System Failure: The Silencing of Rape Survivors

by Michael Bradley

One in five Australian women has been the victim of a sexual assault. For these women, there is less than a 1 per cent chance that their rapist has been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of the crime. These are the bare numerical facts of system failure. We offer rape survivors a stark go to the police, or remain silent. In recent times, the public pressure on survivors to report has increased, alongside a growing focus on two other civil action against the perpetrator, or going public. These evolving social responses are intended to offer an alternative to the tradition of silencing. However, each of these choices, for survivors, involves a further sacrifice of what they have already lost. The legal system’s responses to rape were designed without survivors in mind, and they do not address, in any way, the questions that survivors ask or the needs they express. Simply put, on the systemic response to rape, we are having the wrong conversation.

Genres: Feminism

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Rachael McDiarmid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I needed a stiff drink and a lie down after reading this book. Not easy reading but at the same time a book we should read. Michael Bradley's style is different to many others in this series but it makes it all the more powerful. As the back cover blurb says "we ask survivors to submit to being re-traumatised by the system. We do it knowing that, as soon as survivors do this, their stories will cease to be theirs; that they will personally bear the burden of the case against their rapist." Then the book itself goes into the mechanics of investigations and the law. The final two lines on the back cover are even more devastating once you've read the book: "Why don't survivors report? Why the hell would they?" Why the hell indeed. Must-read.

[Adele Papon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read, gave a more in-depth understanding as to why more survivors do not come forward in australia

[Caddyshack Project · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book is an engaging, rigorous and hard read about how the legal systems response fails rape survivors. The book chronicles some of the author’s clients’ experiences and calls for urgent system change, although does not provide any solutions.

[Deeantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this for my honours research proposal. gives an interesting background of the legal system in relation to rape cases, loved that it touched on restorative justice as a possible solution

[Jorja Affleck · Rating 5 out of 5]

should be in the australian curriculum