PhD defence Lara Bergers: Sexual violence and Dutch forensic culture

On Wednesday 2 September, Lara Bergers will defend her dissertation ‘Victims, Perpetrators and the Investigation of Sexual Violence’. In this work, she examines how police and legal professionals created knowledge regarding victims and suspects of sexual violence between 1930 and 1980.

Dutch Forensic Culture

Bergers analyses twentieth-century Dutch forensic culture: the interplay of elements that influences criminal investigations and prosecutions. These include the nature of laws and legal procedures, the professional identity of the actors involved, and the role of the media.

She studies court files and judgments in 218 cases of sexual violence tried by the Utrecht District Court. In doing so, she forms a picture of the ways in which professionals in criminal investigations gathered, assessed, and used knowledge. 

Misogynistic Ideas

The prevailing view in international (historical) literature on sexual violence is that structural sexism and misogyny lead to victims being severely disadvantaged compared to suspects, writes Bergers. According to her, this view cannot be directly applied to Dutch forensic culture in the mid-twentieth century.

Although the misogynistic ideas found in other forensic cultures also circulated within Dutch forensic culture, there appears to have been less room for applying them in practice. Bergers thus demonstrates that the ideas available at a particular time and place did not automatically determine how criminal investigations into sexual violence were conducted.

Prior to the defence, Bergers will give a layman’s talk starting at 12:00.