Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee
We have been asked to give oral evidence to the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee about our petition on accurately recording the sex of those charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape. The evidence session will take place next month, on 6 December 2023. We are pleased to have this opportunity.
Background
In April 2021 Police Scotland confirmed in a Freedom of Information response that it allows incidents of rape and attempted rape to be recorded based on a person’s self-declared gender identity. The response explained:
‘If the male who self-identifies as a woman were to attempt to or to penetrate the vagina, anus or mouth of a victim with their penis, Police Scotland would record this as attempted rape or rape and the male who self-identifies as a woman would be expected to be recorded as a female on relevant police systems.’
Police Scotland, 1 April 2021
On 2 June 2021 we lodged a petition with the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee, ‘calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Court Service to record accurately the sex of people charged with or convicted of rape or attempted rape’.
The petition has secured over 13,000 submissions and remains open to signatures (see here).
Evidence and correspondence
The Committee has discussed the petition on three occasions; 6 October 2021; 23 March 2022; and 22 March 2023. It has received correspondence on the petition from Michelle Thompson MSP and Sharon Dowey MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, private individuals supportive of the petition; and the following public bodies:
Scottish Government (September 2021)
Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (November 2021)
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service (November 2021 and October 2022)
Police Scotland (November 2021, November 2022 and May 2023)
EHRC Scotland (March 2022)
Scottish Crime Recording Board (May 2023)
Our submissions to the Committee are here: 7 June 2021; 3 October 2021; 16 March 2022; 22 March 2022; 6 March 2023; and 30 June 2023.
Two SPICe briefings are also available on the petition (here and here).
Taking responsibility?
The Committee has sought to establish who is responsible for Police Scotland’s policy on recording rape. Most stakeholders defer to Police Scotland, but Police Scotland has indicated that it also takes cues from the Scottish Government. It has for example, stated that the current policy was developed in anticipation of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. In a submission to the Committee (30 May 2023) Police Scotland stated that it was undertaking a review of its recording policy and that this would be ‘subject to wider consultation and engagement with relevant stakeholders’.
Key arguments
Our key arguments are set out on our website and can be accessed here:
In brief, we argue that accurate recording matters for reliability and trust in statistics and trust in public organisations. We are surprised at the apparent inability or unwillingness of Police Scotland, as set out in its original ubmission to the Committee, to understand the risks to data accuracy. Given that the vast majority of sexual offences are committed by males (and the vast majority of victims are women), only a small number of misclassified cases have the potential to skew the data that is held for the female offending cohort.1
We also believe that there is a strong moral imperative from the perspective of respect for victims to record sex accurately in cases of rape and attempted rape. Criminal Justice statistics paint an aggregate picture but are comprised of individual incidents that reflect people’s lives and experiences.
We are dismayed that Police Scotland, backed by the Scottish Government, continues to maintain that recording information on sex in the form preferred by those charged with rape or attempted rape is in line with its ‘values’. We think it is difficult to think of a more sexist or misogynistic policy than one that prioritises the feelings of men charged with rape or attempted rape over predominantly female victims.
Notes
1. Police Scotland argue:
‘given the very low proportion of female suspects/accused, it is inaccurate to suggest, as per the petition, “Only a very small proportion of offenders directly charged with rape or attempted rape would therefore need to be recorded as female to have a substantial and misleading effect on the understanding of female offending” It is worthy of note that between 2016 and 2020, Police Scotland recorded 10,842 Rapes, this equates to 0.27% of perpetrators recorded as female, as such, any assertion that inaccuracies around the biological sex of a perpetrator recorded are of little if any statistical significance.
Police Scotland, 22 November 2021