With You We Can is an online resource demystifying the police and legal processes for victims of sexual violence while working to improve them. Led by lived expertise, and uniquely informed by advocates, experts and frontline services, we want victims for whom it is safe to report to be empowered to do so, and for all victims to be informed of their options. 

Perpetrators of violence have a reasonable expectation that they will not be held accountable. They hope that victims will feel shamed into silence. Even if they wanted to speak up, victims are fearful of the judicial process. And with good reason…

The police and legal processes can be entirely re-traumatising – not just because they involve recounting assault in detail, but because they take away a victim’s agency, just like it was taken during their assault, just as they have chosen to reclaim it.

The criminal justice system would collapse without the cooperation of victims, and yet victims feel in the dark, out of control and alone as a witness in the state’s case against the perpetrator. Support is limited, impersonal and conflicting. Those tasked with providing answers often don’t have them. Beyond systemic flaws are cultural deficits, where men’s violence against women has been normalised and archaic misconceptions worsen an already isolating process. These problems are amplified for First Nations peoples, people of culturally diverse backgrounds, people reliant on their partner for visa status, people with disabilities and the LGBTQIA+ communities, who have even more reason to distrust the legal process. 

But our answer is not to wait for societal overhaul; we need change now. That victims, upon whom the community relies to report crime so that the state can prosecute to keep us safe, know how to engage with the legal system and are informed of what to expect from it, is the bare minimum. Advocates are pushing from both ends, ground up sex education and top down law reform, all of which will prevent a proportion of sexual assaults in the future. While we join the push, With You We Can is bridging gaps between the police and legal processes to help victims now.

If we create understanding around our criminal justice system, not just for the victims going through it but for the general public who might not otherwise engage, we are better placed to reform it.