Problem:

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2023), fewer than 8% of people who experience sexual assault report to the police. The main reasons people do report to police are the desires to prevent future harm and to get the person responsible to understand the impact of their actions. However, police don’t always lay charges. In other cases, police lay charges, but the prosecution decides there is not enough merit or evidence. For these reasons and more, many victims-survivors who report sexual assault to police don’t see their cases progress to court.

For victims-survivors whose cases go to court, the adversarial process can be re-traumatising. In NSW, only 7% of sexual assaults reported to the police result in a guilty verdict. Between low reporting, high attrition and low conviction rates, fewer than 1% of sexual assaults result in a conviction in the criminal legal system.

Some victims-survivors who want a criminal conviction don’t report to police because they’re concerned the criminal legal process won’t result in a conviction, and they will be re-traumatised in the process. Others don’t want to pursue a criminal legal pathway because ‘justice’ means something different to them. But for many victims-survivors who don’t want to engage with the criminal legal system, there are few alternative justice pathways available.

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) 2025 inquiry into justice system responses to sexual assault highlighted that, ‘people who have experienced sexual violence have diverse justice needs. They may view access to ‘justice’ as something different from access to the criminal justice pathway,’ and that ‘having a range of justice pathways that can meet these different needs provides greater opportunity for people who have experienced sexual violence to access justice.’

Restorative justice is a trauma-informed and supported process in which a person who has caused harm has to engage deeply with their actions. It can include coming together with the person they have harmed (often with one or both parties’ family members or friends) and professional workers to identify ways to take accountability and repair harm. Crucially, the victim-survivor can voice the outcomes they want, and what accountability and repair look like to them. It’s a process that allows victim-survivors to make clear what behaviour was not okay and why it was unacceptable. It encourages people who have caused harm to evaluate their own behaviours and motivations, identify ways to make positive changes, and connect with ongoing supports and services.

Restorative justice approaches have been around for decades, but their availability has been extremely limited due to piecemeal funding and strict eligibility requirements. For example, most programs require a criminal conviction first, which excludes victims-survivors who don’t want to engage with the police, or for whom the criminal legal process doesn’t result in a conviction.