Violence against women
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Violence against women · Jun 2012
Characteristics related to protection order use among victims of intimate partner violence.
One increasingly important resource for victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) is domestic violence civil protection orders (POs). Using a transdisciplinary framework, this article critically examines the use of POs by IPV victims seeking shelter services. Previous contact with police and medical professionals are the strongest predictors of having obtained a PO; education level, income, age, race, and having children in the shelter are also significant predictors of having obtained a PO. These findings are discussed in the context of previous research on help-seeking behaviors and the growing body of transdisciplinary research on violence against women.
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Violence against women · Jun 2012
Mobilizing culture as an asset: a transdisciplinary effort to rethink gender violence.
The contested relationship between gender violence and the "culture concept" can be found in the cultural defense of gender violence, gender violence linked to postcolonial retraditionalizations of family life, the underpolicing of gender violence associated with communities labeled as culturally backward, and the overpolicing of activities categorized by human rights advocates as harmful traditional practices. Culture has been used to defend, explain, or excuse gender violence, and seen as a barrier to the elimination of gender violence. Here, however, the authors analyze how culture has been mobilized strategically as a resource in the struggle against gender violence.
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Violence against women · Apr 2012
Sex offender risk assessment: the need to place recidivism research in the context of attrition in the criminal justice system.
Jurisdictions in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia now have laws that enable preventive detention of post-sentence sex offenders based on an assessment of the offender's likely recidivism. Measures of recidivism, or risk assessments, rely on the criminal justice process to produce the "pool" of sex offenders studied. This article argues that recidivism research needs to be placed in the context of attrition studies that document the disproportionate and patterned attrition of sexual offenses and sexual offenders from the criminal justice process. Understanding the common biases that affect criminal prosecution of sex offenses would improve sexual violence prevention policies.
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Violence against women · Feb 2012
Comparative StudyProsecution of adult sexual assault cases: a longitudinal analysis of the impact of a sexual assault nurse examiner program.
Most sexual assaults are never reported to law enforcement, and even among reported cases, most will never be successfully prosecuted. This reality has been a long-standing source of frustration for survivors, victim advocates, as well as members of the criminal justice system. To address this problem, communities throughout the United States have implemented multidisciplinary response interventions to improve post-assault care for victims and increase reporting and prosecution rates. ⋯ Results from longitudinal multilevel ordinal regression modeling revealed that case progression through the criminal justice system significantly increased pre- to post-SANE: more cases reached the "final" stages of prosecution (i.e., conviction at trial and/or guilty plea bargains) post-SANE. These findings are robust after accounting for changes in operation at the focal county prosecutors' office and seasonal variation in rape reporting. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
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Violence against women · Nov 2011
Percentage of named offenders on the registry at the time of the assault: reports from sexual assault survivors.
Sex offender registries were designed to protect the public from convicted sex offenders and future sexual violence. This study determines the percentage of clients seen at a sexual assault agency whose attacker was on the registry at the time the attack occurred. According to case files, only 3.7% of the identified offenders could possibly have been identified as a registered sex offender at the time of the attack. While considering the limitations of this methodology, the findings highlight a significant limitation of registries and support the idea that registries cannot be relied on exclusively to prevent sexual abuse.