The Hon. Marcia Neave AO
Commissioner, Australian Law Reform Commission Justice Responses to Sexual Violence
The purpose of this Paper is to consider how insights from social science and medicine could help to reduce the level of sexual violence, improve criminal justice laws and practices and ensure that adults or children who are sexual assaulted receive a trauma-informed response to their experience. The Paper will describe some of the policy dilemmas which the Australian Law Reform Commission must address in its reference on harmonising sexual offence laws across Australia. These challenges include how to legally define consent to sexual acts between adults, a concept which is expressed in a variety of ways across Australian States and Territories.
The Paper will discuss other examples of laws and practices which lawyers sometimes argue are essential to maintain the presumption of innocence and prevent false convictions of people accused of sexual violence. It will draw on examples of social science research about the effects of previous reforms in the area of sexual violence and argue that some of these concerns may not be supported by social science research into how actors in the criminal justice system, including police, prosecutors, judges and juries actually behave. It will call for more reliance on inter-disciplinary research involving lawyers, statisticians and psychologists to create an environment for improvements in policy making.