Victim and Witness Retraction and Disengagement: A Systematic Review of Contributing Factors

Abstract

The core questions of concern in this area centre first on trying to establish which factors influence victims and witnesses during investigation or prosecution of criminal cases that result in them retracting evidence or withdrawing from the process and, second, testing whether there are any approaches to this problem that can effectively reduce it. Hence, the overall objective of this work was to conduct an evidence review with the principal purpose of summarizing what is known about the factors that contribute to attrition, in which during the process of investigating a case or preparing it for prosecution, victims or witnesses retract their evidence or withdraw entirely from proceedings. Two supplementary objectives were to take account of the views of different professionals on why retraction occurs and to explore whether any effective remedies have been found for this problem. A third related objective was to identify appropriate steps that could be taken by police, which could be tested on an experimental basis and their effectiveness evaluated. Any such experimental testing would need to be done in a way that did not interrupt the regular flow of criminal justice processing. It was expected that most research on these questions would involve analysis of criminological data or case material or be based on interviews with victims or witnesses. From the outset it was considered that the review would focus on serious crimes of violence or sexual assault committed against adult victims. However, a small number of studies covered a wider age range and included victims under 16. Coverage of issues of disclosure and/or recantation in cases of child sexual abuse per se would have entailed a larger-scale review, as there is a considerable volume of literature on that topic. Moreover, it is interwoven with other complex questions concerning the nature of children's evidence and their testimony which would have entailed a significantly more extensive review.