”Normala reaktioner på onormala situationer”: Hur oviljan att vittna manifesteras inom rättsväsendet.

Witnesses are a vital part of the system of justice and necessary in the process of maintaining law and serving justice. This paper aims to illustrate how witnesses’ concern regarding leaving testimony manifests itself in the legal process and how the police and the judiciary experience and handle this. This paper is based upon a thematic analysis of 12 qualitative interviews with employees of the justice system. The various interviews are analysed using Classical deterrence theory, Håkan Hydéns Normmodell and Roscoe Pounds notion of Law in Books and Law in Action. Together these theoretical approaches will help explaining the underlying factors to why witnesses feel reluctance before testifying and how this relates back to the justice system. Nevertheless, the result concluded a noticeable problem regarding witnesses’ inclination of testifying, especially when witnesses and the perpetrator have some type of relationship or when witnesses fear the legal process in general. Furthermore, both unwillingness, lack of knowledge and aspects of failure regarding the justice system to prevent threats and reprisals against witnesses, were presented as crucial factors of the problem. Hence, this study conclude that the justice system is faulty in the sense of making witnesses they force the duty of testifying upon, to feel safe