Victimización primaria y secundaria en la violencia sexual contra mujeres adultas en sentencias penales

Resumo

Sexual violence against women is a serious problem in our society, being registered in Spain a total of a total of 93,871 judicial files. The purpose of this paper was to explore indicators of primary and secondary victimization in cases of sexual abuse and aggressions against adult women, as well as relevant crime variables, and their relation with the decision-making. For this, a developed categorical system ad hoc was created, and applied to the content analysis of a total of 50 judicial sentences issued by Spanish courts between 2016-2019. Among the most relevant findings, the high prevalence of psychopathology and diverse symptomatology concomitant to the crime stands out, unlike physical injuries, the least frequent being genital ones. On the other hand, the medical evidence of physical injuries, and the finding of having required psychological and/or psychiatric treatment, were associated with a higher probability of conviction. Likewise, the victim-offender link and its continuity after the complaint are highlighted as factors associated with absolute results. Revictimization indicators, due to the police intervention and judicial system, were identified and were seen to be present in 18% of the cases, and were associated with an absolute direction of the ruling. Additionally, it is worth highlighting the high presence of crimes classified as sexual abuse that correspond to unauthorized carnal access because of the victim’s inability to grant such consent. The limitations and the implications of the study to improve the welfare of the victims are discussed