Almost 1400 rapes reported to Police Scotland over past 6 months

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Almost 1,400 rapes have been reported to Police Scotland in the past six months, shocking new figures show. Between April 1 and the end of September, police received reports of nearly 7,600 sexual crimes, including almost 1,400 cases of rape - an increase of 19.5% from the previous year.

Some 1,829 of the reported offences, including 550 of the rapes, were alleged to have happened more than a year ago, with the remainder relating to the last 12 months.

Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Steve Johnson, lead for major crime and public protection at Police Scotland, said: "My hope is that increased reporting indicates increased confidence in victims coming forward, as we work with partners, to improve our response to reports of sexual crimes, which have a devastating impact on victims. Join the Daily Record's WhatsApp community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages. "Women and girls should be able to live their lives free from all forms of violence, abuse, harassment and exploitation.

We want to prevent sexual crime by tackling behaviours that demean, minimise and brutalise women."Prevention sits with all of us but men need to take responsibility for their behaviour and stop sexual offending before it starts." The stark figures were revealed as part of the ThatGuy campaign, which encourages young men to "have a quiet word with a mate" if they see them acting inappropriately towards women.The latest ThatGuy campaign is aimed at men aged between 18-35, and is designed to encourage them to reflect on their behaviour towards women, as well as that of friends and relatives.