Soft interview rooms

Secondary victimisation occurs when the victim of a crime suffers further harm not as a direct result of the criminal act but due to the manner in which institutions deal with the victim filing a report or when criminal proceedings are initiated (Parliamentary Inquiry Committee’s Report on Femicides).

The Department of Public Security has always been keen on reducing secondary victimisation risks to the point that, as early as 1988, sexual violence reports were received by qualified teams in dedicated spaces.

Over the years these efforts have developed into cooperation agreements between the Questure – i.e. police headquartes in the provinces – and entities and associations with a view to setting up soft interview rooms.

In order to encourage women to contact the police forces and report violence, the association “Soroptimist International Italia” has drafted the project A room of one’s own aimed at setting up spaces in police premises where particularly vulnerable victims can be interviewed so as to contain any further trauma due to secondary victimisation.

On 25 November 2020, the Chief of Police – Director General of Public Security signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Chair of the association with a view to promoting the above-mentioned project. The memorandum (Pdf) was then renewed on 25 November 2023 between the Director of the Criminal Police Central Directorate and the Chair of the association.

This project as well as other forms of cooperation at the local level resulted in the setting up of 126 soft interview rooms in 93 Questure, either at their headquarters or at police stations. 58 of these rooms and kits for protected interviews were made available thanks to the cooperation with “Soroptimist International Italia”. You can find the interactive map at the following link https://www.soroptimist.it/it/progetti/progetti-nazionali/una-stanza-tutta-per-se-139

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