Relational in/justice journeys: revising procedural justice theory through an analysis of rape and sexual assault victims’ experiences of police investigations

Procedural justice theory has much to say about police-citizen interactions, but the high-stakes, long-duration and quite specific nature of police investigations involving rape and sexual assault victims compel us to re-examine and re-conceptualize some of its core propositions. We draw on data from the largest national survey of rape and sexual assault victims’ experiences of the police in the United Kingdom. We find that negative officer behaviour can signal to sexual violence victims that they are not deserving of agency, connectedness, competence and care. For rape and sexual assault victims, police investigations are relational journeys of (mis)recognition and (mis)affirmation with profound impacts on victim’s personal well-being and subjective access to police safeguarding and criminal justice.