Between Harm and Justice

Most sexual assault cases never reach trial. Many never move forward at all.

Between Harm and Justice examines what happens in the space after harm occurs but before justice is delivered, the point where sexual assault cases quietly stall, fracture, or disappear. Drawing on legal analysis, trauma science, reporting data, and lived realities, this book exposes how systems designed to protect instead impose impossible standards on survivors.

Rather than focusing on individual perpetrators or isolated failures, this book investigates the structures that shape outcomes: reporting requirements that punish delay, evidentiary rules that misunderstand trauma, discretionary decisions that favor institutional risk management, and cultural myths that undermine credibility. It shows how cases are lost not because harm was unclear, but because the system was never built to hold it.

Written for survivors, advocates, professionals, and anyone seeking to understand why accountability is so rare, Between Harm and Justice offers a clear-eyed examination of sexual assault within the legal process, without sensationalism, blame, or simplification.

This is not a book about why survivors do not come forward.

It is about what happens when they do.

What readers will find inside:

• Why most sexual assault cases fail long before trial
• How trauma responses are misread as inconsistency or doubt
• Where and how cases are filtered out of the system
• The hidden costs of reporting for survivors
• What accountability requires beyond awareness