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This article reports data from interviews with 66 professionals working across safeguarding, health, criminal justice and specialist domestic abuse services exploring their views about older victims' experiences of domestic abuse. The findings reveal that older victims, despite embodying many of the criteria of Christie's ideal victim, are not ideal enough as they fail to conform to the stereotype of the young, female victim of intimate-partner abuse. Similarly, their perpetrators, whether older partners or younger sons/other family members, fall short of the necessary criteria to be seen as legitimate offenders—they are not quite ideal—meaning domestic abuse against older adults is frequently repackaged as a health issue, with significant implications for professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One year after the first COVID lockdown the backlog at the Magistrates' and Crown Courts together totalled approximately half a million cases. This article reports on the impact of court delays on domestic abuse victims using data from the ESRC-funded 'Shadow Pandemic' project. Using this data as illustrative, the paper goes on to discuss the causes of delays in all criminal cases, challenging the assertion that COVID caused the backlog. Instead, the paper contends that austerity measures have been the underlying cause with COVID merely extending the scale of the crisis. The paper then questions whether post-COVID recovery plans are realistic, particularly in relation to any increase in remote hearings and out of court disposals. It concludes that a more fundamental shift needs to take place in dealing with criminal cases to enable speedier and more effective access to justice for victims of all crimes including domestic abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2015, the criminal offence of coercive control was introduced in England and Wales. Whilst, in this legislation, this concept is presumed to be gender-neutral, there is widespread agreement that coercive control is gendered. Using empirical data gathered in one police force area in the South of England, this paper offers an exploration of the feasibility of the extent to which existing risk assessment practices and understandings of risk embedded within them, can incorporate the phenomenon of coercive control. The findings highlight concerns about gender-blind, incident-led (rather than process-led) approaches to assessing risk when these approaches are set against victim/survivor concerns. These concerns highlight the inherent problems embedded in the contemporary gender-blind embrace of the concept of risk as assumed in practices of risk assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing international interest in translating Stark's concept of coercive control into criminal justice policy and practice. In December 2015 an offence of coercive control was introduced in England and Wales. This paper offers an empirical investigation of the problems and possibilities associated with the translation of this offence into practice in one police force area in England. The findings offer some scope for optimism in response to patterns of abuse, but they also support the view that the current gender-neutral version of the legislation requires revision; there is a need for greater resourcing and training to improve understandings of the nature and impact of coercive control at all points of contact within the criminal justice process and finally, it remains the case that effective responses to domestic abuse need to be genuinely holistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a rising criminological interest in the numbers of British veterans in the criminal justice system and the criminogenic context of the Iraq conflict, a concern to understand the experiences of modern soldiers is largely hidden from the criminological and victimological gaze. This paper addresses this issue by presenting data from interviews with British military veterans and considers their ‘unknowable’ experiences of war in a framework of victimological otherness, including experiencing, perpetrating and witnessing conflict. Given the masculine connotations associated with ‘soldiering’ and presumptions of vulnerability conjured by the word ‘victim’, imagining the ‘soldier as victim’ is challenging. Here, we offer an insight into this ‘victimhood’ by analysing the ‘common place’ experiences of British soldiers during the conflict in Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the events of 11 September 2001, terrorism has been the subject of intense media interest, political dialogue and public scrutiny. Through well publicized discussions about its constitution and consequences, the ‘new terrorism’ has been open to heavy institutional construction. Yet, criminological incursion into the debate about ‘new terrorism’ has so far been relatively limited. This article seeks to directly address this lacuna by employing two distinct theoretical perspectives on risk and demonstrating how each can aid our understanding of the manufacture of the terrorist threat. The risk-society thesis proposed by Beck is employed to examine the novel features of ‘new terrorism’, including the deployment of hi-tech weaponry, the reproduction of catastrophic effects and the changing geography of danger. Through the Foucauldian looking glass of governmentality, we inspect the means through which risk is rendered thinkable, the discursive construction of terrorism and the intensification of a wider culture of surveillance and control. Our application is governed by two key objectives. First, we wish to critique the ways in which the terrorist threat is being discursively and materially shaped by law and order institutions. Secondly, we wish to explore the possibility of setting a criminological agenda that is both inclusive of and responsive to current concerns about the management of ‘new terrorism’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report is part of a wider study conducted on behalf of a victim support scheme on Merseyside. Part of that study was concerned with examining the involvement of the scheme in a reparation project. This was examined from the point of view of a sample of the victims who passed through the scheme, the workers in the scheme, and the wider community. On this basis, some suggestions are made concerning reparation projects and their involvement with victim support schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article praises the outgoing editor of the "British Journal of Criminology." He notes that the editor ensured that the standards of the journal were maintained. He states that the editor worked hard in promoting the journal at every opportunity available to her. He reveals that the editor gave presentations at congresses to promote the journal.