The Office for National Statistics (ONS) in UK has published an article on responses to and outcomes of child abuse cases and the criminal justice system.
Main points include:
- the majority of child abuse cases remain hidden and do not enter the criminal justice system;
- around 1 in 25 child abuse offences recorded by the police resulted in a charge or summons last year;
- 49% of child abuse offences recorded by the police did not proceed further through the criminal justice system because of evidential difficulties.
As there is no specific offence of “child abuse” in law, it can be challenging to identify child abuse cases within the criminal justice system. In addition, different approaches to identifying cases of child abuse within the different data sources prevent direct comparisons across the criminal justice system. This report tries to brings together different data sources on child abuse and the criminal justice system with the aim of providing a better understanding of the outcomes of these cases than is possible from looking at individual data sources.