The long read: For the past two years, Betsy Stanko has been leading an unprecedented investigation into why the police have been failing so badly to tackle sexual violence. But is there any chance of fixing a system that seems so broken?

Criminologist Betsy Stanko and a team of more than 50 scholars investigated why less than 3% of rapes reported in the UK in 2020 had resulted in charges being brought, and why this percentage almost halved in 2021. “If [the police] thinks that the problem with rape is that it’s mostly regretful sex, then there is no leadership or commitment to change,” she says.