Children’s experiences of criminal justice processes in London, following reporting or identification of child sexual abuse

About the project

Journeys through Justice is a small-scale, London-based study, of the experience of going through criminal justice processes following sexual abuse, when a child (under 18 years of age). The project set-up, design, data collection, analysis and completion of outputs took place over the period of May 2023-June 2024. The final report is currently in production and will be published in June 2024.

The research was commissioned by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime as part of a wider study they are completing on attrition in CSA cases. It was conducted by researchers from the University of Bedfordshire and University of Central Lancashire.

Methodology

We engaged children and young people through close working with and support from facilitating agencies, which enabled us to ensure appropriate wrap around support for participants. As we were seeking to understand participants’ experiences of, and views on, their engagement in criminal justice process, as they understood them - and wanted to maximise participants’ control over their narrative - we approached our interviews as guided conversations, rather than tightly structured engagements.

Where appropriate, as part of this, we co-created a visual mapping of participants’ journeys through criminal justice processes (or, more specifically, the parts of the journey they chose to talk about) and the reflections they shared on this. In addition to in-depth verbal conversations with researchers, participants were also able to utilise the option of visual representation cards (of feelings, stages of the process, and professionals encountered) to structure, and help articulate, their narratives.

The use of this toolkit approach, and a framework of broad topics of interest rather than structured interview questions, enabled us to offer participants choice and control in how they engaged and what they shared.

All interviews were conducted on an individual, rather than group basis. They took place both online and in person, depending on the preference of the individual participant.