Justice for Women After Sexual Assault: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis

Justice after sexual assault is often understood and enacted through the criminal legal system such that the outcomes are binary (i.e., justice is achieved or not achieved). Previous research indicates that survivors have specific wants and needs following an assault in order to experience justice, which may or may not align with current practices. We conducted a critical interpretive synthesis of 5 databases to create a sampling frame of 4,203 records; the final analysis included 81 articles, book chapters, and policy documents. Results indicate that justice is an individualized and dynamic process which may include the experience of voice, connectedness, participating in a process, accountability, and prevention. The experiences of safety and control are central to each of these domains. Survivors may seek and enact these justice domains through several avenues, including the criminal justice and legal systems, restorative justice, medical/mental health spaces, activism, art, and social media. Existing actors within currently available justice systems, including legal, medical, and mental health personnel should encourage survivors to identify and define their own experience of justice, including locating helpful behaviors rooted in safety and control, and resist a binary model of justice. Extant systems should therefore be flexible and accessible to help survivors realize their preferred modes of justice.