This has revealed that across the Scottish justice system, policy provides for the production of official data based on individuals’ self-identified gender rather than their biological sex.
As defined in Scotland (Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, section 1), rape may be perpetrated by a biological man or biological woman, victims may be biologically male or female, and women may also be liable on an ‘art and part’ basis.
Accurately tracking incidence and trends in sexual crime, including with reference to specific individual characteristics, requires the collection of data on both sex and gender.
However, in its evidence to the Petitions Committee, Police Scotland disclosed that on all systems such as crime management and custody databases, it uses sex and gender interchangeably – not just for rape, but for all offences, whether or not of a sexual nature.
Further, the force does not ‘routinely ask the gender or sex of people with whom they interact’ but bases the sex/gender identification of individuals on how they self-declare, or ‘…on how the person presents to officers at the time of engagement’, unless doing otherwise is ‘evidentially critical’.
Recording the sex of rapists: what does the law require?
延伸閱讀：
蘇格蘭的警政統計改為性別認同而非生理性別
這整個part說明大部分跟女性相關的公約都有要求要記錄針對婦女犯罪的犯罪者的性別