Offenders' testimonies difficult to absorb - but they offer critical insights

Almost a third of Irish women and more than one in five men experiences sexual abuse in their childhood, with more than a quarter of women and more than one in 10 men experiencing sexual abuse in adulthood.

Yet the vast bulk of sexual assaults, including rape and incest, go unreported.

And of those that are reported to gardai, about eight out of 100 cases result in a conviction - that leads to a staggering amount of abusers in our midst who are never held to account.

Something is seriously wrong: in 1977, 73pc of reported rape cases were prosecuted.

But despite increased awareness of and increased reports of sexual violence, that prosecution rate had fallen to just 20pc in less than 20 years.

It is widely acknowledged that the criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with sexual violence, its causes and its devastating legacy.

Even those victims who stay the course up to and including conviction feel isolated and revictimised by an adversarial trial process that consigns them to the status of a mere witness for the State.

Unsurprisingly, many of those victims have questions they need answering, wanting to know why they were targeted and what motivated their abuser to commit such intimate acts of violence against them.

The voice of the victims who spoke to the UCD-led research study into restorative justice was harrowing. But it was fascinating to listen to the voices, one that is rarely heard, of sexual offenders themselves.

Some 23 offenders, including several jailed for life for grave sexual crimes, spoke of their experience of their crimes, the criminal justice system and the impact of their offending on their victims and their own families.

The men spoke of how the adversarial nature of criminal investigations and trials placed them on the defensive; any attempt to right their wrongs curbed by a system that requires them to remain silent or else punished for their honesty and co-operation.

Critically, they offered insights into what led them to offend.

Their testimony is difficult to absorb, but the voice of offenders must be heard if we are to root out sexual violence.

For society to come to terms with sexual violence, most of it perpetrated by someone known to the victim, we have to have a better understanding of what motivates those who commit such crimes.

That is why the proposal to offer restorative justice schemes to victims of sexual violence, where they are open to it, has a lot to offer.

Sexual violence, which is home to many types of offences and offenders, is a cancer. And to eliminate or reduce its prevalence, we have to understand and educate ourselves about its causes, impact and outcomes.

A commitment by the Government for a SAVI style report to be produced every three to five years is vital.

So too are ongoing reforms to the criminal justice system.

But the law can never truly meet victims' needs and that is why any alternative that helps validate their terrible experience and hold their abusers to account deserves serious consideration.