By Megan Rose and Dominiek Coates

 Respectful relationships education and bystander interventions in school and tertiary settings seek to promote health and equal relationships and reduce sexual violence and dating violence experienced and perpetrated by young people, in and out of relationships, by equipping them with attitudes, knowledge and skills to confront violence. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the evidence from systematic reviews in relation to the effectiveness of respectful relationships and bystander intervention programs in school and tertiary education settings.   

Sydney: Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS)  2021. 34p.

By Erin Carlisle, Christine Coumarelos, Kate Minter and Ben Lohmeyer  

The 2017 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) found that although young people have a good overall understanding of domestic violence, particularly its physical forms, there were also some “areas of concern” within young people’s understandings. The NCAS raised concerns about young people’s understandings of:

• the non-physical forms of domestic violence, such as financial and technology-facilitated abuse

• the high prevalence of violence against women in the community

• the gendered nature of domestic violence.

To further explore these findings, the current study unpacked how young people define and make sense of domestic violence. In particular, the study examined how young people distinguish domestic violence from other unhealthy relationship behaviours, how common they perceive domestic violence to be and their understanding of the gendered nature of domestic violence.

Sydney:  Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited (ANROWS), 2022. 114p.

By Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Family, domestic and sexual violence is a major national health and welfare issue that can have lifelong impacts for victims and perpetrators. It affects people of all ages and from all backgrounds, but predominantly affects women and children. The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016 Personal Safety Survey estimated that 2.2 million adults have been victims of physical and/or sexual violence from a partner since the age of 15, 1 in 2 women and 1 in 4 men have been sexually harassed, and 1 in 6 women and 1 in 16 men have experienced stalking. In 2017, police recorded 25,000 victims of sexual assault. This report builds on the AIHW’s inaugural Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia 2018 report. It presents new information on vulnerable groups, such as children and young women. It examines elder abuse in the context of family, domestic and sexual violence, and includes new data on telephone and web-based support services, community attitudes, sexual harassment and stalking. It also includes the latest data on homicides, child protection, hospitals and specialist homelessness services.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019. 162p.

By Carmel Hobbs

In this report you will find pieces of stories of strong young people who together share over 60 years of violence and abuse inflicted by a partner they cared about, trusted and often loved. Their voices are prioritised over other data in the report because the voices of young people who have experienced violence and abuse are sorely missing from research, policy and community-based knowledge about this issue. You will see their voices amplified by the professionals who participated in this project. These workers represent a range of government and non-government services who have direct contact with young people. Teen domestic violence and abuse is reaching epidemic proportions in Tasmania and nationally. Statistical evidence of this is also included in the report, further demonstrating the magnitude of this issue.  

Hobart Tasmania: Social Action and Research Centre, Anglicare, 2022. 168p.

By Emily Leslie and Riley Wilson

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has pushed people to spend more time at home, amidst increased uncertainty and soaring unemployment rates. The best available evidence tells us that these conditions have the potential to increase domestic violence (Lindo et al., 2018; Card and Dahl, 2011). News outlets around the world reported increased reports of domestic violence as the pandemic spread globally during Spring 2020. We use data on calls for service to the police from 14 large American cities to compare domestic violence calls before and after the pandemic began in the United States, relative to trends during the same period in 2019. The pandemic led to a 7.5% increase in calls for service during March, April, and May. The biggest increase came during the first five weeks after widespread social distancing began, when domestic violence calls were up 9.7%. State-mandated stay-at-home orders and school closures came later, suggesting the increase was not only a response to shelter-in-place policies. The increase came across a broad range of demographic and socioeconomic groups, and includes households without a recent history of domestic violence calls.'  

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2020. 8p.

By Alex R. Piquero and Wesley G. Jennings, et al

In March and April of 2020, government leaders began to impose stay-at-home orders to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. This report, by a team of researchers led by sociologist Alex R. Piquero of the University of Miami, was based on a systematic review of multiple studies that compared changes in the number of domestic violence incidents before and after jurisdictions put lockdown restrictions in place.

Findings:

• Based on a review of 12 U.S. studies, most of which included data from multiple cities, shows that domestic violence incidents increased 8.1% after jurisdictions imposed pandemic-related lockdown orders.

• Unlike some early reports on domestic violence trends that relied exclusively on police calls for service, the studies covered by this review also drew on data from crime reports, emergency hotline registries, hospital and other health records, and additional administrative documents.

• While the precise dynamics driving the increase are unclear, lockdowns and pandemic-related economic impacts likely exacerbated factors typically associated with domestic violence, such as increased male unemployment, stress associated with childcare and homeschooling, and increased financial insecurity. Poor coping strategies, including the increased use of alcohol and other substances, may have elevated the risk of abuse.

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  The authors also conclude that COVID-19 left parents and children confined to their homes, cut off from friends, neighbors, colleagues, and others who might have reported signs of abuse and violence and intervened to help potential victims escape violent situations.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2021. 21p.

By Elizabeth A. Sheehy

"Sexual Assault in Canada" is the first English-language book in almost two decades to assess the state of sexual assault law and legal practice in Canada. Gathering together feminist scholars, lawyers, activists and policy-makers, it presents a picture of the difficult issues that Canadian women face when reporting and prosecuting sexual violence. The volume addresses many themes including the systematic undermining of women who have been sexually assaulted, the experiences of marginalized women, and the role of women’s activism. It explores sexual assault in various contexts, including professional sports, the doctor–patient relationship, and residential schools. And it highlights the influence of certain players in the reporting and litigation of sexual violence, including health care providers, social workers, police, lawyers and judges. "Sexual Assault in Canada" provides both a multi-faceted assessment of the progress of feminist reforms to Canadian sexual assault law and practice, and articulates a myriad of new ideas, proposed changes to law, and inspired activist strategies.

Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press / Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2012. 833p.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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  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.

By Chris Greer

Sex crime has become a central issue in public life, and an area of intense public and political concern. Sex offenders have become society's most reviled deviants, a process in which the media have played a key role. Understanding press representation of sex crime, and how and why these are produced, is central to the way sex crime has been perceived, yet little detailed research or investigation has been carried out into how this has happened. Drawing upon the views of both journalists and practitioners, the book also formulates clear recommendations for positive and realistic change, both in the way the press report sex crime and in the way that relevant agencies act as sources in the news production process. It will help promote much needed change within the media and relevant statutory and voluntary organizations.

Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan, 2003. 229p

Edited by D. Richard Laws ahd William T. O'Donohue

Now in a fully revised and updated second edition, this important work provides authoritative scientific and applied perspectives on the full range of paraphilias and other sexual behavior problems. For each major clinical syndrome, a chapter on psychopathology and theory is followed by a chapter on assessment and treatment. Challenges in working with sex offenders are considered in depth. Thoroughly rewritten to reflect a decade of advances in the field, the second edition features many new chapters and new authors. New topics include an integrated etiological model, sexual deviance across the lifespan, Internet offenders, multiple paraphilias, neurobiological processes, the clinician as expert witness, and public health approaches.

New York: Guilford Press, 2008. 642p.

Edited by Gayle Letherby, Kate Williams, Philip Birch and Maureen Cain

This book brings together chapters by academics, researchers and practitioners to analyse how crimes such as sex work, domestic violence and rape and sexual assault have risen up the Government agenda in recent years. For example, the 'Paying the Price' consultation exercise on sex work in 2004, and recent legislation around sex crimes, including the Sex Offences Act (2003). This is a multi-disciplinary, social scientific, pro-feminist collection, which draws upon practice, empirical research, documentary analysis and overviews of research in the areas of sex work and sexual violence. Within Sex as Crime there are two distinct sub-sections: 'Sex for Sale' and 'Sex as Violence', but the broader and overriding link of sex as crime remains a paramount theme that spans the collection. Chapters include discussions of the impact of new regulations on street sex workers, and of street sex work on community residents, the use of the internet by men who pay for sex and men who sell it, sexual violence and identity, sex crimes against children and protecting children online and working with sex offenders. Other chapters explore reasons for such offending behaviour.

Abingdon, Oxon: Willan, 2008. 416p.