In June, the Slovak parliament will probably vote on changing the definition of rape in the Criminal Code. According to the current definition, the presence of violence or at least the threat of violence is necessary. (source: Pexels)
If a rape victim comes to file a criminal complaint at the police station in Bratislava's Staré Mesto (Old Town) borough, the chance that the case will be successfully investigated is significantly lower than if they file the complaint in the Karlová Ves or Dúbravka borough.
Since 2013, only every tenth criminal complaint filed by victims of sexual violence in Bratislava's Old Town has turned into an indictment.
On the other hand, investigators from the Bratislava IV Police Directorate, which also includes the Karlova Ves and Dúbravka boroughs, were able to successfully investigate two out of five complaints and file an indictment.
The prospects for victims of sexual violence in Kežmark are even better. Local police officers were able to successfully investigate every second complaint filed.
The police does not publish these statistics. The daily SME requested them from the individual Police district directorates on the basis of the Information Act.
Not every single district Police directorate was assessed, only those where judges issued the fewest and most sentences in recent years. The daily only focused on crimes of rape and sexual violence (Paragraphs 199 and 200 of the Criminal Code) in the period between 2013 and 2022.
The findings are evidence that deficiencies in the investigation of sexually violent crimes are not individual failures, but result from systemic problems.
A different atmosphere
Daily Sme reporters talked to lawyers, academics, and police officers, but no one can answer why the investigation success rate is many times higher in some districts than in others. A clearer answer could be given by criminological research, but that is not something performed in Slovakia.
Talking to the daily Sme, Police Corps Presidium spokesperson Michal Slivka listed several factors that reduce the success of solving crimes of sexual violence, but all of them are related to the behaviour of victims.
This includes, for example, the time gap between the crime and its reporting, the absence of a medical examination, the concealment of witnesses or cleaning of the crime scene and removal of clues.
The police did not mention self-criticism in any way.
