Over the past few years, public attention focused on the Jian Ghomeshi trial, the failings of Judge Greg Lenehan in the Halifax taxi driver case, and the judicial disciplinary proceedings against former Justice Robin Camp have placed the sexual assault trial process under significant scrutiny. Less than one percent of the sexual assaults that occur each year in Canada result in legal sanction for those who commit these offences. Survivors often distrust and fear the criminal justice process, and as a result, over ninety percent of sexual assaults go unreported. Unfortunately, their fears are well founded. In this thorough evaluation of the legal culture and courtroom practices prevalent in sexual assault prosecutions, Elaine Craig provides an even-handed account of the ways in which the legal profession unnecessarily – and sometimes unlawfully – contributes to the trauma and re-victimization experienced by those who testify as sexual assault complainants. Gathering conclusive evidence from interviews with experienced lawyers across Canada, reported case law, lawyer memoirs, recent trial transcripts, and defence lawyers’ public statements and commercial advertisements, Putting Trials on Trial demonstrates that – despite prominent contestations – complainants are regularly subjected to abusive, humiliating, and discriminatory treatment when they turn to the law to respond to sexual violations. In pursuit of trial practices that are less harmful to sexual assault complainants as well as survivors of sexual violence more broadly, Putting Trials on Trial makes serious, substantiated, and necessary claims about the ethical and cultural failures of the Canadian legal profession.

This book provides an in-depth examination of current, high-profile debates about the use of sexual history evidence in rape trials and its impact on jurors. In doing so, it presents findings of the first mock jury dataset in England and Wales to explore how jurors interpret, discuss, and rely upon such evidence within their deliberations. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative insights from the 18 mock jury panels, the book highlights the complex, nuanced and intersectional impact of sexual history evidence within the deliberative ideal. Indeed, findings exemplified routine and ongoing prejudicial framings of sexual history amongst jurors, and frequent endorsement of rape myths that served to mistakenly infer relevance and undermine the perceived credibility of the complainant. The findings discussed within this book are therefore key to addressing the current knowledge gap around the impact of sexual history evidence and are embedded within broader discussions about evidential legitimacy in rape trials. The book draws on good practice observed in other jurisdictions to makes numerous recommendations for change. Aiming to inform academic, policy, and legislative discussions in this area, Sexual History Evidence in Rape Trials will be of great interest to students and scholars of Criminal Law and Criminology, as well as policy makers and legal practitioners. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylor francis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial- No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The use of a rape victim’s sexual history as evidence attracted intense public attention after the acquittal of footballer Ched Evans in 2017. Set within the context of a criminal justice system widely perceived to be failing rape victims, the use of sexual history evidence remains a flashpoint of contention around rape law reform. This accessible book mounts an important interrogation into the use of a victim’s sexual history as evidence in rape trials. Adopting a critical multidisciplinary perspective underpinned by feminist theory, the authors explore the role and significance of sexual history evidence in criminal justice responses to rape.

Reforms have been underway over the last three decades to address the disadvantages that victim/survivors of sexual assault face within the criminal justice system in Australia. Such reforms include expansion of advocate services, specialisation of police, alternative provisions for giving evidence at trial, and changes to jury instructions. This report was commissioned to examine the implementation of these reforms and their impact on the victim/survivor experience. Drawing on interviews with 81 criminal justice professionals including counsellors, lawyers and judges, it looks at victim/survivor-focused approaches, promising and innovative practices, the take up of reforms, the factors that enable or inhibit victim-focused reforms being embedded in court practices, and the potential for future reform.

In Tackling Rape Culture: Ending Patriarchy, Jan Jordan asks why, despite decades of feminist activism, does rape culture remain so endemic within contemporary society. She argues that, in order to understand the global pandemic of sexual violence, we must view rape culture as a consequence of the social divisiveness that emerges from the logic of patriarchy. In advancing this argument, Jordan offers a comprehensive indictment of the patriarchal system while recognising also women’s efforts to resist its edicts. Jordan critically explores two mechanisms that she argues are central to the maintenance and reproduction of rape culture - silencing and objectification. Both are examined as patriarchal strategies that have been relied on for centuries to control and constrain women’s lives, silencing their voices and keeping them as ‘othered’ outsiders in a male-defined world. Women throughout history have sought ways to resist such control and, since the second-wave women’s movement of the 1970s, this has included multiple initiatives both offline and more recently online. While #MeToo is being hailed by many as evidence that the silencing of women’s voices about rape has finally been broken, Jordan urges a more critical appraisal given the continued dominance of patriarchal thinking. To end rape culture, Jordan argues, we must end patriarchy. This timely and provocative book, which complements Jordan’s Women, Rape and Justice: Unravelling the Rape Conundrum (Routledge, 2022), will be of great interest to researchers, students, practitioners and activists seeking to understand and challenge the pervasive rape culture characterising contemporary patriarchal society.

Historically states have failed to seriously confront violence against women. In response, in many countries women's rights movements have called on the government to prioritize state intervention in cases involving violence between intimate partners, sexual harassment, rape, and sexual assault by both strangers and intimate partners. Those interventions have taken various forms, including the passage of substantive civil and criminal laws governing intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault, and sexual harassment; the development of civil orders of protection; and the introduction of procedures in the criminal legal system to ensure the effective intervention of police and prosecutors. Indeed, many countries have relied upon intervention by the criminal legal system to meet their requirements under international human rights standards that obligate states to prevent, protect from, prosecute, punish, and provide redress for violence. Although states have taken divergent approaches to the passage and implementation of criminal laws and procedures to address violence against women, two things are clear: criminalization is a primary strategy relied upon by most nations, and yet criminalization is not having the desired impact. This collection explores the extent to which nations have adopted criminal legal reforms to address violence against women, the consequences associated with the implementation of those laws and policies, and who bears those consequences most heavily. The chapters examine the need for both more and less criminalization, ask whether we should think differently about criminalization, and explore the tensions that emerge when criminal law, civil law and social policy speak or fail to speak to each other. Drawing on criminalization approaches and recent debates from across the globe, this collection provides a comparative approach to assess the scope, impact of, and alternatives to criminalization in the response to violence against women.

This edited collection brings together leading and emerging scholars in the important field of sexual violence scholarship. The last ten years have witnessed an international reckoning on sexual violence, typified in the mainstream imagination by the #MeToo movement, acknowledgement of the violence of university campus life, and the overdue recognition of the enduring harms of child sexual abuse. While the state has been forced to respond through law and other political processes, at times revealing its agility and at other times its archaic investment in the past, much of the real work responding to sexual violence and abuse has taken place within communities, and in the personal responses of the individuals writing the scripts of their experiences. This volume explores the nuances of these individual experiences and considers how they are shaped and reflected by intersecting axes of power including gender, race, class, age and able-bodied status. It reflects on law and law reform in the area and suggests new modes and frames through which to explain and understand sexual violence and institutional responses to it. Debates within this contested personal and political arena do not map onto longstanding binaries of liberal and radical feminism, nor conservative and progressive politics. This interdisciplinary volume traces that murky terrain and features some of the leading international scholars writing on sexual violence in English today. This book will appeal to scholars and students across the broad disciplines of law and legal studies; criminology; gender studies; political science and sociology.

Sexual Assault in Canada is the first English-language book in almost two decades to assess the state of sexual assault law and legal practice in Canada. Gathering together feminist scholars, lawyers, activists and policy-makers, it presents a picture of the difficult issues that Canadian women face when reporting and prosecuting sexual violence. The volume addresses many themes including the systematic undermining of women who have been sexually assaulted, the experiences of marginalized women, and the role of women’s activism. It explores sexual assault in various contexts, including professional sports, the doctor–patient relationship, and residential schools. And it highlights the influence of certain players in the reporting and litigation of sexual violence, including health care providers, social workers, police, lawyers and judges. Sexual Assault in Canada provides both a multi-faceted assessment of the progress of feminist reforms to Canadian sexual assault law and practice, and articulates a myriad of new ideas, proposed changes to law, and inspired activist strategies. This book was created to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Jane Doe’s remarkable legal victory against the Toronto police for sex discrimination in the policing of rape and for negligence in failing to warn her of a serial rapist. The case made legal history and motivated a new generation of feminist activists. This book honours her pioneering work by reflecting on how law, legal practice and activism have evolved over the past decade and where feminist research and reform should lead in the years to come.