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Critically assess the changing role and status of female victims of sexual offences and how they are perceived and treated within the Criminal Justice System.

This essay will be in two parts: the first will consider sexual offences and how women are affected by them; the second will look at how the criminal justice system has changed and altered to reflect changed realities and perceptions. However, we first need to define our terms. In this essay when we speak of 'women victims' we will mean adult females. The reason for this is that sexual violence to female children has significant differences (although also many similarities) from offences against adult women, and it would be difficult to cover these issues adequately in the word length available. As there is an identifiable problem with the statistics and definitions of these crimes, we will discuss rape proportionately more then other crimes when giving examples because there is more literature on this subject than the broader term, 'sexual offences'; however, the theories concerning sexual offences and rape tend to coincide. We will use the term criminal justice system broadly, meaning not just the police and courts but also organizations supported by the government, such as Victims Support. We will see that although the causes of this crime are still far from determined, the criminal justice system is endeavouring to respond to what has become known.
I would like to begin with some statistics concerning sexual offences before going on to consider the theories behind them. Rape and sexual offences are difficult to record and research due to a number of factors. The first concerns definition; what constitutes a sexual crime has altered over time due to changing perceptions and a need to have sufficient data to reform and create policy to deal with the effects of this crime. In the past, rape in marriage was not considered possible as the marriage contract was deemed as providing consent; however, the subject of 'consent' now being necessary for all sexual transactions, regardless of the relation of the victim to the offender, means that these rapes are no longer excluded fro the figures. This has made a considerable difference; in the 2000-2001 British Crime Survey, 45% of the rapes were reported was being carried out by a woman's current partner (Findings, 159, p3). This is also true in Australia where 33% of sexual assaults were carried out by a family member (White, 2005, p62). The definition of rape has also changed; in the past rape was defined as the penetration of the vagina by a penis, however, this has now changed to include penetration of any orifice with any object (SOA, 2003). This inevitably increases the number of cases that qualify as rape.
A further problem is the under-reporting of these crimes. Only 20% of rapes were reported to the police in 1999 (7,707 cases), yet the British Crime Survey of 2000-2001 recorded 61,000 victims (Findings, 159, p4). It has been suggested that some women are embarrassed or afraid to report these crimes; it is also clear that some women do not believe there is any point as they do not believe their complaint will be taken seriously, this is particularly true of prostitutes who are raped. The difficulty of the court procedure is considered a factor that intimidates women; the very low rate of convi