By The University of California Digital Investigations Network

In January 2023, the University of California Digital Investigations Network (UC Network) received a Public Interest Technology University Network grant to institutionalize and expand the UC Network to support frontline environmental defenders. During the first phase of the project, in collaboration with Cultural Survival, an organization that advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures and political resilience, students in the UC Network conducted an open source investigation (OSI) into the deaths of 13 murdered Indigenous land defenders in Brazil, and produced a report documenting the circumstances surrounding their deaths (also available in Portuguese). During the second phase of the project, we focused on developing a broader understanding of how OSI methods can be used to document environmental harms globally, and how OSI is being used in environmental harm research, advocacy and litigation. We conducted a literature review and case law analysis, and convened a meeting with leading several experts who are using OSI in their work, and conducted individual consultations with others. This brief report is an outcome of phase two of our project. In addition, environmental exploitation often goes hand in hand with human exploitation. Indigenous communities are at the forefront of land defense worldwide as their land is often targeted by state and corporate actors through agriculture, fishing, logging, and mining and the extraction of other resources. For example, the Brazilian human rights group Conselho Indigenista Missionario reported the killing of 795 Indigenous land defenders between 2019 and 2022 under former president Jair Bolsonaro. Those engaged in seeking accountability for environmental harms should consider the use of OSI tools to complement more traditional research methods and thoroughly document the ways in which land, peoples and communities have been impacted by extractive, pollutive, and degrading practices.   

Berkeley: The University of California Digital Investigations Network, 2024.   10p.

By Ajeng Larasati and Marcela Jofré 

Since the adoption of the Second Protocol to the ICCPR in 1989, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, a total of 90 countries have ratified the international treaty with 12 of them joining this international commitment in the decade between 2014 and 2023. Coupled with national and international civil society activism, the strong push towards abolition contributed to the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes in 14 countries, and for ordinary crimes in 5 other countries between 2014 and 2023. Unfortunately, these positive developments were not mirrored by parallel progress towards abolition of the death penalty for drug offences specifically. Of those countries which abolished the death penalty for all or ordinary crimes, none had the death penalty for drug crimes in the books; and of those which reduced the list of crimes to which the death penalty could be imposed, only one did so for all drug offences, namely Pakistan, in 2023. According to HRI’s Global Overview 2023, 34 countries and territories still have the death penalty for drug offences in the law. Known drug-related executions remain high; they accounted for roughly 42% of total executions in 2023. This is despite international advocacy and an increasing engagement by the United Nations (UN), international bodies, as well as civil society to move towards the abolition of the death penalty. For example, in 2019, the UN Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment Number 36, which provides authoritative guidance on the interpretation of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and clarifies standards on the use of the death penalty according to international law. Among other things, the General Comment also elaborates on the irrevocability of the abolition of the death penalty for those countries that have already abolished it and explicitly mentions that drug offences “can never serve as the basis” for the application of the death penalty. There has also been widespread recognition of the many human rights violations associated with its application. Special Rapporteurs and other UN mechanisms have regularly monitored and reported on the application of the death penalty and human rights violations experienced by people facing or sentenced to death, including violations of a fair trial and due process and freedom from torture and ill-treatment. Leveraging HRI’s unique expertise in this field, this report will analyse how the landscape of the death penalty for drug offences has shifted in the last decade. This report builds on the pioneering work HRI has been doing since its first ‘The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview (‘Global Overview’) in 2007, which analyses the main trends regarding people on death row9 , death sentences and executions for drug offences, as well as key developments at national and international level in the last decade, between 2014 and 2023

London: Harm Reduction International, 2024  46p.

By Jamal Barnes, Mostafa Mahmud Naser & Joshua Aston

It is widely recognised that migrants and irregular migrants are at risk of modern slavery and slavery-like practices worldwide. As migrants and irregular migrants make their way across state borders, or reach their destination countries, they have been victim to practices such as forced labour, exploitation, wage theft, torture and inhuman treatment and sexual servitude, among other practices. Australia is no exception, with just under 300 cases of modern slavery reported to the Australian Federal Police between 2021 and 2022. Although Australia has acted to stop slavery and slavery-like practices, it has focused on a law enforcement response, ignoring the role that laws and policies play in contributing to modern slavery in Australia. This article adopts a vulnerability approach to modern slavery, examining how legal, policy, institutional and structural factors within Australia contribute to exacerbating the vulnerability of migrants and irregular migrants to modern slavery and slavery-like practices. Utilising a vulnerability framework not only moves beyond the law enforcement approaches taken by the Australian government, but sheds important light on the need for policy, legal and institutional reform to effectively combat modern slavery in Australia and ensure there is redress and justice for its victims.

Australian Journal of Human Rights, Volume 29, 2023 - Issue 1

By Robert Post

The 1974 Woodward Committee Report at Yale University is regarded as an “authoritative” and “timeless” defense of freedom of speech on university campuses. The Report was commissioned by Yale President Kingman Brewster after student protests prevented Stanford physicist William Shockley from speaking on campus in response to the invitation of a student group. Students objected to Shockley’s racist views. The Report argues that free expression is the “central purpose” of a university, and that therefore speakers’ rights should take precedence over considerations of respect and civility. The Report asserts that the rights of speakers should be “unfettered.” The Report is throughout influenced by the First Amendment opinions of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

This article argues that the Woodward Report fundamentally confuses freedom of speech and academic freedom. In the American constitutional tradition, freedom of speech is a speaker-oriented right whose purpose is to ensure that “authority . . . is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.” Because the First Amendment stands as the guardian of American democracy, every person enjoys an equal constitutional right to participate in the formation of public opinion. For First Amendment purposes, speech is the medium within which self-government transpires, and so content and viewpoint discrimination is forbidden.

Speech in universities, by contrast, has a very different structure. Speech is not about democracy or self-governance. It is instead the medium within which universities seek to achieve their twin purposes of research and education. These purposes cannot be achieved unless speech is both free and disciplined. This odd combination is embedded in the framework of academic freedom, which both guarantees faculty and students liberty to speak their minds and yet simultaneously subjects that expression to rigorous forms of evaluation and judgment.

In universities, speech that facilitates research and education is protected, but speech that undermines research and education is not. Certain kinds of civility are essential for education, which is why academic freedom prohibits faculty from verbally abusing students. This article denominates this kind of civility adverbial civility, because it concerns the treatment of persons. Other kinds of civility, however, may be inconsistent with education, because it is used as a reason to shut down rational engagement with ideas deemed hateful and obnoxious. This article denominates this kind of civility adjectival civility, because it concerns the character of ideas under discussion.

Academic freedom requires adverbial civility, but it may be inconsistent with adjectival civility. The Woodward Report misses this essential distinction because it focuses on the rights of speakers instead of carefully analyzing the educational mission of universities. If, as seems to be the case, most major universities regard their undergraduate education as oriented to preparing students to become democratic citizens, it is essential for universities to teach students democratic tolerance, which is to say the ability rationally to engage the ideas of peers, even if those ideas are hateful or obnoxious. On this account of the purpose of a university education, adjectival civility cannot be a reason to prevent speech.

A correct analysis of the Shockley incident at Yale does not turn on Shockley’s right to speak, because Shockley had no such right, but instead on Yale’s educational objectives in dealing with its students. By focusing narrowly on First Amendment rights of free speech, the Woodward Report entirely misses this dimension of the problem. It fails to illuminate what lessons Yale should be teaching its students and the implications of those lessons for Yale’s response to the suppression of Shockley’s speech.  

By Abigail Hean

The termination of parental rights refers to the permanent, legal severance of any rights, relationship, or privileges between a parent and child. In the age of mass incarceration in the United States, more and more parents are seeing their rights involuntarily terminated as a result of their incarceration, making it one of the gravest and yet simultaneously least-discussed collateral consequence that comes with a criminal conviction and sentence to imprisonment. For example, national data revealed that 32,000 incarcerated parents had their parental rights involuntarily terminated from 2006 to 2016, many of whom had no allegations of unfitness prior to incarceration. In fact, a parent who was incarcerated but had never been accused of child abuse or neglect was more likely to have their parental rights terminated than one who had physically or sexually abused their children.

Because of the undeniable racial and socioeconomic disparities that exist in our criminal justice system, the link between incarceration and termination of parental rights is especially concerning. On their face, child welfare laws purport to balance the interests of parents and children. However, these procedures fail to adequately protect incarcerated parents. The child welfare system disproportionately affects poor parents of color, threatening the long-term lives of their children and the stability of communities of color, while perpetuating racist and classist prejudices. To correct this problem, scholars have suggested both practical solutions and legal reforms, such as heightening the burden of proof and repealing federal legislation. However, rather than rewrite the laws, this article suggests that advocates work to reframe the idea of a child's best interests to more seriously consider the importance of family unity, especially for families of color and those of low socio-economic status.

Part I of this article will discuss the high rates of termination of parental rights among incarcerated parents and the role of race and poverty in these cases. Part II will review the laws which currently set incarcerated parents up for failure, including the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 and, using Wisconsin as a case study, the state statutes which are often used against incarcerated parents. Finally, Part III will examine the false dichotomy of family unity and the child's best interest, which has been created to perpetuate racism, classism, and paternalism in our legal system, despite evidence that family unity and a child's best interests are actually interrelated. This article will then recommend a few ways for advocates and judges to reframe the idea of the child's best interests to better preserve family unity.

 45 Children's Legal Rights Journal 1 (2024)

By Abigail Sloan

Luke Stewart was twenty-three years old when he was killed for being a Black man asleep in his car. Luke was legally parked near a friend’s house in the Cleveland suburbs when two men woke him by knocking on his window. One of the men opened the door to Luke’s car and attempted to forcibly remove him by his head; the second man leaped into Luke’s car and began attacking him. Out of fear, Luke attempted to drive away, but within about one minute, the second man punched Luke, stunned him with a taser six times, and then struck him in the head before shooting him five times, killing him. The two attackers were police officers who never identified themselves to Luke––who was unarmed and did not pose a threat to them. As if Luke’s killing is not tragic enough, when a civil rights lawsuit was filed in response to his death, it was dismissed because of the doctrine of qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that even though a jury could find that the officer’s decision to shoot Luke had violated his constitutional rights, and that “the use of deadly force was unreasonable,” the officer could not be held liable. Qualified immunity holds officers liable only in situations where they have violated someone’s clearly established rights, and because a case with these exact facts has never been considered in court, the right for Luke to not be killed while asleep in his car had not been “clearly established.” The police department did not discipline the officer for his actions, and he was completely shielded from civil liability. Luke’s mother, who filed the lawsuit on his behalf, attempted to appeal the Sixth Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court, but the Court declined to take the case, meaning Luke and his family will never see justice. Police officers’ use of deadly and excessive force leads to the violent, public, and horrific killing of thousands of Black men, women, and children––Luke’s story is far from unique. The reality is that Luke became yet another victim of a violent and oppressive American regime that has failed to rectify hundreds of years of calculated attacks on Black lives—Luke was lynched. Today’s perpetrators are not the same masses of self-appointed vigilantes, but rather they are police officers who hide behind their badges and the ever-powerful blanket of qualified immunity. Lynchings no longer resemble mobs hanging Black men and women from trees, but they continue to remain a violent act of terror against Black Americans.

37 Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development 49 (Fall, 2024)

College campuses across the country celebrate their legacies of creating free speech guarantees following student protests from the mid-1960s to early 1970s, even though colleges had minimal tolerance of such protests at the time. As part of the New Left’s vision for a different society, students, sometimes joined by faculty, demanded an end to the Vietnam War and war industry research, fought for Black and ethnic studies departments, and protested urban renewal plans that displaced Black working-class communities. We are experiencing another transformative moment. Lawmakers and other stakeholders pressure university administrators to act against students or face funding cuts. Police repression follows, escalating into violence. Universities create or enlarge their own police or security forces in response, while also expanding codes of conduct to quash disruptive protest activity. This Symposium Piece traces the throughlines between university responses in the past and today. This Piece also provides three features of policing campus protests. First, campus police and administrators engage in political surveillance, monitoring the political activity of the campus community, which enables universities to sanction students and faculty through campus codes of conduct and refer them for criminal prosecution. Second, police and administrators network with local and federal law enforcement agencies to share information. Third, police act formally and informally as part of the disciplinary process within universities to sanction and control protests. This Piece ends with contemporary and historic examples of university leaders who have avoided police repression as a response to student dissent and instead chosen negotiation. 

Colum. L. Rev. 1277 (2025); UCLA School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 25-34

By Rebecca E. Zeitlow

The United States Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overruled decades of reproduction rights protections, established in Roe v. Wade. Dobbs has resulted in a new legal landscape, where the scope of people’s ability to exercise reproductive autonomy depends on the state in which they live, and their ability to travel across state borders. Without the precedent of Roe to stop them, states have begun enacting severe restrictions on abortion rights. People seeking reproductive rights today will play a leading role in shaping those rights, not by filing lawsuits but through their “ordinary acts,” crossing state borders in search of abortions. This post-Dobbs landscape is reminiscent of the pre-Civil War era, when fugitives from slavery crossed state borders in search of their freedom. Fugitives from slavery could not have succeeded without the help of their allies on the ground, who engaged in civil disobedience and provided clandestine support, aiding fugitives in their travels through the Underground Railroad.  People seeking abortions, like fugitives from slavery before them, are engaged in what I call “transgressive constitutionalism,” making rights claims with their bodies and their actions. Like fugitives from slavery, people seeking abortions are transgressing not only state borders, but also the line between legality and illegality, to enforce a constitution of liberation, bodily autonomy, freedom of movement, and freedom of expression.  

5 N.C. CVL. RTS. L. REV. 105 (2025). 

By Sarah J Summers.

From the introduction:

Sentencing law and theory is closely bound up with the justification of punishment. 1 It is thus unsurprising that sentencing theory is generally perceived as falling squarely within the domain of moral philosophy. 2 Much of the debate has focused on whether retribution or consequentialist notions of deterrence or rehabilitation should serve as the principal aim on which the sentencing system is based. There are numerous articles by proponents of the various theories explaining why their theory should provide the primary basis for the determination of the sentence. 3 The importance of the moral philosophical discussion transcends national boundaries. Despite considerable diversity in the legal cultures and traditions of the various legal systems, ‘[p]rinciples of uniformity and retributive proportionality are now recognised to some extent in almost all systems, but sentences in these systems are also designed to prevent crime by means of deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation’.4 Whereas broadly ‘correctionalist’ accounts of punishment underpinned the penal welfare model of punishment for much of the twentieth century, 5 the ‘just deserts’ movement 6 of the 1980s was in line with a transfer of focus away from the individualized treatment of offenders and towards a vision of punishment which not only favoured a more standardized approach to the treatment of offenders, but which also expressly legitimized retributivist penalties and practices…..

London Oxford. 2022. 280p.

Bethany Jo Murray & MarySue V. Heilemann

In May 2020, Minneapolis became the epicenter of a global movement challenging entrenched anti-Blackness and police violence after the murder of George Floyd, leading to demands to defund police departments and redistribute police officers’ mental health-related responsibilities to social workers. These events foregrounded dialogue about anti-carceral social work, a nascent area of social work. While empirical studies related to anti-carceral social work are lacking, this study addresses the gap by focusing on an episode in the Minneapolis Sanctuary Movement, a community-led effort to shelter hundreds of unhoused residents displaced by the National Guard during mass protests in 2020. Using constructivist grounded theory, intensive interviews with 17 organizers and volunteers were conducted centered on crisis relief efforts to create a shelter in a hotel in Minneapolis and challenges that surfaced. Results led to development of a grounded theory: Supporting Unhoused Residents in Minneapolis 2020: A Complex Path of Disillusionment.

Journal of Community Practice, Volume 32, 2024- Issue 4

Edited by Irene Watson

For more than 500 years, Indigenous laws have been disregarded. Many appeals for their recognition under international law have been made, but have thus far failed – mainly because international law was itself shaped by colonialism. How, this volume asks, might international law be reconstructed, so that it is liberated from its colonial origins? With contributions from critical legal theory, international law, politics, philosophy and Indigenous history, this volume pursues a cross-disciplinary analysis of the international legal exclusion of Indigenous Peoples, and of its relationship to global injustice. Beyond the issue of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, however, this analysis is set within the broader context of sustainability; arguing that Indigenous laws, philosophy and knowledge are not only legally valid, but offer an essential approach to questions of ecological justice and the co-existence  of all life on earth.

Oxford; New York Routledge, 2017. 236p.

By Sara  De Vido 

Violence against women is characterised by its universality, the multiplicity of its forms, and the intersectionality of diverse kinds of discrimination against women. Great emphasis in legal analysis has been placed on sex-based discrimination; however, in investigations of violence, one aspect has been overlooked: violence may severely affect women's health and access to reproductive health, and State health policies might be a cause of violence against women. Exploring the relationship between violence against women and women's rights to health and reproductive health, Sara De Vido theorises the new concept of violence against women's health in international law using the Hippocratic paradigm, enriching human rights-based approaches to women's autonomy and reflecting on the pervasiveness of patterns of discrimination. At the core of the book are two dimensions of violence: horizontal 'inter-personal', and vertical 'state policies'. Investigating these dimensions through decisions made by domestic, regional and international judicial or quasi-judicial bodies, De Vido reconceptualises States' obligations and eventually asks whether international law itself is the ultimate cause of violence against women's health.

Manchester UK: Manchester University Press, 2020.

By Sabina Garahan

This book is a ground-breaking study of how the European Court of Human Rights interprets Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to liberty and security. The right to liberty is a fundamental provision that is enshrined not only in the Convention but in all major human rights treaties. Despite this, Article 5 remains both a largely underdeveloped and unexplored area of European human rights law. The work aims to fill this gap by presenting an original framework for the progressive interpretation of the right to liberty. It is argued that the Court has not made use of opportunities to evolve Article 5 standards, resulting in a weakening of protections against arbitrary detention. This book’s original framework for the progressive interpretation of Article 5 identifies and addresses gaps in the protection of vulnerable groups of detainees, including in areas of growing concern across the European human rights space. These include individuals held pre-trial, as children, in immigration detention, following protest, or as a result of their political dissent or human rights activism. The volume outlines the normative justifications for an evolutive approach to Article 5 and elaborates how a dynamic interpretation could be enacted in practice, including by reference to original interview data and insights from European Court of Human Rights judges. This book will serve as a key point of reference for anyone researching or working on detention and the right to liberty across the Council of Europe and beyond.

London; New York: Routledge, 2025. 240p.

By Peter Kempees

The European Convention on Human Rights is now crucial to decisions to be taken by the military and their political leaders in ‘hard power’ situations – that is, classical international and non-international armed conflict, belligerent occupation, peacekeeping and peace-enforcing and anti-terrorism and anti-piracy operations, but also hybrid warfare, cyber-attack and targeted assassination. Guidance is needed, therefore, on how Convention law relates to these decisions. That guidance is precisely what this book aims to offer. It focuses primarily on States’ accountability under the Convention, but also shows that human rights law, used creatively, can actually help States achieve their objectives.

Leiden: Nijhoff, 2020. 

Edited by Alice Panepinto, Bana Abuzuluf, Ahma Damara, Brendan CiarÁn Browne, Munir Nuseibah, and Triestino Marinello

This open access edited collection is the first book-length academic publication on the Palestinian Bedouins at risk of forced displacement in the Central West Bank and Greater Jerusalem area. At its core are two questions: firstly; what are the humanitarian vulnerabilities they face and how are they produced/constructed? And secondly, how does protracted impunity for international law violations drive humanitarian protection risks for them? It interweaves international law, community-based empirical research and interdisciplinary perspectives, to offer the broadest possible framework for understanding these complex and complicated questions. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. 223p.

Edited by Adrian Di Giovanni and Luciana Bercovich

This book investigates grassroots, community-led justice strategies – known as legal empowerment – being used to promote the human rights of people living in informal settlements in the Global South. Residents of informal settlements, also known as slums or favelas, encounter a complex array of human rights violations; from systemic discrimination by public officials, to threats to physical security from forced evictions, or arbitrary arrests, to a lack of access to basic services such as housing, water, sanitation, and education. This book shows how grassroots justice organizations around the world are working with residents to defend their rights and secure more dignified living conditions. Drawing on original empirical research across 10 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the book demonstrates how legal empowerment can put residents at the centre of holistic approaches to urban development and confront exclusionary and undemocratic systems of governance. The book encompasses practical recommendations and strategies such as rights-based approaches to informality, participation, community mobilization and litigation. Bridging the gaps between the law on the books and the harsh realities of informality on the ground, this book will be an important read for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, working in realms of social and economic rights, access to justice and urban poverty and development.

London; New York: Routledge, 2025. 287p.

By Grant Miller, et al.  

Globally, coercive labor (i.e., forced, bonded, and/or trafficked labor) and child labor are disproportionately prevalent in environments with weak regulatory enforcement and state capacity. Effective strategies for addressing them may therefore need to align with the private incentives of business owners, not relying on government action alone. Recognizing this, we test a ‘business case’ for improving work conditions and promoting human rights using a randomized controlled trial across nearly 300 brick kilns in Bangladesh. Among study kilns, rates of coercive and child labor are high: about 50% of sampled workers are trafficked, and about 70% of kilns use child labor. Our experiment introduced a production method that increased kiln productivity and revenue, and we test if these productivity gains in turn increase worker “compensation” (including better work conditions). Because adoption of the method requires important changes in worker routines, we also test if providing information to kiln owners about positively incentivizing workers to enhance adoption (and hence business revenue) can lead to better work conditions. We find no evidence that productivity gains alone reduced labor trafficking or child labor, but adding the information intervention reduced child labor by 25-30% without reducing revenue or increasing costs.

  Working Paper No. wp2066 Stanford University, King Center on Global Development, 2024. 58p.

By Madison Lloyd,  Alice Campbell, Amie Carrington, Janeen Baxter

Domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) is a pervasive and growing issue in Australia. Despite government-led national plans to reduce this violence in Australia, there is evidence that rates are increasing and incidences are becoming more severe. DFSV support agencies offer a range of services to support victim-survivors including targeted support to assist clients to leave violent relationships, access housing, legal and counselling support, as well as offering emotional and social support and support to recognise and define abusive and violent behaviour. This paper argues that these services also have the potential to lead to social change at a structural level as suggested by a reverse dominance coalition framework. Inequalities persist when they are normalised and celebrated by society. 'Reverse dominance coalitions' make cultural change possible by establishing large collectives of people who speak out in solidarity, develop alliances and collectively establish expectations of equality.Data from interviews of victim-survivors is used to illustrate the applicability of the reverse dominance coalition framework to DFSV support services. The paper finds that the framework offers a means of understanding how support at an individual level to victim-survivors also has broader transformative power to change societal awareness, attitudes and responses. It concludes that DFSV agencies not only assist DFSV victims to recover and heal but also play a leadership role in promoting broader changes at the community, policy and societal level.
Brisbane: Life Course Centre,  University of Queensland, 2025. 30p.l. 

By Shane Tas

Background : This research project has been commissioned and supported by the Victorian Government as part of its commitment to help further develop effective strategies for preventing violence against women in Australia as articulated in Free from violence: Victoria’s strategy to prevent family violence and all forms of violence against women.  In recent years there has been an increasing focus on masculinities and engaging men in the prevention of violence against women. Men are a significant part of the problem, that is, it is primarily men who perpetrate violence against women. Efforts to prevent this violence must include both a specific conceptual focus on men and masculinities as well as a practical focus on engaging men. This evidence review seeks to build on existing primary prevention knowledge and work by developing a deeper understanding of the links between masculinities and violence against women and ways to engage men and boys in prevention efforts. International and national research shows that dominant forms and patterns of masculinity and, in particular, men’s rigid attachments to these forms, help to drive violence against women. These dominant forms include the particular attitudes, norms, roles, practices and structures that men are expected to conform to, display and participate in. This review provides an overview and critical discussion of the scholarship on masculinities in order to understand the dynamics of contemporary masculinities. Further, it reviews the international and Australian research on men, masculinities and violence against women to help understand the links between dominant forms and patterns of masculinity and violence against women. It draws out the implications of the literature for prevention work by suggesting how challenges to harmful forms of masculinity and the engaging of men in prevention efforts can help reduce and prevent violence against women. Key findings and conclusions In line with existing research on the prevention of violence against women, this review found there are differences in how men and women perpetrate and/or experience violence, with the majority of violent acts – including physical, sexual, financial, emotional and cultural forms of violence – overwhelmingly perpetrated by men. Women who experience structural inequality and other forms of discrimination, such as racism, classism, ableism, homophobia and colonialism, are most likely to experience violence at the hands of men and suffer severe impacts due to this violence. These findings highlight the importance of further developing and implementing work that focuses on men and masculinities in efforts to prevent violence against women. The review found that rather than focusing only at the individual level, or seeking single-factor explanations, prevention efforts require a comprehensive focus on how masculinities and gender inequality operate at all different levels of society. It concludes that prevention efforts should aim to be gender transformative. That is, to actively challenge dominant forms and patterns of masculinity that operate at and across structural, systemic, organisational, community, interpersonal and individual levels of society. A deeper conceptual understanding of masculinities and how they work is therefore integral to prevention work. The research shows masculinity to be a social construction, one that shifts and changes over time and place. Scholars describe masculinity as multiple and situational. The majority of men do not conform to one single model of masculinity, nor do they perform masculinity in the same way across different contexts. Further, masculinity intersects with other axes of identity and social location, such as race, class, sexuality, religion, ability and age, to produce multiple masculinities and different experiences of being a man. This means that dominant forms of masculinity intersect with gender inequality and other structural inequalities and forms of disadvantage to help shape men’s violence against women. This points to a need for prevention work to employ frameworks that emphasise masculinity as being multiple and situational and that capture these complexities. In particular, a focus on intersectionality and on structural-based approaches is important for understanding differences among men and how these differences shape men’s violence against women. Further, this emphasis highlights the limitations of approaches that are essentialist and binary-driven – approaches that rely on, uphold and naturalise the gender binary. Such approaches can impede prevention efforts that seek to challenge gender norms, structures and practices, and can also exclude and negatively impact trans, gender diverse and intersex people. Although masculinity is described as plural and situational, research shows there are dominant forms and patterns of masculinity that men are expected, and sometimes pressured, to adhere to and support. These work to maintain an overall system of gender inequality – that is, the power men as a group have over women as a group – and they also help to drive violence against women. Men who form rigid attachments to the norms and expectations of masculinity are more likely to demonstrate sexist attitudes and behaviours and to perpetrate violence against women – especially when their masculinity is challenged or when they find it difficult to live up to these standards. Men who experience social discrimination and disadvantage may also rely on dominant forms of masculinity, including expressions of aggression and violence, to assert some measure of control or power in their lives. These norms and behaviours of masculinity are central to male peer relationships and can provide ways for men to relate to each other and demonstrate or ‘prove’ their manhood. They are often promoted and maintained in a range of sites and settings. This includes settings in which large groups of men engage, such as male-dominated workplaces or settings where violence and aggression are commonly supported, legitimised and explicitly associated with masculinity – the military or highcontact sports, for example. It is therefore necessary to unpack and challenge these dominant forms of masculinity in order to help prevent violence against women. The research points to and outlines a number of promising approaches, both for the broader prevention work that aims to address masculinities and for initiatives that seek to directly engage men and boys. The review provides an overview of key programs and initiatives as highlighted in the literature and examines the specific strategies and approaches commonly employed by policy makers and practitioners. Many of these are education-based, and are delivered through direct participation programs and curriculums and through media campaigns and initiatives. These aim to increase men’s awareness, encourage reflection, and build their knowledge of and capacity to actively challenge dominant forms of masculinity to help prevent violence against women. The review suggests that well-designed programs and initiatives that effectively engage men and boys to reflect on and challenge dominant forms of masculinity can contribute to the reduction and prevention of violence against women. It notes the limitations of a ‘one size fits all’ approach, and advocates for the use of multiple strategies across all different levels of society. It also recommends a range of different and tailored strategies be used to engage different groups of men in ways that are meaningful and relevant to those audiences. Further, it highlights a number of key settings and contexts that offer opportunities to engage men or boys in different ways – for example, in education, in sports settings, in workplaces, or in men’s roles as fathers. For men who experience structural/social discrimination and disadvantage, strategies should be community-driven, culturally relevant and should avoid alienating these men and/or reinforcing the structures and discourses of discrimination that impact them. The review notes that to date, few initiatives have been comprehensively evaluated. There is a lack of up-to-date data that measures the effectiveness of initiatives which seek to engage men and boys in prevention efforts, particularly in an Australian context. An increased focus on evaluation to measure and monitor the impact of this work is critical. 

Melbourne: Our Watch, 2025. 126p.

By Timothy Cubitt, Sarah Napier and Rick Brown

The live streaming of child sexual abuse (CSA) is a technologically and financially enabled crime type which has proliferated in recent years. This study uses a machine learning approach to produce a proof of concept model for identifying the financial indicators associated with CSA live streaming. This model was successful at identifying those who live streamed child sexual abuse, while making few errors in identifying those who did not. Seven financial risk indicators were identified. Six risk indicators centred on the value of transactions, and one on the age of the individual making the transactions. These findings reveal an important opportunity to use financial transactions as an avenue for detecting and disrupting CSA live streaming.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 718.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2025. 18p.