‘Settle down’, ‘do your own swabs’: how alleged rape victims are treated in Queensland revealed in major report

Prosecutors dropped cases because survivors ‘didn’t act how a rape victim should’, Australian Institute of Criminology review of 19,000 sexual assault cases finds

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Queensland police put sexual assault investigations “on the backburner” because detectives were overworked and under pressure to prioritise cases linked to political issues such as youth crime, a major new study has found

The report, published this month by the Australian Institute of Criminology, sought to investigate why so many sexual assault complaints – about two-thirds of those made to police in Queensland – were withdrawn, not substantiated or considered unsolved.