国民彩票 legal scholar Dr. Elaine Craig was announced Tuesday (March 19) as one of eight Canadian researchers to receive the Dorothy Killam Fellowship, one of the most esteemed academic awards in the country.
Dr. Craig joins the ranks of just 10 国民彩票 researchers to have received the award since 1969 and is the first from the university鈥檚 Schulich School of Law. Dorothy Killam Fellowships grant $160,000 over two years to researchers pursuing projects of broad significance so they can focus on and accelerate the pace of their work.
For Dr. Craig, the award is particularly significant as it will support her study aimed at understanding why so many sexual assault cases fail to progress to trial, how we can improve their investigation and prosecution, and why reforms to this area of law have failed to achieve many of their objectives.
An unprecedented investigation
To pursue her work, Dr. Craig will study hundreds of closed sexual offence files produced in Nova Scotia over a three-year period ending in 2022. The cases include both complaints that did and did not go to trial. Pursued in collaboration with the (NSPPS), Dr Craig is the first legal scholar in Canada to conduct a study that relies on closed files to gain this kind of empirical knowledge.
Dr. Craig says the project will provide detailed knowledge regarding virtually every stage of the legal process, from the time a sexual assault complainant reports until the point at which their case is over, noting that this is knowledge currently unavailable to the public in any jurisdiction in Canada.
鈥淭here is so much we do not know and, as researchers, we have very few avenues to access many aspects of the legal process. Even when cases reach the courts, the vast majority of sexual offense prosecutions, more than 80 per cent, do not result in reported decisions,鈥� says Dr. Craig. 鈥淲e don't even know they're happening unless they are reported by media sitting in the courtroom.鈥�
In addition to case files, Dr. Craig will interview crown prosecutors and study trial transcripts. She acknowledges the value of the partnership which offers the foundation for the study, saying, 鈥渢his project was designed in collaboration with the NSPPS and is only possible due to a shared interest in better understanding the legal process regarding sexual offences.鈥�
Addressing the justice gap
Dr. Craig notes that there have been decades of law reforms in Canada aimed at eliminating discriminatory stereotypes and practices from Canadian sexual assault law. But she says that the reforms have produced little in terms of increasing rates of reporting and reducing attrition and that complainants continue to experien