Secondary Victimisation: Victim-Blaming, Retraumatisation, and the Criminal Justice System
摘要
This chapter will focus on retraumatisation of victim/survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA), and sexual assaults. Victims/survivors receive intervention from a variety of organisations who ostensibly offer various forms of support. A key component in a victim/survivor’s decision to disclose is the treatment they receive from those working in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), authors examine the functions, and failings, of relevant services, including the enduring presence of victim-blaming attitudes and impact upon victim/survivor wellbeing. This is contextualised with discussion of statistical background, concept of revictimisation, and legal and ethical rights of victim/survivors. There are numerous and complex factors which impact a victim/survivor’s likelihood of reporting, cooperating with an investigation, and which constitute a barrier to disclosure. Victim/survivors face barriers to both “justice” and recovery, and agencies may not meet service users’ needs, moreover, the experience of interacting with these organisations can constitute revictimisation. Attempts to navigate the CJS can be so distressing that for some victim/survivors, it becomes akin to suffering a “second rape” (Campbell, 2008: 702). The chapter will consider the impacts of revictimisation; factors which contribute to retraumatisation: reasons for reluctance to report suffering abuse; differences between men’s and women’s experiences of disclosure; how personal history and identity can inform victim/survivor’s experiences of investigation and the prosecution process. Additionally, authors discuss what can be done to empower, educate, and change societal attitudes around this topic, to reduce retraumatisation. The chapter concludes by considering what steps must be taken so that the vulnerability of victim/survivors is not exacerbated through the amplification of previous trauma, in combination with the stress caused by navigating the CJS.