Statistics Canada has released startling figures about the lack of criminal convictions in sexual assault cases.
New research by the government recording agency made public Thursday showed that only about one in 10, (12 per cent) of sexual assault cases substantiated by police resulted in a conviction between 2009 and 2014.
The StatsCan report also revealed that only 49 per cent of substantiated cases ever made it to court and 23 per cent of those cases resulted in a conviction.
Stats Can notes that its figures are likely considerably lower than the number of sexual assault cases that actually occurred.
“While conviction rates…and severity of sentencing outcomes are often used as measures of criminal justice, neither take into account the potentially large volume of cases that never made it to court,” the report says.
The research found that only 47 per cent of cases cases where the victim and alleged assailant were known
to each other went to court.
That compares with 64 per cent when the the alleged assailant was a stranger.
StatsCan says 87 per cent of sexual assault victims were women and girls and 64 per cent knew the alleged perpetrators.
Physical assaults, the agency says, were nearly twice as likely to make it through the criminal justice system and result in a conviction.
Agency figures show that 75 per cent of physical cases made it to court with 23 per cent of them resulting in a conviction.
The research did not include data from Quebec and Prince Edward Island because, the agency says, it was unable to adequately compare data with the other provinces in Canada.
With files from Canadian Press, CBC, Huffington Post
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