More than 2,200 people were sentenced for rape in Queensland in the 16 years up to and including 2020-21, with the youngest offender aged 10 and the oldest 77, a new report shows.
The data, compiled by the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council, found almost 99 per cent of adult offenders received a jail sentence, with an average of 6.6 years.
Council chair and former Queensland judge John Robertson said about one-in-five prison sentences for rape were for nine years or more. Some rapists were jailed for life.
"The level of psychological trauma that this offence causes survivors is immeasurable, which is why it carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment," Mr Robertson said, commenting on the Sentence Spotlight on Rape report.
That 16-page report revealed almost a doubling in the number of Queensland rape offenders sentenced in the eight years up to 2020-21, but Mr Robertson said the number of rapes was likely to be much higher.
"Rape, like other forms of sexual offending, is often an under-reported crime, so it's important to remember that this data reflects the number of cases being sentenced, not the rate of offending," he said.
"This increase in sentenced cases might reflect a higher reporting rate, which in turn could lead to more convictions.
"We can only speculate as to why that has occurred. It's probably because there's a much greater awareness now and a [higher] public profile for sexual offending generally.
"There's been a total change in the whole attitude towards both domestic and family violence, and sexual offending, in the last eight to 10 years as a result of things like the #MeToo movement."
Most common convictions among teens
The average age of convicted rapists across the 16-year reporting period was 31 at the time of the offence.
However, the report found the most common age group of those convicted of rape was teenagers aged between 14 and 17 years.
Of the 2,222 convicted rapists, 21 were women. Mr Robertson said women could be charged with rape as parties to offences committed by men.
"I can remember one case I did up in North Queensland. This guy … was raping his step-daughter and [the girl's mother] was assisting him by telling her not to yell out and just go along with it and it'll all be over," he said.
"She was aiding and abetting in the commission of the offence, so she can be charged with the offence itself."
Almost a third of all rapes in the five years between 2016-17 and 2020-21 were classified as domestic violence offences.
From December 2015, Queensland legislation was amended to enable a conviction for an offence committed in a domestic violence context to be recorded as such in a person's criminal history.
"Despite the fact that you'd probably think a lot of rapes are committed by strangers, that's not the fact," Mr Robertson said.
"Most of them are committed by people [who] know the victim."
Of the 2,222 people sentenced for rape in Queensland from 2005-06 to 2020-21, 53 – or 2.4 per cent – were repeat offenders.
"This means that they were sentenced for rape on at least two separate occasions over the 16-year period," the report said.
It found the state's Far North had the highest proportion of sentenced rape cases, with 101.3 per 100,000 population, compared to metropolitan Brisbane with 56.8 per 100,000 population.
