Exploration of factors influencing court outcomes in cases involving minors as victims in Ghana

Abstract

Background: The factors that influence positive court outcomes for cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) have been studied in other contexts but very few such studies exist for Sub-Saharan countries. Knowledge of how such cases fare in these court systems is, however, important for a global assessment of such outcomes.

Objective: The study explored the predictive effect of the victim, complainant; offender and offence characteristics, and length of the trial on case disposition and dropout.

Methods, participants and setting: Three hundred and eighty-nine (389) closed court files related to child sexual abuse in Ghana were reviewed and analyzed.

Results: The findings show that the number of court sittings (length of trial) and complainant characteristics predict negative outcomes for CSA cases in Ghana. Specifically, convictions were less likely to occur where caregivers were the complainants (OR = 0.45), and when there were longer court sittings (OR = 0.95). Victim, offender, and offence characteristics, however, did not influence case outcomes.

Conclusions: This study is one of the first studies using actual court data to predict the outcome of cases in CSA in Ghana, and makes recommendations for the support of children and caregivers through the court process.

Keywords: Case outcome; Child sexual abuse; Complainant characteristics; Conviction; Court; Court process; Ghana; Offender; Victim.