Until now, it has never been evaluated what concrete and data-based consequences the progressive implementation of courts specializing in gender violence has had. These, launched in 2005, only see this type of crime, but they do not exist in all places and whether a victim ends up in one of them or in an ordinary one will depend on their zip code. Given this, a group of economists has studied what it means to open a specialized one in an area where there is none and the result is that women report more: specifically, complaints rise on average by 28%.
It is the main conclusion that the work shows just published in Jjournal of Public Economics by Jorge García-Hombrados, Marta Martínez-Matute and Carmen Villa, who have been working on the project for five years. To do this, they have used data from complaints filed in the 431 judicial districts from 2005 to 2018 in addition to judicial resolutions, complaints for other types of crimes or protection orders issued. From there, they have applied various econometric techniques to compare judicial parties in which specialized courts have been opened with those that have never had one and reach a “robust result” in all methods, they say.
To prevent the effect from being inferred by other variables, they have compared “twin” judicial parties, that is, they share similar rates of unemployment, population or number of previous complaints. “They are similar parties but differentiated because some have specialized courts and others do not,” says Martínez-Matute, professor in the Department of Economic Analysis of the Autonomous University of Madrid and one of the authors of the study.
Furthermore, because the implementation of the courts, also called exclusive courts – because they only see matters of gender violence – was staggered and began to open in 2005 after the approval of the Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence of 2004, they also compare between the before and after in each judicial district. “What we do is a causal identification. It is not simply taking two series (complaints in both courts) and making a correlation. Here we can talk about causality,” adds the expert.
The results also reveal that the creation of this type of court impacts the number of women who finally decide to file a complaint against their aggressor, but “particularly” in crimes related to minor physical injuries or included in psychological violence such as coercion, threats. or crimes against the integrity and privacy of the victim. The study highlights that this type of violence is usually “the least reported,” which “suggests” that having courts in which “the process is facilitated” can be “effective in encouraging reporting.”
Shorter processes
The investigation, for which the economists also surveyed almost 40 judges and spoke with victim support associations, details the differences that exist between some courts and others. The Violence against Women Courts, to which according to the latest data 36% of women do not have access, are exclusive, that is, they only hear these cases, they tend to be less overloaded and have more human and material resources. In addition, the magistrates are more trained. And also the legal, civil servant and social services personnel and the forensics.
However, in the courts known as mixed, all types of cases are heard, from drug trafficking to mortgage fraud, and they do not usually have adapted rooms or separate circuits between victim and aggressor, for example. The research also analyzes the impact of creating these courts on the resolution time of the judicial process and concludes that this is considerably reduced: thus, in these cases, the period from when a complaint is filed until the conviction, acquittal or dismissal is reached. It reduces between 40 and 69 days compared to those courts that are not specialized.
In this sense, the authors take into account that “the arduous and slow judicial process” is usually one of the barriers identified by women for not reporting and, for all this, they have the hypothesis that the opening of a specialized judicial body “ It can improve the experience” and thus “increase reporting” if the victims “have information” about it. Even so, the fact that cases fall to a specialized center is not in many cases a guarantee of fewer obstacles for victims. In fact, of the 17 judicial bodies that reject the greatest number of protection orders, 12 are of this type.
On the other hand, the authors have not found that implementing a judicial body of this type has an impact on the reduction of murders due to sexist violence, but they point out that the results “should be interpreted with caution” because statistically femicides are “a result of low probability” (654 cases between 2005 and 2018, according to data from the Government Delegation against Gender Violence).
And other reasons?
One of the “concerns” that the researchers faced was whether the increase in complaints could be due to other factors, for example, the real increase in gender violence in a certain place, the rise in unemployment, which according to the available scientific literature can lead to a worsening of abuse or the success of public campaigns aimed at encouraging reporting.
For this reason, they have also studied these elements by adding them as variables to the analysis: “During these five years we have been proposing tests that allow us to control these factors that could influence. For example, we incorporate the unemployment rate and isolate the result from the potential effect and the results remain robust,” explains Martínez-Matute. To analyze, for example, whether what may have increased is violence and that is why complaints are also increasing, the researchers have used data from six rounds of the Macrosurvey against Gender Violence (from 1999 to 2019).
“Taken together, the results reveal that the functioning of the judicial system and its resources play an important role in victims’ reporting decisions and suggest that specialized courts are an effective strategy,” conclude the economists, motivated by interest in “ address a gap” that has existed until now in scientific research.
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