ABSTRACT
Police forces must take greater responsibility for preventing known perpetrators from further sexual offending. Victim-survivors are experts in their perpetrator’s sexual offending behaviour, and when reporting to police, pass this intelligence on to the police. The most frequently cited reason rape victim-survivors report to the police is to stop the perpetrator from doing the same again. Yet police services afford little priority or resource to honouring rape reports by using this intelligence to prevent known perpetrators from continued offending. This chapter outlines the current barriers to police identification and disruption of known perpetrators. The law provides police services with wide-ranging powers and tools, such as civil orders, yet they are rarely used, and their effectiveness and impacts are barely tested. Sexual violence prevention is essential to victim-survivors, yet it is peripheral to default policing. This chapter proposes a way forward within existing police powers and legal frameworks.
