Kaleidoscopic Justice: Sexual Violence and Victim-Survivors’ Perceptions of Justice
| Author | Nicole Westmarland,Clare McGlynn |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663918761200 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
Article
Kaleidoscopic Justice:
Sexual Violence and
Victim-Survivors’
Perceptions of Justice
Clare McGlynn and Nicole Westmarland
Durham University, UK
Abstract
This article proposes a more multifaceted way of thinking about victim-survivors’ per-
ceptions of justice; what we have termed ‘kaleidoscopic justice’. Developed from an
empirical investigation with 20 victim-survivors of sexual violence, kaleidoscopic justice
understands justice as a constantly shifting pattern; justice constantly refracted through
new experiences or understandings; justice as an ever-evolving, nuanced and lived
experience. Within this framework, a number of justice themes emerged, namely justice
as consequences, recognition, dignity, voice, prevention and connectedness. This
approach develops current understandings, in particular by emphasizing the fluidity of
justice, as well as the centrality of prevention and connectedness in sexual violence
survivors’ understandings of justice. We suggest that it is only by better understanding
victim-survivor perspectives on justice, and embedding the concept of kaleidoscopic
justice, that we can begin to address the sexual violence ‘justice gap’.
Keywords
Dignity, justice, justice gap, kaleidoscopic justice, recognition, sexual violence, transfor-
mative justice, victim-survivors
Corresponding author:
Clare McGlynn, The Palatine Centre, Durham Law School, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
Email: clare.mcglynn@durham.ac.uk
Social & Legal Studies
2019, Vol. 28(2) 179–201
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0964663918761200
journals.sagepub.com/home/sls
Introduction
Securing justice for victim-survivors is the rallying cry from politicians, campaigners,
scholars and the public around the world as we all work towards ending sexual violence.
Consequently, recent decades have seen an extensive range of law and policy interven-
tions designed to address what is commonly known as the sexual violence ‘justice gap’.
But the gap persists, substantiated by a constant stream of reports and studies (Hohl and
Stanko, 2015; Kelly et al., 2005; Lonsway and Archambault, 2012; Temkin and Krahe,
2008). In this article, we suggest that one of the reasons why the sexual violence ‘justice
gap’ remains is because we have yet to fully understand the justice interests of victim-
survivors of sexual violence. Only when we appreciate, and then act on, how victim-
survivors themselves conceptualize justice will we begin to address the failings of
current approaches and – most importantly – be able to envision new ways of securing
justice.
Accordingly, we undertook this study, the first in the United Kingdom and one of few
internationally, to investigate sexual violence victim-survivors’ understandings of jus-
tice. Utilizing an empirical methodology, we undertook workshops and follow-up inter-
views with 20 victim-survivors of sexual violence, including those who had not engaged
with the conventional criminal justice system. What emerged is a different way of
thinking about justice from the perspective of victim-survivors that we have termed
‘kaleidoscopic justice’. This is justice as a constantly shifting pattern, justice constantly
refracted through new experiences or understandings; an ever-evolving, lived experi-
ence. Within this framework, a number of key themes emerged, namely justice as
consequences, recognition, dignity, voice, prevention and connectedness. This approach
advances our current understandings of justice from the perspective of sexual violence
victim-survivors. In particular, it emphasizes the fluidity of justice, as well as the cen-
trality of prevention and connectedness in sexualviolence survivors’ perceptions of
justice.
In part one, we develop the overarching idea of kaleidoscopic justice, setting it in the
context of common assumptions about justice and particularly the conventional criminal
justice system. Part two outlines our empirical methodology and sample. In part three,
we examine the justice themes which surfaced in the study and which together embody
kaleidoscopic justice. The final part concludes by emphasizing that kaleidoscopic justice
is the precursor, the conceptual underpinning, for the vital work of making real a
commitment to justice from the perspective of victim-survivors.
Sexual Violence and Conceptions of Justice
Justice in the context of sexual violence is most commonly equated with ‘positive out-
comes’ (usually a conviction and punitive sentence) from conventional criminal justice
systems.
1
Conventional here is used synonymously with state-run criminal justice sys-
tems, premised on procedures and mechanisms of formal legality in a clearly structured
pattern, from police investigations, to prosecutions, to judgment and punishment. This is
justice as a linear, one-directional, process: there is a clear beginning, the ‘event’ or
‘incident’ which sparks off the search for justice, followed by an understood sequence of
180 Social & Legal Studies 28(2)
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