The court for sexual offences: perceptions of the parties involved

This thesis evaluates the Court for Sexual Offences in Bloemfontein at the hand of the perceptions of the victims, their families, offenders and professionals involved with this court. The first article is a theoretical orientation to the relatively unique area of sex courts. The remaining four empirical articles discuss the perceptions of the parties involved with the Court. The findings indicate that the victims of sexual offences, their families and the professionals working in the Court and associated auxiliary services, are generally of the opinion that the establishment of specialist sex courts has gone a long way towards ensuring improved justice for victims and decreasing the incidents of secondary victimization during judicial proceedings. However, the Court still exhibits shortcomings in several areas. Furthermore, doubts are expressed with regard to the impartiality of such specialist courts, sentences for sexual offenders are perceived to be ineffectual and the after-care afforded to the victims and their families appears to be very poor. The perpetrators of sexual offences also perceive the Court for Sexual Offences to be slow and inefficient. They were of the opinion that this particular system of courts is inherently biased. The victim's rights are perceived to be overemphasized and the majority of the offenders questioned felt that it was not possible for an individual accused of a sex crime to receive a fair trial in a specialist sex court.