Fact check: What are the official statistics on rape rates in the UK from 2020 to 2024?

1. Why the headline numbers rose and what they represent

Police‑recorded rape counts are the clearest headline metric and show a notable rise from 55,685 in 2020/21 to 71,667 in 2024/25, with intermediate years at 70,031 (2021/22), 68,834 (2022/23) and 67,818 (2023/24) in the ONS series; these numbers reflect incidents recorded by police, not survey estimates or proved convictions ^[1]. The increase largely reflects recording practices, reporting behaviour and possible real incidence changes; these figures do not account for under‑reporting captured by victim surveys, nor do they indicate how many incidents led to prosecution or conviction. The ONS release is dated April 2025 and presents annual police recording totals through December 2024 ^[1].

2. What prosecution and outcome statistics reveal about justice system response

Outcome statistics from the Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service show a persistent gap between recorded offences and charges: the charge‑or‑summons rate for rape was 2.6% in year ending March 2024 and rose only modestly to 2.8% in year ending March 2025, with numbers of charges moving from 1,733 to 2,040 respectively ^{[2] [5]}. These datasets also show long median investigation times—434 days to charge in 2025 up from 423 days—which, combined with high proportions of evidential‑difficulty outcomes (47.5% in 2025), explain why recorded increases are not translating into prosecutions ^[2]. The Home Office outcomes bulletin was published August 2025 covering the year ending March 2025 ^[2].

3. Short‑term fluctuations: rise, dip, then new peak — what the timeline shows

The timeline across 2020–2024 in the supplied datasets shows a sharp jump from 2020/21 to 2021/22, a modest decline through 2022/23 and 2023/24, and a renewed peak in 2024/25, indicating that the upward trend is not strictly monotonic ^[1]. Analysts link the initial jump to pandemic‑period effects on reporting and policing, while the later rebound suggests either continued changes in reporting behaviour or recording practice, and possibly real changes in offending patterns. The ONS series is explicit that these are police‑recorded offence counts and cautions about attributing cause without complementary survey and administrative data ^[1].

4. Regional and UK‑wide context — Scotland’s pattern is different but related

Scottish official statistics for 2023–24 report a modest fall in recorded sexual crimes—from 14,602 to 14,484—with rape and attempted rape comprising about 17% of sexual crimes, a different composition from England and Wales where roughly 36% of sexual offences recorded were rape offences in mid‑2024 ^{[3] [4]}. This highlights differences in offence classification and recording between jurisdictions, meaning UK‑wide aggregates can mask meaningful regional variation. Scotland’s long‑term upward trend since 1971, despite year‑to‑year fluctuation, underscores the need to interpret short windows cautiously ^[3].

5. Survey data vs police records — different pictures of prevalence

Victim‑survey estimates give a different perspective: survey data cited in the parliamentary analysis estimate 4.1% of people aged 16+ in England and Wales experienced rape (including attempts) since age 16, a prevalence measure not comparable to annual police recordings but indicative of under‑reporting to police ^[6]. The contrast between high self‑reported lifetime prevalence and low charge rates reinforces that recorded counts capture only a portion of victim experience, and prosecutorial outcomes reflect evidential and procedural barriers rather than incidence alone ^{[6] [2]}.

6. Institutional responses and possible agendas behind the numbers

Home Office, ONS and CPS releases emphasize improvements in recording and small gains in charge rates while also noting ongoing investigative challenges; these framings can serve different institutional agendas—ONS presents descriptive counts, Home Office highlights outcomes and system performance, and CPS focuses on referral and charging activity ^{[1] [2] [7]}. Each body has incentives to foreground particular metrics: recording completeness for ONS, prosecution performance for CPS, and systemic outcomes for Home Office. Cross‑referencing these publications shows consistent facts but different emphases that shape public understanding ^{[1] [7] [2]}.

7. What is omitted or uncertain and why that matters for policy

Published datasets do not reconcile police recordings with survey prevalence or fully explain drivers of the 2020–2024 changes; key omitted elements include breakdowns by victim demographics over time, the influence of recording practice changes, and the proportion of historical vs recent offences recorded, limiting causal interpretation necessary for policy design. Outcome data flag high rates of evidential difficulties and long investigation times, but do not map how resource allocation or specialist units alter these bottlenecks. These gaps matter because policy levers differ if rises reflect reporting, recording, or real increases in offending ^{[2] [1] [6]}.

8. Bottom line and what to watch next

The official picture for 2020–2024 is clear on one point: police‑recorded rape rose substantially from 2020/21 to 2024/25 while prosecutions remained a small fraction of recorded offences and investigative delays persisted; this combination poses both criminal justice and public policy challenges ^{[1] [2]}. Watch future ONS and Home Office releases for breakdowns by offence date, demographic detail, and improvements in charge rates, and monitor whether the CPS referral and charging increases reported in 2023/24 translate into higher conviction numbers in subsequent quarterly reports ^{[7] [2]}.