Even with regard to cases in which a person is found guilty of aggravated sexual assault — a category that includes gang rape, rape of a child, rape of a severely disabled person, or rape involving weapons — just 51 per cent will receive a sentence that includes incarceration.

Others found guilty are released with lesser punishments — a suspended sentence, a community service order or a fine — often because they are considered first-time offenders.

The figures, derived from NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data, have alarmed anti-sexual assault advocates who say the entire criminal justice system is in need of an overhaul.

Karen Willis, executive officer of Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, says the ongoing NSW Consent Law Review is insufficient to deal with the plethora of problems that plague the criminal justice system’s response to sexual assault.

In a 44-page submission to the consent law review Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia has said that “while important, consent laws are only one piece of the puzzle”.

The submission, published last month, also recommends sweeping reforms to community education around consent, and the establishment of specialist sexual assault courts, led by expert judges who have specific training and eligibility requirements.

RDVSA’s submission has been endorsed by several leading groups in the sector, including Community Legal Centres NSW, Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service NSW, Youth Action, End Rape On Campus Australia, Domestic Violence NSW and People With Disability Australia.

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But the NSW Bar Association has argued differently, suggesting, if anything, the consent laws should be relaxed.

As it stands, the law currently says “a person consents to sexual intercourse if the person freely and voluntarily agrees to the sexual intercourse”.

The word “freely” was introduced, following cases in which women co-operated with their rapist out of fear for the consequences if they did not.

However the Bar Association has argued for the removal of the word “freely” saying: “Consent which is obtained after persuasion is still consent, at least for the purposes of the criminal law.”

The NSW Bar Association has also argued in cases where a rapist “honestly believed there was consent”, it would be “unjust” to hold him liable to the same penalty as an offender who had been indifferent as to lack of consent.

But Saxon Mullins, who claimed she was raped by Luke Lazarus behind Soho nightclub in 2013, says she was appalled by the Bar Association’s submission.

Lazarus was eventually acquitted of raping the then 18-year-old, but the case triggered the consent law review after the judge in the matter concluded that even though Mullins had not consented, Lazarus did not know this.

Speaking to Saturday Extra Mullins describes the Bar Association’s submission as “awful”.

“I had to keep re-reading it. I was sure I was reading it incorrectly. But no, they really think that. Surely the only way to mitigate an honest mistaken belief is by someone asking another person if they want to have sex with them.

“Nowhere else in law could you use, ‘Oh I didn’t know that was illegal’ as an excuse, so why are they proposing it here?

“If I don’t know the speed limit (that doesn’t mean) I’m cool to just go at 250km/h.”

Community Legal Centres NSW chairperson Katrina Ironside agrees with Mullins.

“The position advocated by the NSW Bar Association is very disappointing.

“Relaxing the law in favour of people with erroneous beliefs in what constitutes consent would be extremely dangerous for those people and communities already at risk of most sexual violence.

“Perpetrators will fall back on their ‘deeply held’ belief that someone being, for instance, a sex worker, out alone late at night wearing a skirt, or from a particular racial background, makes that person sexually available and consenting.

“The fact a perpetrator holds certain beliefs does not make the experience for victim-survivors less traumatic. They have still experienced a sexual assault and the law should treat them as such.”

This year a 33-year-old Brazilian man living in Sydney was found not guilty of raping a woman, after using the “Tinder defence”.

Rogerio Luiz De Souza Correia faced six charges of aggravated sexual assault but was found not guilty, after telling police: “I had a feeling she wanted it and that’s what the Tinder app is for.”

The jury in the case seemed to accept Tinder was a hook-up app, and that the defendant believed it was a form of consent.

According to RDVSA, cases such as these highlight the problematic attitudes jurors can bring to jury rooms.

In a move considered controversial by some, RDVSA and Community Legal Centres are pushing for the elimination of juries in sexual assault trials, to be replaced with a specialist judge-only model.

Drawing on international research, RDVSA’s submission argues juries often subscribe to rape myths and may lack an understanding of how trauma affects a person’s behaviour both during and following assault.

They claim juries commonly stereotype rape as the stranger-danger template of “a surprise attack by an unknown, often armed, sexual deviant”.

Other jurors suffer from the “CSI effect” and expect to see evidence of physical injuries following sexual assault, despite these not being the norm, and many jurors may not understand the “freeze response” as a legitimate and common reaction to fear.

The complex reasons why a victim may delay reporting to police, such as trauma, shock, self-blame, shame, denial and fear, are also not widely understood.

According to Karen Willis, these knowledge gaps and problematic assumptions made by jurors contribute to the high acquittal rates.

However others are more ambivalent about abolishing juries.

Author and sexual assault survivor Bri Lee says that “there are huge advantages to having members of the public coming into courts, interacting with our justice system, and then taking what they’ve learned and experienced back out into the community.

“If we updated our attitudes towards consent and sex offences, including our attitudes to ‘freeze’ responses and childhood trauma, imagine what a powerful tool for understanding and education the courts could be.”

But the idea that victims should be required to relive their experiences in front of an audience so jurors can have a “learning experience” is considered unnecessary to some. “Survivors are not there as an education tool,” says Sharna Bremner, the director of End Rape On Campus Australia.

“Those who have been assaulted should not be tasked with teaching us.

“There are better places to gain a consent education than a court where people’s lives hang in the balance.

“In NSW it is already widely accepted that the interest of justice does not require a jury,” adds Bremner.

“Only 3 per cent of criminal trials are conducted before a jury.”

Those in favour of the proposed judge-only model say streamlining the process would significantly reduce time delays.

In NSW sexual assault cases take an average of two years to proceed to trial, during which time stress and trauma can cause victims to withdraw from the process.

In Victoria the introduction of specialist prosecution units and courts led to a 32 per cent decline in delays. The wait time went from 470 days in 2005 to 317 days in 2009. In New Zealand, the introduction of a pilot project of two specialist sexual assault courts has successfully halved the processing time.

More broadly, though, both Mullins and Willis agree while reforms to the legal process are important, the community ultimately needs to invest in primary prevention efforts such as evidence based, consent education programs.

“We need to stop this at the source, and put a full stop to sexual assault,” Willis says.