The Police and Adult Grooming
Why, if adult grooming is legal (in the UK at least), should the police have anything to do with it? Why would anyone be reporting?
Firstly, for complex reasons which we'll address later this week, the crime of 'rape by deception'/'obtaining sex by deception' had been rendered almost useless by a UK judge, leaving people (especially women) unprotected. We hope that this will reverse and are aware of test cases being prepared.
Secondly, groomers rarely commit just one crime. They will often harass any victim who speaks up; they will often turn the law on their victims; sometimes they will stalk their prey. Sometimes their grooming targets are vulnerable adults (who ARE afforded some protection under the law). If their goal is their target's children, there may be paedophile related crimes to report. And if their goal is financial, there may be theft/financial crimes to report.
It is therefore vital for the police to understand grooming as the first stage leading to a crime, and how the victims may be feeling/what they need.
Our first year of research (which is still ongoing), revealed that the police handle things in general pretty poorly:
- Less than 5% of grooming victims feel that the police understand grooming well;
- Less than 5% felt that the police took their reports completely seriously;
- Less than 5% agree that the police took their evidence quickly and efficiently, and 95% feel that they had to organise the evidence to present themselves;
- 15% had to put in a complaint to be heard, and there is an indication that others had to complain (perhaps unofficially?);
- Despite this, a majority feel they would advise others to report to the police (ie this isn’t going away);
- Around 25% found reporting to the police traumatic.
It has to be said that our first year's sample was pretty small (under 100 people) and international. However, continued research is showing the same trend, and what CAAGe is seeing in the research reflects what we are hearing from victims and their families.
We hope that the early results of our research will prove interesting to the police - we considered taking this to the media, but feel that making sure it gets into the right hands is 10 times more important.
Addressing grooming - what goes on BEFORE a crime happens, could save a lot of heartache and become a vital part of crime prevention, from simply warning potential victims of sexual grooming, to preventing full on grooming gang and Weinstein type abuses.
We look forward to your thoughts on the subject.
You can download a pdf of the research here: The Police and Grooming (one year to June 2020).
This article was produced as part of the Police and Penises Week on CAAGe.org (Hashtag #PAP).
