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Gender Violence and the Transnational Politics of the Honor Crime

By Dana M. Olwan

In Gender Violence and the Transnational Politics of the Honor Crime, Dana M. Olwan examines how certain forms of violence become known, recognized, and contested across multiple geopolitical contexts—looking specifically at a particular form of gender-based violence known as the “honor crime” and tracing how a range of legal, political, and literary texts inform normative and critical understandings of this term. Although studies now acknowledge the complicated mobilizations of honor crime discourses, the ways in which these discourses move across different geographies and contexts remain relatively unexplored. This book fills that void by providing a transnational feminist examination of the disparate yet interconnected sites of the US, Canada, Jordan, and Palestine, showing how the concept travels across nations and is deployed to promote hegemonic agendas.

Athens, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2021. 221p.

State's Responsibility for International Crimes: Reflections upon the Rosenburg Exhibition

Edited by Magdalena Bainczyk and Agnieszka Kubiak-Cyrul

Although more than 75 years have elapsed since the end of the Second World War, the magnitude of crimes and their long-term effects, caused also by lawyers e.g. in German special courts, make the subject of liability of the state in the context of the Second World War ever topical and valid. Historia magistra vitae est, and the process of learning from history should in this case cover not only the years 1933–1945, but also the entire post-war period. Justice was neither restored nor meted out. One of the reasons for the lack of administration of justice was West Germany's conscious policy of personal continuity after the Second World War. The latter was the topic of the Rosenburg Exhibition – the Federal Ministry of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Shadow of National Socialist Past. The texts grew out of the context of the exhibition and show the far-reaching consequences of War and Nazi crimes in international relations of a legal nature.

Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2021. 226p.

Studies in Global Animal Law

Edited by Anne Peters

This open access book contains 13 contributions on global animal law, preceded by an introduction which explains key concepts and methods. Global Animal Law refers to the sum of legal rules and principles (both state-made and non-state-made) governing the interaction between humans and other animals, on a domestic, local, regional, and international level. Global animal law is the response to the mismatch between almost exclusively national animal-related legislation on the one hand, and the global dimension of the animal issue on the other hand. The chapters lay some historical foundations in the ius naturae et gentium, examine various aspects of how national and international law traditionally deals with animals as commodity; and finally suggest new legal concepts and protective strategies. The book shows numerous entry points for animal issues in international law and at the same time shifts the focus and scope of inquiry.

Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer, 2020. 180p.

Child Protection in England, 1960-2000: Expertise, Experience, and Emotion

By Jennifer Crane

This open access book explores how children, parents, and survivors reshaped the politics of child protection in late twentieth-century England. Activism by these groups, often manifested in small voluntary organisations, drew upon and constructed an expertise grounded in experience and emotion that supported, challenged, and subverted medical, social work, legal, and political authority. New forms of experiential and emotional expertise were manifested in politics – through consultation, voting, and lobbying – but also in the reshaping of everyday life, and in new partnerships formed between voluntary spokespeople and media. While becoming subjects of, and agents in, child protection politics over the late twentieth century, children, parents, and survivors also faced barriers to enacting change, and the book traces how long-standing structural hierarchies, particularly around gender and age, mediated and inhibited the realisation of experiential and emotional expertise.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 218p.

Marriage by Force? Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa

Edited by Annie Bunting, Benjamin N. Lawrence and Richard L. Roberts

With forced marriage, as with so many human rights issues, the sensationalized hides the mundane, and oversimplified popular discourses miss the range of experiences. In sub-Saharan Africa, the relationship between coercion and consent in marriage is a complex one that has changed over time and place, rendering impossible any single interpretation or explanation. The legal experts, anthropologists, historians, and development workers contributing to Marriage by Force? focus on the role that marriage plays in the mobilization of labor, the accumulation of wealth, and domination versus dependency. They also address the crucial slippage between marriages and other forms of gendered violence, bondage, slavery, and servile status. Only by examining variations in practices from a multitude of perspectives can we properly contextualize the problem and its consequences. And while early and forced marriages have been on the human rights agenda for decades, there is today an unprecedented level of international attention to the issue, thus making the coherent, multifaceted approach of Marriage by Force? even more necessary.

Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2016. 359p.

Researching Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Proceedings of the 2nd International Academic Seminar of MAP-FGM Project

Edited by Els Leye and Gily Coene

This volume consist of papers which provide an overview of the presentations at the Second International Academic Seminar: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting at the intersection of qualitative, quantitative and mixed method research. Experiences from Africa and Europe. This seminar took place in June 2017, in Brussels. The contributions in this book focus on research’s crucial role in abandoning female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C), gaps in the research, the need to integrate an intersectionality perspective in the research and evaluations of current strategies for abandoning the practice.

Brussels: VUBPress, 2017. 133p.

Guns and Democracy: Anti-System Attitudes, Protest, and Support for Violence Among Pandemic Gun-Buyers

By Matthew Simonson, Matthew Lacombe, Jon Green, and James Druckman

The last decade has given rise to substantial concern about democratic backsliding in the U.S. Manifestations include decreased trust in government, conspiratorial beliefs, contentious protests, and support for political violence. Surprisingly, prior work has not explored how these attitudes and behaviors relate to gun-buying, an action that provides people with the means to challenge the state. The researchers address this topic by focusing on individuals who took part in the unprecedented gun buying surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a survey with over 50,000 respondents, they find that— relative to other Americans—pandemic gun buyers are more likely to distrust government, believe in conspiracies, protest, and support political violence. Moreover, the authors find that gun buyers who hold anti-government views and attend protests are especially likely to say they bought guns for political reasons. The researchers’ findings highlight a crucial dynamic underlying the recent spike in gun sales with consequences for American democracy.

Evanston, IL: Northwestern University, Institute for Policy Research, 2022. 62p.

Our City, Our Safety: A Comprehensive Plan to Reduce Violence in Chicago

By The City of Chicago

We know a great deal about the nature of violence in Chicago. An overwhelming number of homicides in the city are gun-related and victims are disproportionately African American and Latinx males. Most shootings and homicides happen outdoors in public spaces. In 2019, the median age of homicide victims was 271, and 50 percent of the city’s shooting victimizations occurred within 10 community areas that comprise 15 percent of the city’s population. These neighborhoods are located on the South and West sides of Chicago where poverty, low educational attainment, and poor health outcomes including shorter life expectancy are concentrated. While Chicago’s homicide and shooting numbers have ebbed and flowed in recent years, since 2016, which was the year of the recent peak in Chicago homicides, they have consistently exceeded those of New York City and Los Angeles, two cities larger and more populous. Since January 1, 2016 through August 16, 2020, 2,978 people have been killed and there have been 12,387 non-fatal shooting victims, with 11 percent of them being young people under the age of 18. Although most of Chicago’s shootings and homicides happen in public places, domestic violence is also pervasive. In the United States, 25 percent of women will experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime and at least 35 percent of female homicides are perpetrated by intimate partners. Gun violence and domestic violence, while often treated as distinct, are very much related. Not only are some domestic violence incidents gun

  • violence and vice versa, but we also know that many communities and families experience both. Thus, the approaches to reducing gun violence and domestic violence must be coordinated to maximize impact.

Chicago: City of Chicago, 2020. 108p.

Crime and Murder in 2018: A Preliminary Analysis

By Ames C. Grawert, Adureh Onyekwere, and Cameron Kimble

This report analyzes available crime data from police departments in the 30 largest U.S. cities. It finds that across the cities where data is available, the overall murder and crime rates are projected to decline in 2018, continuing similar decreases from the previous year.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2019. 10p. 

The Legacy of Violence: Building or Destroying Trust? Evidence from Colombia's La Violencia

By María Alejandra and Chávez Báez

This paper examines how trust in institutions and organizations are shaped according to age and exposure to violence during La Violencia. It also evaluates how people's actual trust on different groups (out-group trust) changes in municipalities that were exposed to violence in comparison to municipalities that were not exposed. From 1950's to the mid 1960's, Colombia experienced a period of intense civil wars and conflicts between social classes known as La Violencia. Using evidence on the index of violence built by Guzman et al. (2006) during this period and the Political Culture Survey of 2019, the main objective of this paper is to find whether people trust on State's institutions and people from different groups in municipalities that were mostly affected by violence. To complement the analysis, I analyzed press articles and news by the newspaper El Tiempo from 1950 to 1990 to find how is the perception of the State's legitimacy. After gathering information on 13,413 interviewees, I found that people who live during La Violencia trust less on government institutions and more on certain groups of people (neighbours). Moreover, people over 84 years-old living in municipalities that were exposed to La Violencia trust less on strangers and immigrants than younger people living in the same municipalities. These findings are supported in two mechanisms: deficient government-citizens relationship over time and risk aversion. That is, people who live in municipalities affected by violence during the bipartisan conflict are more risk averse and therefore show less trust on different groups of people.

  • The revision of press articles suggest that there is a tendency of mistrust on State's actions, at least among highly educated individuals.

Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2021. 53p.

Rockford Focused Deterrence Initiative Research Report: Examining Key Program Processes, Services Provided and Outcomes of the Rockford, Illinois Focused Deterrence Initiative

By Amanda Ward, Christopher Donner, David Olson, Alexandre Tham and Kaitlyn Faust

To address escalating street and gun-violence in Rockford, Illinois, Winnebago County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council piloted the Focused Deterrence Intervention (FDI) between January of 2018 and November of 2019. The intervention utilized a “focused deterrence” or “pulling-levers” framework to identify and deter members of the community who are at a heightened risk of committing future acts of street and gun violence. Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice collaborated with Winnebago County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to support the development, implementation and evaluation of the Focused Deterrence Intervention. The present report reviews FDI’s pilot years, with a focus on evaluating FDI processes key to the program design.

Chicago: Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy & Practice, Loyola University Chicago, 2020. 50p.

The Spatial Dimension of Crime in Mexico City (2016-2019)

By Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera

Crime exhibits specific geographical and chronological patterns in Latin American cities, and data on criminal activity allows scholars to trace spatial and chronological patterns down to specific neighborhoods and certain hours of the day in these cities. Over the last three decades, numerous studies have explored the relationship between crime, space, and time, and some studies have even established strong correlations between different patterns of land use and specific types of crimes. Few of these studies, however, have focused on the spatial configurations of criminal activity in cities and the conditions that elicit criminal activity in certain locations. Using recent crime data for Mexico City, this study employs a methodology based on crime location quotients to establish correlations that spatially characterize crime. This information can substantially improve public safety policies applied to urban contexts.

Houston, TX: Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, 2020. 25p.

Property Crime and Violent Crime in Detroit: Spatial Association with Built Environment Before and during COVID-19

By Ahmad Ilderim Tokey

Objectives: This study expands the literature by finding the associations of land use (LU) and road-related Built Environment with property and violent crime in Detroit from 2019-to 2021 and documenting if the relationships have changed during COVID-19. Method: This study uses property and violent crime location data from 2019 to 2021. It then builds Geographically Weighted Regression and Spatial Error Models to formalize the BE-crime relationship. Results: Findings indicate that multifamily LU and liquor stores are related to property crime but not much to violent crime. The retail and office LU proportion, bus stop density, and density of roads less than 40 miles per hour are positively linked with crime rates. Reversely, block groups' median income, population density, and tenure length are inversely associated with crime rates. The local association over the year is consistent for property crime but varied substantially for violent crime. In the low-income neighborhoods, single-family got more associated with violent crime during the pandemic while in a high-income neighborhood, single-family LU revealed a negative association with violent crime. Further, areas, where retail LU had a strong positive relationship with violent crime rates in 2019, attracted more crime afterward. The high bus stop densities downtown got more positively associated with violent crime in 2020-21 than in pre-pandemic time. Conclusion: This study advances understanding related to the BE-crime relationship, sheds new light on street-related BE, and documents the links between BE and crime. For local

  • policymakers in Detroit, this study leaves essential evidence that can help them make an informed move in the later stages of COVID-19.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, Department of Geography, 2022. 38p.

Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry. Second Edition

Edited by Ronald Weitzer

Money, Sex, Danger and Power, it's all in a day's work for the typical sex worker. Sex for Sale provides a window into the world of sex workers, their customers, and the growing sex industry--in America and abroad. A major contribution to our understanding of the sex industry, Sex for Sale is a collection of original essays on sex work, its risks, and its political implications. Covering areas not commonly researched, the book includes studies on telephone sex workers, gay pornography, Nevada's legal brothels, prostitute's customers, police vice squads, actors in the porn industry, lap dancing in strip clubs, and street prostitution. It includes discussion of violence, HIV infection, and drug addiction, as well as legalization, commercialization and criminalization. A unique addition to the literature, Sex for Sale examones all sides of the sex industry--both positive and negative--and will change the way we understand the sex industry.

New York: Routledge, 2009. 384p.

Sex in Cyberspace: Men Who Pay for Sex

By Sarah Earle and Keith Sharp

Sex in Cyberspace offers a bold and provocative, yet sensitively written, account of an under-investigated area of sociological enquiry. While there is a considerable amount of research documenting the experiences of sex workers, very little data exists on their male clientele. The first empirically-based volume on the experiences of men who pay for sex, this work presents a significant new source of data. The book is based upon an extensive study of on-line forums in which both the purchasers of sexual services and the workers themselves can exchange information and views - information which is otherwise extremely difficult to obtain. Sarah Earle and Keith Sharp argue that such sites represent a significant change in the social organization of sex work and those who seek and use the services of sex workers. Shedding new light on men's sexual identity, Sex in Cyberspace makes a major contribution to the study of sexuality.

London; New York: Routledge, 2007. 144p.

The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice

By Guido Ruggiero

Utilizing the records of several Venetian courts that dealt with sex crimes, Ruggiero traces the evolution of both licit and illicit sexuality during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Through this examination of illicit sexuality, Ruggiero sheds light on the institutions, languages, social life, and values not only of this shadow-culture, but also of Venetian society and, ultimately, the Renaissance itself.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 240p.

Sex, Violence and Crime: Foucault and the 'Man' Question

By Adrian Howe

What happens when you sex violent crimes? More specifically, what happens when you make men’s violence against women the subject of a conversation or the focus of scholarly attention? The short answer is: all hell breaks loose. Adrian Howe explores some of the ways in which this persistent and pervasive form of violence has been named and unnamed as a significant social problem in western countries over the past four decades. Addressing what she calls the вЂ˜Man’ question-so named because it pays attention to the discursive place occupied, or more usually vacated, by men in accounts of their violence against women-she explores what happens when that violence is placed on the criminological and political agenda. Written in a theoretically-informed yet accessible style, Sex, Violence and Crime-Foucault and the вЂ˜Man’ Question provides a novel and highly original approach to questions of sex and violence in contemporary western society. Directed at criminologists, students and, more widely, at anyone interested in these issues, it challenges readers to come to grips with postmodern feminist reconceptualisations of the fraught relationship between sex, violence and crime in order to better combat men’s violence against women and children.

London; New York: Routledge, 2008. 248p.

Virgin Or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes

By Helen Benedict

In the last few years, the national press has lavished coverage on several major sex-related scandals: the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, and the Mike Tyson case. With each event came lurid stories pitting either a loose or virginal woman against an unwilling or monstrous man. Such extreme coverage, argues Helen Benedict, perpetuates myths that are harmful to victims of these crimes (and sometimes to the accused). In <em>Virgin or Vamp Benedict examines the press's treatment of four notorious sex crimes from the past decade--the Rideout marital rape trial in Oregon, the Big Dan's pool table gang rape in Massachusetts, the ''Preppy Murder'' in New York City, and the Central Park jogger case--and shows how victims are labelled either as virgins or vamps, a practice she condemns as misleading and harmful. Benedict also looks at other factors that perpetuate the misunderstanding of rape. For instance, she shows how the New York press presented the Central Park jogger rape case as motivated by racism because of its unwillingness to consider rape an issue of gender. She also addresses our inherent language bias, the press's tendency to use sexually suggestive language to describe crime victims, and its preference for crimes against whites. In conclusion, Benedict offers a number of solutions that will help reporters cover these increasingly common crimes without further harming the victims, the defendants, or public understanding.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 320p.

Taking the Crime Out of Sex Work: New Zealand Sex Workers' Fight for Decriminalisation

Edited by Gillian Abel, Lisa Fitzgerald and Catherine Healy

New Zealand was the first country in the world to decriminalise all sectors of sex work. Previous criminal or civil laws governing sex work and related offences were revoked in 2003 and sex workers became subject to the same controls and regulations as any other occupational group. This book provides an in-depth look at New Zealand's experience of decriminalisation. It provides first hand views and experience on this policy from the point of view of those involved in the sex industry, as well as people involved in developing, implementing, researching and reviewing the policies. Valuable comparisons pre- and post-decriminalisation are made, based on research in the sex industry prior to decriminalisation. Presenting an example of radical legal reform in an area of current policy debate this book will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates in criminal justice, political science, sociology, gender studies and social policy as well as policy makers and activists.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2010. 280p.

Sex Fiends, Perverts, and Pedophiles: Understanding Sex Crime Policy in America

By Chrysanthi Leon

From Megan’s Law to Jessica’s Law, almost every state in the nation has passed some law to punish sex offenders. This popular tough-on-crime legislation is often written after highly-publicized cases have made the gruesome rounds through the media, and usually features harsh sentences, lifetime GPS monitoring, a dramatic expansion of the civil commitment procedures, and severe restrictions on where released sex offenders may live. In Sex Fiends, Perverts, and Pedophiles, Chrysanthi Leon argues that, while the singular notion of the sexual boogeyman has been used to justify these harsh policies, not all sex offenders are the same and such ‘one size fits all’ policies can unfairly punish other offenders of lesser crimes, needlessly targeting, sometimes ostracizing, citizens from their own communities.While many recognize that prison is not the right tool for every crime problem, Leon compellingly argues that the U.S. maintains a one-size-fits-all approach to sexual offending which is undermining public safety. Leon explains how we’ve reached this point—with a large incarcerated sex offender population, many of whom will be released in the coming years with multiple barriers to their success in the community, and without much expertise to guide them or to guide those who are charged to help them. Leon argues that we cannot blame the public, nor even the politicians, except indirectly. Instead, we might blame the institutions we charge with making placement decisions and with the experts—both those who have chosen to work in the field and those who have caused its

  • marginalization. Ultimately, Leon shows that when policies intended for the worst offenders take over, all of us suffer.

New York: New York University Press, 2011. 263p.