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Justice system not prepped for image-based sexual assault offending
A new report has indicated that the criminal justice system’s response to revenge porn, or image-based sexual assault, does not reflect the “type and severity of harms” of the more serious examples of offending, including child pornography and partner stalking.
Naomi Neilson
Although Victoria was one of the first jurisdictions to enact specific image-based sexual assault (IBSA) offences designed to capture the distribution of, or a threat to distribute, intimate imagery, the offences have been criticised for its limit on penalties and general concern that both victim-survivors and perpetrators do not understand it’s criminal law.
The maximum penalties compared to Commonwealth standards go to show that the offences do not reflect the “level of harm that victim-survivors may experience”. When offences made it through the courts, 27 per cent received correction orders, while just 22 per cent received imprisonment and 9 per cent were fined.
The offences have also been criticised for its placement in the Summary Offences Act 1996 which limits arrests, search and seizure powers and has the potential to perceive “symbolic messages that these offences are not particularly serious”.
The report found that there was a strong link between IBSA offences and other offence types, particularly family violence-related offending among adults. This is consistent in research that suggests IBSA occurs as part of a course of conduct that includes other, serious behaviours linked to coercive control rather than a standalone offence.
When the offences were introduced, they were understood to relate to “comparatively” minor problems, including upskirting, sexting and revenge pornography. However, the research suggests these relate to family and sexual violence, stalking and child imagery.
The report went on to suggest that the IBSA offences that are recorded and sentenced tend to be linked to other offending as the offence itself “is rarely perceived as serious enough to justify a criminal prosecution” on its own standing.
Stakeholders consulted by the council have agreed that the low numbers of sentenced offences, compared with a prevalence in the general community, could be attributable to low reporting and a “widespread perception that the behaviour is not criminal”.
“As a result, IBSA tends to be reported and prosecuted only where there is long-course of conduct and/or where there are other types of offending that lead all victim-survivors to report the matter to police,” the report noted.
Outside of possible legislative amendments that would “enhance police investigative powers and sentencing practices for IBSA offending”, the most useful next step is with improving awareness around prevalence, associated harms and criminality.
“Such awareness may help discourage offending, improve reporting rates, encourage criminal justice actors to become more sensitive to the harms that victim-survivors are experiencing and encourage criminal justice system responses to become much more commensurate with those harms,” the report concluded.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
