Challenges of Effective Communication in the Criminal Justice Process: Findings from Interviews with Victims of Sexual Offences in Australia

Rhiannon Davies,Lorana Bartels

doi:10.3390/laws9040031

Rhiannon Davies, Lorana Bartels

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/laws9040031

Copy DOI

Abstract

This article focuses on gendered experiences of the criminal justice system, specifically the experiences of adult female victims of sexual offending and the communication difficulties they experience during the criminal justice process. Drawing on the findings from qualitative interviews about sentencing with six victims and 15 justice professionals in Australia, we compare the lived experiences of the victims with the perceptions of the justice professionals who work with them, revealing a significant gap between the information justice professionals believe they are providing and the information victims recall receiving. We then analyse the international literature to distil effective communication strategies, with the goal of improving victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system as a whole. Specifically, we recommend verbal communication skills training for justice professionals who work with victims of crime and the development of visual flowcharts to help victims better understand the criminal justice process. We also recommend that Australian victims’ rights regimes be reformed to place the responsibility for providing information about the criminal process on the relevant justice agencies, rather than requiring the victim to seek this information, and suggest piloting automated notification systems to help agencies fulfil their obligations to provide victims with such information.

Highlights

This article considers the criminal justice experiences of adult female victims of sexual offending in Australia
Despite the established need of crime victims to be informed throughout the justice process and the existing obligations under Australian victims’ rights regimes, we reveal a significant gap between the information that justice professionals believe they are providing victims and the information that victims recall receiving from the justice professionals involved in their case
Our research suggests that issues of effective communication have rarely been explored in the context of justice professionals working with victims and little has been written on practical communication strategies in this area

Summary

Introduction

This article considers the criminal justice experiences of adult female victims of sexual offending in Australia. It is drawn from a larger project on the use of victim impacts statements in sentencing (see Davies 2017; Davies and Bartels Forthcoming). Victim impact statements (or VIS) were introduced in Australia from the 1980s, among a range of reforms intended to address the re-traumatisation of sexual offence victims (Australian Law Reform Commission 2010) and reduce ‘many of the anti-therapeutic tendencies entailed by [victims’] involvement in [criminal justice] proceedings’ Miller has explained that: Laws 2020, 9, 31; doi:10.3390/laws9040031 www.mdpi.com/journal/laws ‘The few studies that were designed to examine VIS use by sexually assaulted women are outdated, did not originally include empirical data from victims, or combined victims’ use of the VIS with other forms of criminal justice participation, which made meaningful interpretation difficult’ (Miller 2013, p. 1445)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion