Recommendation 11

It is clear that the way the police respond to reports of rape is vital when it comes to increasing the volumes of rape charges and prosecutions. We welcome the focus on improving these volumes, for example through the Police-CPS Joint National RASSO (Rape and Serious Sexual Offences) Action Plan and Operation Soteria. We agree that the project has enormous potential. However, the Government cannot expect some police force areas to participate in Operation Soteria and to implement learning with dedicated funding, and others to roll out the approach without any extra funding or input from academics into their own force-specific challenges in investigating rape.