Male victims of sexual violence and their welfare in the criminal justice system

Previous reviews on the attrition problem of sexual offences in the UK have highlighted how some of the challenges that exist for female complainants could be amplified for men (Angiolini, 2015), as they encounter a series of additional barriers which delay their entry to, and jeopardise their engagement with, the Criminal Justice System (CJS). Researchers have also argued that issues surrounding investigative practices and officers’ responses result in a ‘downstream orientation’of sexual offences, with officers seemingly ‘reluctant to progress “weak” cases to prosecutors, based on their own judgements of the likelihood of conviction’(Hine et al., 2021: 120). However, while the consequences of hostile investigative practices and unsuccessful investigative outcomes are recognised for female complainants (Ministry of Justice, 2021), male survivors’ experiences with the CJS are critically underresearched. This chapter builds on the work of Popay et al.(1998) by examining how men who have experienced sexual victimisation engage with formal services, concluding that their ‘troubles’ are not fully supported. We advance the original text by discussing men’s welfare in the context of the CJS, a setting not considered in the original text. Given the increasing number of male survivors reporting to the police and seeking formal support from specialist organisations, such discussions are desperately needed to inform and advance future policy.