The steep attrition rate of rape cases within Scottish criminal justice remains a widespread concern. How such rates are calculated across jurisdictions is complex and controversial. Recently, the definition of rape has been widened and its prosecution reformed to improve responses to rape, but these changes will take some years to be felt and need supported. This programme will collect initial soundings of the impacts of reform, recognising that experiences of rape survivors and public attitudes of blameworthiness towards them have in the past been stubbornly resistant to changes in law, policy and practice. The incremental steps that typify traditional legal reform represent progress, but are incapable on their own of producing the cultural shifts necessary to transform the social and legal practices that shape reactions to rape. The programme will harness the expertise of those familiar with these practices to stimulate debates that may produce unsettling reactions. Participants will pose fundamental questions about current norms and assumptions and consider innovative responses, models and best practice from other communities and countries. Participants will include law, criminology and psychology academics, members of the police, prosecutors, judiciary, survivor and health services, policy and law-makers, representing a wide spectrum of experience and persuasion. The potential impact rests in a collective willingness to dismantle barriers and forge new understandings.

Programme team:

Ms. Jane Scoular (University of Strathclyde); Prof. Fiona Raitt (University of Dundee); Dame Elish Angiolini (Faculty of Advocates); Ms Sandy Brindley (Rape Crisis Scotland); Prof. Pete Duff (University of Aberdeen);
Prof. Pamela Ferguson (University of Dundee); Ms Kathryn Sharpe (Dundee City Council).