It’s a claim that’s made all over the world; that just a small percentage of “perpetrators” are convicted for sexual crimes, the assumption being that society undervalues rape victims.
But Professor Felicity Goodyear-Smith, a medical doctor and faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, says repeating the statistic — in New Zealand, allegedly only 11% of “perpetrators” are punished for their crimes — assumes that all allegations are true and able to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, which they are not. In a post on New Zealand’s The Daily Blog, Goodyear-Smith dismantles the statistics being used to push a sexual violence bill. The statistics, she says, are mainly based on a 2019 Justice Ministry “Attrition and Progression Report.” She wrote:
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