Submission to Royal Commission: Statutory Victims of Crime Compensation Schemes

This APS submission, made in 2014, is in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Issues Paper 7, which addresses the effectiveness of statutory victims of crime compensation schemes in delivering redress for those who suffer institutional child sexual abuse.

The critical messages in this submission are consistent with the previous APS submissions on Issues Papers 5 and 6, and focus on the psychological aspects of statutory compensation schemes likely to be relevant to the actions that could be taken by institutions and governments to address or alleviate the impact on victims/survivors of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.

While research into the role of compensation schemes remains limited, there is some evidence that a well-managed compensation process can assist survivors to recover. In raising the psychological issues relevant to the process of statutory victims of crime compensation schemes, the APS supports the Commission’s attempts to define systems and processes that minimise their impact on victim/survivors and protect them from additional harm.

View submission