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Victim/survivor views about Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA): Findings from a mixed methods study

Fri, September 13, 3:30 to 4:45pm, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest, Floor: 1st floor, Room 2.20

Abstract

Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) - a community-based, volunteer-led post-custodial measure for people with convictions for sexual offending - are now part of the criminal justice apparatus in much of the western world.
Despite promising results about their ability to reduce sexual reoffending, CoSA have received inflammatory media attention (Richards & Biron, 2022) and community backlash (Richards & McCartan, 2018), often due to the belief that CoSA undermine the interests of victim/survivors of sexual violence. However, very little previous research has investigated victim/survivors’ views about CoSA.
Understanding the views of victim/survivors about CoSA is an important undertaking. Victim/survivors hold unique knowledge about sexual violence (Clark & Quadara, 2010) and are an “overlooked resource” (Herman & Wasserman, 2001: 429) that may contribute to shaping policies and practices that can reduce sexual reoffending.
As such, our research sought to investigate victim/survivors’ views about CoSA using a “convergent parallel” mixed methods design (Creswell, 2015) comprised of an online survey (n = 193) and semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 26) with victim/survivors of sexual violence.
This presentation will report key findings from the study, with a focus on the reasons victim/survivors offer for endorsing or resisting CoSA, as well as their reasons for stating that they would (or would not) volunteer in CoSA. Findings will be useful to organisations that deliver CoSA programs around the globe and will enable these organisations to deliver CoSA in ways that better meet the needs of victim/survivors of sexual violence.

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