their fear of deroga-
tion and being generally disbelieved, even by officers of the Criminal Justice System or health
professionals. When a victim decides to report a crime, the first step is usually to go to the Police.
Hence, police officers assume, whether they like it or not, a very important role in the Criminal
Justice Process. eir job in these cases should consist of simply record the statements of the
victim. However, and most likely in crimes related with sexual violence, police officers may take
a controlling role by deciding what is or is not a crime or if it should be pursued and question
the trustworthiness of the victims. If this discouraging appears from the very beginning of the
process, it highly unlikely that any victim will seek help in the Criminal Justice System. Hence,
apart from the negative effects that come with the criminal offense itself (primary victimization),
the victim can suffer from this kind of secondary victimization due to the way he/she is treated
whilst in the bosom of the process caused by a bad police praxis.
One of the main determinants for the presence of this kind of behavior in the Security
Forces but also in the general population is the Acceptance of Modern Rape Myths (AMMSA),
which are descriptive and prescriptive beliefs that justify sexual violence by transferring the bla-
me to the victim. Examples of these myths conform idea of the “perfect or real victim”, perceived
as an innocent devastated and hysterical woman, formally dressed and who has fought against
her aggressor by all means. Other examples are the thought that if the event occurs under the
effect of alcohol or drugs it cannot be considered a sexual assault or the belief that many reports
are false, made by revengeful women against their alleged perpetrator. In words of Estrich, “no
myth is more powerful in the tradition of rape than the belief of the lying woman”.
e list is endless and altogether with many other discouraging factors that the victims
may perceive, the biases that appears in the Security Forces is an issue that needs to be addressed
in order to eliminate any negative consequence that the victim could experience during their
involvement in the Criminal Justice procedures. Besides suffering the consequences of the cri-
me, sexual violence victims suffer from an inconsiderate system that lacks regulations and spe-
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