Sex attacks are up by nearly 50 per cent in South Yorkshire this year

New figures have revealed that sex offences have gone up by nearly half in South Yorkshire. 

South Yorkshire police logged a massive total of 2,732 sex attacks in the 12 months previous to September 2015, up 47 per cent from the year period before.

According to the Office for National Statistics, nationally, the number of sex attacks reported to police rose 37 per cent.

Figures given to The Tab in October showed that the number of young women being raped had already tripled compared to the year previous. In 2014 there were just four women aged between 18 and 24-years-old who were raped in the city centre. Shockingly, by October last year there had already been 12.

Two women were raped by Arundel Gate in two days last October

At the time, Politics second year Izzy Raine said: “These are frightening statistics, especially considering the year isn’t even over yet. Perhaps it shows that the city isn’t as safe as I once thought.”

Despite this, Chief Superintendent Rob Odell of South Yorkshire Police believes the increase in cases is a result of victims becoming more confident in reporting them, rather than an increase in crimes themselves.

“The increase in sexual offences being recorded is clear indication that victims and survivors feel more confident to report such dreadful crimes in the knowledge that they will be listened to, we will provide appropriate support and that we will thoroughly investigate what has happened.”

Women feeling more able to come forward and report sex attacks is obviously a hugely important and valid development, as is the improvement in recording these sorts of crimes, but to account such a huge increase in reported cases as merely down to these facts seems not only misguided, but massively concerning.

Hypothetically, even if the national increase of 37 per cent was simply down to victims having more confidence to come forward and absolutely nothing else, the figures for South Yorkshire have still increased 10 per cent more than that figure.

For SYP to say that figure is a product of their own better handling is an insult to not only the women have suffered one of the 2,732 attacks last year, but to all women in South Yorkshire who rely on and expect the police to protect them.

Rather than reading about how such an appallingly increased figure of attacks in the area is not only being dismissed, but almost framed as a good thing, women deserve to know what, if anything, is being done by the police to reduce that number and ensure that they don’t just become another figure in next years round up.

That figure is 2,732 attacks too many. Preventing these crimes in the first place should be the number one focus, why are we being told to accept their increase?