10-year analysis shows convictions in less than three percent of sexual assaults reported to Vancouver police

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      Only a small fraction of sexual assaults that occur in Vancouver are ever reported to police. And of those that are, only a similarly small percentage are ever resolved with a conviction.

      That’s the depressing picture made crystal clear in an August 23 story by Global News.

      From 2005 to 2015, there were 5,231 sexual assaults reported to the Vancouver Police Department (VPD), according to documents obtained by the news network via a freedom-of-information request.

      Over the same 10-year period, police brought charges forward in 1,022 cases of sexual assault.

      There were only 156 eventual convictions, or 2.98 percent of cases taken to police.

      The assertion that sexual assaults are not always brought the attention of authorities with was made by the VPD itself.

      “It is a very underreported crime,” VPD chief Adam Palmer told Global News. “We know that there is more going on in society that don’t get reported to police, so we ask people to report them.”

      Data for 2014 and 2015 may be incomplete.
      Travis Lupick / VPD

      A regional breakdown of the data reveals that Vancouver’s Central Business District, which includes the downtown core, saw the greatest number of sexual assaults over the 10-year period analyzed, during which time there were 1,286.

      Strathcona came in second, with 496. Then there were 437 sexual assaults in the West End, 362 in Grandview Woodlands, and 294 in Kensington-Cedar Cottage.

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