Yasemin Irvin‑Erickson1*

Abstract This study aims to provide an understanding of the nature, extent, and quality of the research evidence on identity fraud victimization in the US. Specifically, this article reviews, summarizes, and comments on the state of empirical research of identity fraud victimization in the US based on a narrative review of 52 published empirical studies. Studies included in this review suggest that the prevalence of identity fraud in the US has increased over the years and existing account frauds is the most prevalent type of identity fraud. There is a pressing need for more research on the prevalence of identity fraud victimization among minors, institutionalized individuals, and individuals from minority groups; long‑term prevalence of identity fraud victimization; and emerging forms of identity fraud such as synthetic identity fraud victimization. Studies included in this review further suggest that identity fraud risk factors vary based on the fraud type considered. Identity fraud victims can experience a variety of harms. Longitudinal studies following identity fraud victims are essential for reliably estimating the risk factors for identity fraud victimization and the impact of identity fraud victimization on individual victims. The research on services for identity fraud victims is limited and suggests the positive impact of trauma‑informed services for serious identity fraud victims. The overwhelming lack of research on the impact of programs and services for identity fraud victims necessitates more attention from scholars to study the impact of programs, interventions, and services for identity fraud victims on reporting of victimization, prevention of victimization, experiences of victims, and victim‑centered cost benefit analysis of services. Policy and practice implications of these findings are discussed.

Springer Open Access. : 10 February 2024. Crime Science. Volume 13, article number 3, (2024). 26p.

By Heather Wolbers, Hayley Boxall and Anthony Morgan

Drawing on a large sample of female carers living in Australia (n=3,775), this study aims to document and explore children and young people’s experiences of abuse in the past 12 months. We focus on children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrated against their female carers, as well as children being the target of direct physical and emotional abuse themselves.

Overall, a significant proportion of respondents who had a child in their care during the past 12 months said that a child was exposed to IPV perpetrated against them (14.1%). One in nine said a child in their care had been the target of direct abuse perpetrated by their current or most recent former partner (11.5%). Critically, one-third of respondents who experienced IPV said a child was exposed to the violence at least once in the past 12 months (34.8%).

A number of factors were associated with an increased likelihood of children being subjected to direct abuse. These included the characteristics of respondents and their relationships, children and households. We also present evidence linking economic factors, including changes in employment, with the direct abuse of children.

Research Report no. 26. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 72p.

By Hayley Boxall, Samantha Lyneham, Christie Black and Alexandra Gannoni

Sexual exploitation can have significant short- and longer-term impacts on victim-survivors. However, there is currently a lack of research exploring the support needs of sexual exploitation victim-survivors accessing support in Australia, and barriers to support provision. To address this knowledge gap, we analysed case management records for 50 victim-survivors of sexual exploitation in Australia and conducted interviews with 12 victim-survivor caseworkers.

On average, victim-survivors required support across six domains, the most common being financial hardship, mental health, social isolation and housing and accommodation. The most crucial barriers to service provision were systemic in nature. For example, some victim‑survivors on temporary visas were ineligible for government funded medical services, affordable housing or welfare schemes, which placed significant financial burdens on victim‑survivors and support services.

These findings demonstrate that to support the recovery of victim-survivors, services need to be funded appropriately to ensure they can provide holistic wraparound interventions.

Research Report no. 29. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 51p.

By Atkins, Susan and Brenda Hale, Baroness

Women And The Law is a pioneering study of the way in which the law has treated women – at work, in the family, in matters of sexuality and fertility, and in public life. Originally published in 1984, this seminal text is one that truly deserves its 'groundbreaking' moniker. Predating many key moments in contemporary feminist history, it was written before Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble; before Naomi Klein’s The Beauty Myth, with the term ‘feminist jurisprudence’ having only been coined three years earlier. It went on to inspire a legion of women lawyers and feminist legal rulings, from the Family Law Act 1996 to the legal definition of ‘violence’ (Yemshaw v. LB Hounslow 2011). This 2018 edition comes with a new foreword by Susan Atkins and provides a timely analysis of women in law forty years on, how much has changed and the work still left to do

London: University of London Press, 2018. 284p.

Edited by  Sharon Lamb 

It is increasingly difficult to use the word "victim" these days without facing either ridicule for "crying victim" or criticism for supposed harshness toward those traumatized. Some deny the possibility of "recovering" repressed memories of abuse, or consider date rape an invention of whining college students. At the opposite extreme, others contend that women who experience abuse are "survivors" likely destined to be psychically wounded for life.
While the debates rage between victims' rights advocates and "backlash" authors, the contributors to New Versions of Victims collectively argue that we must move beyond these polarizations to examine the "victim" as a socially constructed term and to explore, in nuanced terms, why we see victims the way we do.
Must one have been subject to extreme or prolonged suffering to merit designation as a victim? How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars? Resisting the reductive oversimplifications of the polemicists, the contributors to New Versions of Victims critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the harm of victimization while simultaneously taking on the reactionary boilerplate of writers such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia and offering further strategies for countering the backlash.
Written in clear, accessible language, New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory.

New York; London: NYU Press, 1999. 192p.

By Michelle Oberman and Cheryl L. Meyer

Michelle Oberman and Cheryl L. Meyer don’t write for news magazines or prime-time investigative television shows, but the stories they tell hold the same fascination. When Mothers Kill is compelling. In a clear, direct fashion the authors recount what they have learned from interviewing women imprisoned for killing their children. Readers will be shocked and outraged—as much by the violence the women have endured in their own lives as by the violence they engaged in—but they will also be informed and even enlightened.
Oberman and Meyer are leading authorities on their subject. Their 2001 book, Mothers Who Kill Their Children, drew from hundreds of newspaper articles as well as from medical and social science journals to propose a comprehensive typology of maternal filicide. In that same year, driven by a desire to test their typology—and to better understand child-killing women not just as types but as individuals—Oberman and Meyer began interviewing women who had been incarcerated for the crime. After conducting lengthy, face-to-face interviews with forty prison inmates, they returned and selected eight women to speak with at even greater length. This new book begins with these stories, recounted in the matter-of-fact words of the inmates themselves.
There are collective themes that emerge from these individual accounts, including histories of relentless interpersonal violence, troubled relationships with parents (particularly with mothers), twisted notions of romantic love, and deep conflicts about motherhood. These themes structure the books overall narrative, which also includes an insightful examination of the social and institutional systems that have failed these women. Neither the mothers nor the authors offer these stories as excuses for these crimes.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008. 208p.

By: Felix Reer, Ruth Wendt, and Thorsten Quandt

Several cross-sectional studies have shown that online sexual engagement (OSE) in the form of sexting or sexy self-presentation on social media is associated with an increased risk of experiencing negative consequences, such as online sexual victimization (OSV) or lower levels of psychosocial well-being. However, representative and longitudinal studies are scarce. The current study follows three research goals: (1) examining the prevalence of OSE and OSV among a random-quota sample of 1,019 German Internet users aged 14–64 years, (2) examining gender and age-related differences in OSE and OSV, and (3) examining the longitudinal relationships between OSE, OSV, and psychosocial well-being over a period of 1 year. Our results indicate that OSE and OSV are relatively widespread: 17.7% of the participants had already experienced OSV, 25.3% indicated that they had presented themselves online in a sexualized manner at least once in the past 2 months, and 22.7% showed a certain willingness to engage in sexting. We found higher rates among the younger participants. However, to a certain degree, older individuals were also affected. Male participants showed higher sexting willingness and more often presented themselves in a sexualized manner than females, whereas only small differences related to OSV were found. Concerning relationships with psychosocial well-being, our cross-sectional results showed that OSE, OSV, and mental problems are intercorrelated. Furthermore, we detected a significant long-term relationship between higher sexting willingness at time 1 and more victimization experienced 1 year later, whereas no significant longitudinal associations with lower levels of psychosocial well-being were identified.

Front. Psychol., 07 December 2021

By Violence Policy Center

 Intimate partner violence against women is all too common and takes many forms. The most serious is homicide by an intimate partner. Guns can easily turn domestic violence into domestic homicide. One federal study on homicide among intimate partners found that female intimate partners are more likely to be murdered with a firearm than all other means combined, concluding that “the figures demonstrate the importance of reducing access to firearms in households affected by IPV [intimate partner violence].” Guns are also often used in non-fatal domestic violence. A study by Harvard School of Public Health researchers analyzed gun use at home and concluded that “hostile gun displays against family members may be more common than gun use in self-defense, and that hostile gun displays are often acts of domestic violence directed against women.” The U.S. Department of Justice has found that women are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes committed by intimate partners than men, especially when a weapon is involved. Moreover, women are much more likely to be victimized at home than in any other place.5 A woman must consider the risks of having a gun in her home, whether she is in a domestic violence situation or not. While two thirds of women who own guns acquired them “primarily for protection against crime,” the results of a California analysis show that “purchasing a handgun provides no protection against homicide among women and is associated with an increase in their risk for intimate partner homicide.” A 2003 study about the risks of firearms in the home found that females living with a gun in the home were nearly three times more likely to be murdered than females with no gun in the home. Finally, another study reports, women who were murdered were more likely, not less likely, to have purchased a handgun in the three years prior to their deaths, again invalidating the idea that a handgun has a protective effect against homicide. While this study does not focus solely on domestic violence homicide or guns, it provides a stark reminder that domestic violence and guns make a deadly combination. According to reports submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), firearms are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes.9 Instead, they are all too often used to inflict harm on the very people they were intended to protect.

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center. 2022, 27pg