“I understand how this helps the police, but how does it help survivors?”
This question came after I delivered a talk about Vesta, the platform for sexual violence survivors I’m developing, to a room full of social workers and front-line experts. People with 25+ years experience listening to women share their experiences of violence and harassment. Executive directors and management who were building and maintaining the resources women used everyday to navigate their sexual violence experience. And too often, at the front-line, they saw a woman’s personal trauma be compounded by the criminal justice system.
This question was tough, honest, and entirely valid.
For the past two years I’ve been talking to anyone who will answer my questions about how sexual violence is reported to the police. I’ve sat down with trauma counsellors, lawyers, police officers, advocates, law professors, crown prosecutors, university security, and more. Over and over again I heard the phrase “credible and reliable witness”.
In the criminal justice system, the survivor very quickly transforms into a “witness” to their own experience of the crime. A witness can be credible or reliable, but ideally both. What’s the difference between a credible witness and a reliable one? A credible witness, in simple terms, is believed. A police officer, a lawyer, a judge believes the person when they say that something horrible, even criminal, has happened to them.
Is a credible witness a reliable one? Not necessarily. A “reliable witness”, I’ve discovered both through discussion and personal experience, is a person who can articulate their experience with precision and near-perfect repetition. They can provide information and details that never change no matter how many times they answer the same question. They do not waiver or doubt themselves. They expect questions that ask them to guess at the perpetrator’s motives and don’t get flustered, or shameful, or hesitant. They do not speculate or make suppositions. They are ready for suggestions that they “brought this on themselves” or “what they could have done differently” and they push back calmly and with detailed information
Is it fair to require survivors of sexual violence to be “credible and reliable witnesses” when they’re struggling to process their experience and find support?
No, it is not.
And yet, that is the current reality of our criminal justice system. I’ve been through these interviews with and without this knowledge. In both situations, I’m sitting in a room with an officer asking awkward questions and looking skeptical, feeling nervous and afraid. But armed with information and documentation, ready to answer questions, the fear and anxiety is manageable and the tone in the room quickly changes from skepticism and doubt to belief and clarification. Having experienced both, I know that I would rather walk into that experience armed with information, prepared for the unanswerable questions, and ready for whatever questions come my way.
Vesta comes from my personal experience, both past and present. This is where I see Vesta helping survivors. I want to give survivors the tools they need to become a “credible and reliable witness”. I want them to be prepared and ready for the harsh realities of our criminal justice system. I want them to know what questions and insinuations are coming before they face down an interview at the police station or cross-examination in the courtroom (to clarify, I have never been cross-examined in a courtroom).
Each of Vesta’s intersecting pathways, support a survivor in developing the skills and provide the tools to become a credible and reliable witness.
Vesta will undoubtedly help police deal with sexual violence. I think this is a good thing. We need many voices at the table when tackling such a complex and difficult social problem as sexual violence.
But I’m not building Vesta for the police or the judges or the lawyers. I’m building Vesta for the survivors who decide to navigate the realities of our criminal justice system today. I am building Vesta for the survivor that doesn’t know if they want to engage with the justice system, but who wants to know that if they do, they have options. They are who I support and I will give them every tool I can to make them stronger.
