Care in the courtroom: Trauma-informed specialist courts and the medicalisation of justice

This interdisciplinary project will investigate the role of trauma-informed care and the influence of neuroscience in transforming trial procedures, courtroom environments, and the treatment, questioning and wellbeing of victims of sexual violence. It will do so through an in-depth empirical study, comparing the pilot of Specialist Sexual Violence Support (SSVS) project courts in England with the creation of a trauma-informed Sex Offence Court for Scotland. The Lead Applicant will work closely with victim-survivors and UK government throughout project phases and will help shape policy and best practice while specialist courts evolve and embed. Literature on the nexus between health and justice mainly focuses on defendants, recidivism, and the root causes of crime. This research will make a substantial and timely contribution to theory and praxis by exploring medico-legal interventions aimed at promoting procedural justice and wellbeing for the victims of traumatic crime. It will be the first study to locate the emergence of 'trauma-informed justice' among the literature on alternative justice theories and to interrogate its manifestation in the UK from the perspective of victim-survivors. It will generate new knowledge and stimulate research into the assimilation of medical epistemologies within criminal justice systems, specialty courts and understandings of therapeutic justice.