Closing the Justice Gap for Adult and Child Sexual Assault

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 1-93

3. The Nature and Effects of Adversarialism: Jury Decision-Making in Sexual Assault Trials

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 95-119

4. Factors That Predict Outcomes in Sexual Assault Trials

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 121-151

5. ‘Commonsense’ or ‘Life Experience’: Jurors’ Perceptions of Guilt

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 153-170

6. ‘No Means Yes and Yes Means Anal’: The Cultural Climate in Which Sex Offences Are Prosecuted

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 171-243

7. The Nature and Effects of Adversarialism: Sites of Activation for Heuristic Reasoning Processes

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 245-275

8. Modernisation of the Substantive Law of Consent

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 277-337

9. Cross-Examination in Sexual Assault Trials: Evidentiary Safeguard or an Opportunity to Confuse?

   • Anne Cossins

   Pages 339-424

10. Contemporary Reforms to Cross-Examination

    • Anne Cossins

    Pages 425-478

11. The Problems Facing Reformers of the Sexual Assault Trial

    • Anne Cossins

    Pages 479-531

12. Achieving Best Evidence for Vulnerable Witnesses: The Use of Trauma-Informed Theory to Reform the Sexual Assault Trial

    • Anne Cossins

    Pages 533-576

13. Reform Measures: The Devil Is in the Detail

    • Anne Cossins

    Pages 577-649

14. Back Matter

    Pages 651-719

    PDF

This book examines the justice gap and trial process for sexual assault against both adults and children in two jurisdictions: England and Wales and New South Wales, Australia. Drawing on decades of research, it investigates the reality of the policing and prosecution of sexual assault offences – often seen as one of the ‘hardest crimes to prosecute’ – across two similar jurisdictions. Despite the introduction of the many reform options detailed in the book, satisfactory outcomes for victims and the public are still difficult to obtain.

Cossins takes a new approach by examining the nature and effects of adversarialism on vulnerable witnesses, jury decision-making and the structures of power within the trial process, to show how, and at what points, that process is weighted against complainants of sexual assault, in order to make evidence-based suggestions for reform. She argues that this justice gap is a result of a moralisticadversarial culture which fosters myths and misconceptions about rape and child sexual assault, thus requiring the prosecution to prove a complainant’s moral worthiness. She argues this culture can only be eliminated by a radical replacement of the adversarial system with a trauma-informed system. By reviewing the relevant psychological literature, this book documents the triggers for re-traumatisation within an adversarial trial, and discusses the reform measures that would be necessary to transform the sexual assault trial from one where the complainant’s moral worthiness is ‘on trial’ to a fully functioning trauma-informed system. It speaks to students and academics across subjects including law, criminology, gender studies and psychology, and practitioners in law and victim services, as well as policy-makers.    

• Sexual assualt
• Trauma
• Rape myths
• Trial Process
• Legislative reform
• Sex offenders
• criminal justice
• socio-legal
• criminal trial
• sexual violence
• sexual abuse
• human rights
• victims
• victimology
• policing

• Honorary Professor and former Professor of Law and Criminology Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

  Anne Cossins

Anne Cossins is Professor of Law and Criminology in the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Australia. She is the pre-eminent Australian expert on legal reform in the area of sexual assault and a scholar in theoretical criminology. She was the founder and Convenor of the National Child Sexual Assault Reform Committee in Australia and has been, and still is a member of various government committees, boards and councils dealing with sexual assault and domestic violence issues.    

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