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This paper assesses determinants of habits and prices about sexual work in Germany. The paper alludes to a regional pattern, in particular, in pricing. This pattern varies with the size of cities and across as well as along the former East -- West German border. In particular, the evidence suggests that there is a long shadow of the former Iron Curtain which leads to higher conditional prices in the former East than in the West, in particular, in larger agglomerations such as Berlin. Moreover, there is evidence of habit formation and spillovers within regions, which leads to regionally clustered prices as well as unsafe sex services being offered by sexworkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaslighting, a form of psychological abuse, has received increasing attention in recent years. The current research provides reliability and validity evidence for a new 11-item measure of exposure to gaslighting by a romantic partner: The Gaslighting Relationship Exposure Inventory (GREI). Two studies were conducted with Israeli (N = 509) and American (N = 395) community samples. Participants were involved in a romantic relationship and completed an online questionnaire that included measures of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization, depression, and relationship satisfaction. In both studies, the GREI items loaded onto a single factor of relationship gaslighting exposure. The scale demonstrated metric gender invariance and was reliable in both men and women. Relationship gaslighting exposure was strongly linked with psychological abuse victimization and weakly linked with other forms of IPV victimization, thus showing strong convergent and discriminant validity. Moreover, relationship gaslighting exposure was associated with greater depression and lower relationship quality, above and beyond other forms of IPV victimization. The results support the reliability and validity of the GREI in both men and women, as well as its utility for the study of gaslighting exposure within relationships. The current research highlights that gaslighting is a distinct form of psychological abuse with unique implications for personal and relational well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the Rebel Foreign Fighter Dataset (RFFD) which can be used to expand research on civil war and foreign fighters (FFs). First, it largely expands the previously reported data on the number of FFs that have and continue to be involved in conflicts across the globe. Second, this database disaggregates FFs into the various rebel groups they inhabit as opposed to simply categorizing them as residing within a rebel movement. Third, low, high and best estimates of FFs within rebel groups have been provided as well as providing a novel FF ordinal coding mechanism. These additions allow for more accurate conclusions to be drawn on the effects of FFs on specific groups as well as on the conflict in which they reside. Using the RFFD, the link between FF inclusion and civilian sexual violence discussed in Doctor's study will be re-examined. The new findings show that FF numbers below 1,000 do not have a significant impact on moderate levels of civilian victimization perpetrated by a rebel group and FF numbers below 100 do not have a significant impact on high levels of civilian victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature on victimization looks at the effect of organized violence (OV) on civilian perceptions and behaviour. Yet citizens in countries experience quotidian crime (QC) on a daily basis. QC differs from OV, the former being more isolated, while the latter is more of a collective experience. As such we develop a theoretical framework that explores the effects of both types of violence on preferences for public goods. Victims of OV may prefer welfare public goods for the entire community, whereas victims of QC may prefer security for themselves. We also test the effects of compound victimization on public goods' preferences. We use original survey data from rural Liberia to test our hypotheses and find support for our argument. Our results show the importance of a disaggregated approach to understanding the effects of violence on preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abolishing 'modern slavery' has now achieved international policy consensus. The most recent UK initiative – the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (MSA) – includes amongst other aspects tougher prison sentencing for perpetrators and the creation of an independent anti-slavery commissioner to oversee its implementation. However, drawing on research into forced labour among people seeking asylum in England, this article argues that when considered alongside the UK government's deliberate creation of a 'hostile environment' towards migrants, not least in the Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016, state action to outlaw modern slavery is flawed, counter-productive and disingenuous. We show how the MSA focuses only on the immediate act of coercion between 'victim' and 'criminal', ignoring how the hostile state vulnerabilises migrants in ways that compel their entry into and continued entrapment within severe labour exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online frauds have become a major problem in many countries with millions of victims from a wide diversity of scams committed in full or part online. This paper explores the extent and nature of this problem. Using data from depth interviews with 15 online fraud victims, 6 focus groups with a further 48 online fraud victims and interviews with 9 professional stakeholders involved in combating this problem. The paper explores why victims fall for online scams. It identifies a range of reasons including: the diversity of frauds, small amounts of money sought, authority and legitimacy displayed by scammers, visceral appeals, embarrassing frauds, pressure and coercion, grooming, fraud at a distance and multiple techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most murder victims in a romantic relationship are women but sometimes they will kill their husbands or partners (mariticide). This paper focuses on these rarer cases using a sample taken from the autopsy reports of the Department of Legal Medicine of the University of Milan whose territory includes the municipality of Milan and part of the province of Milan and Monza - approximately four million inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study has been to analyze the moderation role of social support in the relationship between bullying victimization and suicidal ideation in adolescents. For this purpose, 898 Spanish adolescents (M Age = 13.55; SD = 1.26) responded to the Peer School Victimization Scale, to the Scale of Perceived Social Support, to the Spanish Adaptation of School Environment Scale, and to the Suicide Risk Inventory for Adolescents. The results revealed that: (1) Higher levels of bullying victimization had a worse impact on suicidal ideation in females than in males; (2) In general, Family Support was more useful for females in reducing suicidal ideation, but in bullying victimization cases, a greater Family Support for men was more effective in reducing suicidal ideation than in females; (3) Peer Support was more useful for reducing suicidal ideation in females and in students that did not retake a course; (4) Regardless of the analyzed personal characteristics (sex, age and retake a course), teacher support contributes to reducing suicidal ideation. These results have important practical implications in that they allow to observe the relevance of peer and family interactions in learning processes in order to reduce one of the leading causes of adolescent death, as it is the case of the suicidal behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the experiences of secondary victims of wrongful conviction, including the children of appellants and those families suffering bereavement following homicide. Most wives, mothers and children affected by miscarriages of justice continued to suffer from symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder despite the appellant’s quashed conviction and release from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division). In cases where the victim of crime (where alive) and defendant come from the same family the trauma experienced by the appellant and family can be catastrophic, leading to broken relationships and prolonged trauma. This paper will examine the consequences of families’ victimisation and consider those factors that contribute further to their pain. The article will conclude that most secondary victims continue to suffer from their traumatic experiences and that the children of appellants suffer particularly from the injustice of learning to cope with the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of a parent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant discourses regarding concerns with anti-social behaviour in England and Victoria, Australia, reveal counterposed perspectives; the former positioning anti-social behaviour as an issue of law and order and an extension of concerns with crime and victimization, and the latter emphasizing concerns with the vulnerability of the perpetrator. These opposing perspectives inevitably give rise to markedly different policies and interventions. In England, an emphasis on the needs of the victim prioritizes the prevention of particular behaviours, whilst interventions in Victoria seek to address the needs of the perpetrator that are seen to contribute to or result from anti-social behaviour. To illustrate this contrast, the paper highlights the particular effects of these contradictory discourses on young people, and in doing so suggests a need to be wary of the impact of resultant approaches on those who may be most susceptible to committing anti-social behaviour, or to having their behaviour labelled as such. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasing numbers of female victims of violent sexual assaults are being murdered with the aim of concealing the identity of the perpetrator. Proper handling and analysis of evidence is very important in gaining a conviction in many criminal cases. After evidence is collected, due precautions must be taken to ensure that the integrity of the sample is maintained, and chances of contamination are minimised. This paper presents a case study where improper handling of biological evidence led to loss of evidentiary value, and the semen could not be located on the vaginal swabs and victim's garments due to improper preservation of samples. However, the DNA from the nail of a decomposed finger helped identify the victim, and the suspect was apprehended based on the clues given by her family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of US hate crime legislation reveals a significant overall trend involving: (1) the inclusion of a notion of hate motivation on the part of the offender; (2) the provision for enhanced penalties; and (3) the identification of particular victimized groups who are listed in state and federal hate crime statutes. Whether or not a person is recognized as a hate crime victim in US statutes has been shown to be heavily influenced by the strength of social movements based on politicized identities. It is argued that this alignment problematizes the position of victims who are the targets of hate crimes yet who fail to organize on the basis of identity politics, lack political clout, have insufficient moral status, or who see hate crime legislation as an ineffective way of dealing with their particular concerns. This paper examines the barriers to achieving hate crime victim status for persons who are targeted because of their occupations or sexual orientation. The specific examples I will use are doctors and other workers in abortion clinics, sex workers and paedophiles. These widely disparate groups have been selected as examples to highlight some of the moral status, politicized identity and social movement and lobbying strength issues that are currently involved in being recognized as a victim of hate in the US. It is argued that Australia should not proceed down the track of introducing hate crime legislation. Hate crime legislation is the source of serious social disquiet and acrimony in the US. There are inequities built into the alignment between proving hate intent and the enhanced penalty approach that involve giving higher symbolic status to some bodies and not others. As the experience in the US shows, this has a dangerous potential to undermine social cohesion and community faith in equality before the law as well as creating a breeding ground of resentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mobility restrictions enforced by the UK Government in March 2020 as a response to COVID-19 resulted in those vulnerable to domestic abuse being confined in isolation with their abusers, deprived of safe spaces and many of their usual sources of support. Domestic abuse helplines therefore became an increasingly vital avenue for victim support, seeing a substantial increase in service demand during lockdown periods. Purpose: This project examined the nature and frequency of calls received by domestic abuse helplines since the first COVID-19 lockdown period. Design and Sample: Through semi-structured interviews with 11 domestic abuse helpline workers across UK services dedicated to a diverse range of populations. Results: Key themes identified through thematic analysis were: (1) Abusers weaponising government guidelines to justify and intensify abuse, and restrictions acting as both a barrier and facilitator to leaving an abusive relationship; (2) A loss of previously accessed support, with users uncertain about what help was available and issues around engaging with new forms of support; and (3) Isolation from social support networks, with callers reporting a loss of respite, lack of emotional and practical support, removal of third-party abuse monitoring opportunities, and subsequent mental health implications. Conclusions: These findings will act as a crucial guide for policy decision-making regarding support needs emerging from the pandemic and beyond, highlighting the importance of multi-agency partnerships and clear referral pathways to share the increasing financial burden of domestic abuse amongst services. The longer-term integration of more diverse options for remote support to reduce the risk of detection will be paramount as we emerge from the pandemic, but these should serve to offer a wider range of support routes for abuse victims rather than a replacement for face-to-face provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Requesting police assistance can be especially challenging in cases of domestic violence, since perpetrators may be able to overhear victims' telephone calls. This means that callers may not be able to make direct requests for help. Simultaneously, a routine task for police call-takers is to categorize incoming calls as genuine rather than, say, accidental or nuisance. We collected and transcribed 192 audio-recorded calls to a UK police service, which included interactions between callers and call-takers as well as between national operators and local call-takers. The latter provided access to the professional parties' pre-transfer discussion and interpretation of what kind of trouble might be occurring in silent and otherwise ambiguous calls. Using conversation analysis, we found that, as well as unambiguous requests for help (e.g. 'I need you to come because of assault by my partner'), callers formulated apparently inapposite turns ('hiya, you all right?') and used non-lexical resources (e.g. breaths) to build actions which also mobilized assistance. Professional call-takers' discussions included domestic violence-implicative interpretations (e.g. 'I heard a woman shout'). Parties collaboratively leveraged the affordances of turn design and sequence to request and offer help without revealing to potentially overhearing parties that callers were talking to the police. Our findings have implications for understanding how actions like requesting are accomplished in social interaction, as well as for training call-takers to recognize and act on communicative ambiguities in cases of domestic violence. Data are in British English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on academic and government literature and the authors' professional experience in working with child sexual abuse (CSA), this article details the current issues in Pakistan within a global context of Asia. This discussion addresses the context of CSA in Pakistan, causes and incidence of CSA, reporting of CSA, lack of effective structures to protect children, public education for CSA, and finally discusses the example of Punjab Province in Pakistan and its approach to dealing with CSA. The article contributes to an understanding of current reporting, intervention, and treatment of victims of CSA in Pakistan from a social work/policy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collective efficacy literature provides a framework to understand how neighbourhood structure influences violence. Existing findings have been based largely on American cities where disadvantage and ethnic segregation are more concentrated. Thus, they are not always representative of other Western cities where structural disadvantage has a different history as well as less variation across neighbourhoods. This paper explores the comparative effect of collective efficacy in Seattle, USA, and Brisbane, Australia. Findings show that collective efficacy is a significant predictor of violent victimisation in both cities. However, in Brisbane, traditional measures of structural disorganisation are less of an influence on victimisation than in Seattle, and that collective efficacy as a neighbourhood process can exist and vary across neighbourhoods without extreme disorganisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically examines the restrictions on access to statutory compensation in Great Britain for victims of serious crime with criminal records. Drawing on original analysis of Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority transparency data it reveals the scale of the denial of victimisation as a so-called 'collateral consequence of a criminal record'. The policy is then critiqued on the basis that it reproduces the problematic social construction of the 'ideal victim', delineates people with criminal records as subaltern citizens and gives rise to harmful secondary victimisation of applicants whose criminal records are often unrelated to their victimisation event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the victimization patterns of inmates of the largest prison unit of Bahia. It uses data from a screening survey with 591 participants, which culminated in 107 semistructured interviews and direct observation. The study demonstrates that 54.3% of inmates report some type of material, physical, and psychological victimization. It asserts that those patterns are structured by institutional violence, jail arrangements, and criminal gangs in the prison. It also demonstrates the influence of the availability of economic, cultural, and social capital in the levels of vulnerability. It concludes that the drama of inmate victimization is a key to understand the dynamics of a prison system that is more dystopian than we can imagine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sexual trauma is associated with PTSD, with perpetrators putting women and girls more at risk than men and boys. Young adulthood is a time where risk of victimization and susceptibility to mental health problems increase. Certain contributors of costly trauma outcomes may be affected by the larger context of societal inequality. Cultural betrayal trauma theory (CBTT) highlights cultural betrayal in within-group trauma in minoritized populations as a dimension of harm that affects outcomes. In CBTT, within-group trauma violates the (intra)cultural trust—solidarity, love, loyalty, connection, responsibility—that is developed between group members to buffer against societal inequality. This violation, termed a cultural betrayal, can contribute to poorer mental health. The purpose of the current study is to address a gap in the CBTT literature by examining the role of (intra)cultural trust on the association between cultural betrayal sexual trauma and symptoms of PTSD among diverse minoritized youth transitioning to adulthood. Participants (N = 173) were diverse minoritized college students, who completed a 30-min online questionnaire at a location of their own choosing. Participants received course credit and could decline to answer any question without penalty. The results reveal that the interaction between cultural betrayal sexual trauma and (intra)cultural trust predicted clinically significant symptoms of PTSD. These findings have implications for increased cultural and contextual specificity in trauma research in minoritized populations, which can aid in the development and implementation of culturally competent interventions for diverse minoritized youth survivors of sexual trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do natural disasters affect the treatment of civilians by non-state actors? On the one hand, conflict literature argues that adverse shocks influence the strategic interplay between rebel groups and the government, potentially increasing the level of violence against civilians. On the other hand, sociological research on natural disasters argues that they increase social integration and cooperation and are thus expected to reduce the risk of violent behaviour. In this study, we contend that the dynamics of violence against civilians are different in the short term and long term after a disaster strikes. We argue that natural disasters lead to a decrease in violence against civilians perpetrated by rebel groups in the short run. However, over time this temporary improvement in social integration starts to decline, increasing the level of civilian victimization. To examine this potential temporal dynamic, we combine georeferenced information on one-sided violence (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data; ACLED) and data on disasters (Emergency Event Database; EM-DAT). Our results confirm the expected dynamic effects. This research has important implications for our understanding of how disasters can influence the relationship between civilians, rebel groups, and governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports of a handful of tragic cyberbullying cases, where assumed victims have committed suicide, have revealed that purported cyberbullying attacks are sometimes actually created by the victim himself or herself (using a fake name or posting anonymously). This phenomenon has been named self-cyberbullying, fictitious cyberbullying, digital self-harm, or digital Munchausen. To date, only a few studies have examined this phenomenon to a limited extent. Via a qualitative and quantitative survey, this study further explored forms, motives, contents, means, platforms, and pretended identities of fictitious online victimization in adolescents. In addition, in order to support future research on this topic, first steps were taken to develop and validate an index to assess fictitious online victimization. Positive correlations were found with traditional and cyberbullying and self-harm and negative correlations with self-esteem, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction. These results add to our understanding of the phenomenon and may lay the groundwork for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the depiction of refugees in newspapers and television news, yet far less is known about how refugees are portrayed in Internet news. In this era of increasing Internet use, it is important to also study how refugees are depicted by Internet news websites. We used a quantitative coding sheet to investigate how Dutch news websites covered refugees. Our research found, first, that Dutch Internet news reports rather positively about refugees. This finding is directly linked to a conceptual decision, however, as we categorized references to victimization as positive coverage of refugees. Second, we found no significant difference between commercial and public Internet news sources in their depiction of refugees. Finally, we found a tendency towards depersonalization of refugees across all of the Dutch Internet news sources examined, which is reflected in the more frequent use of thematic over episodic frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While studies have identified associations between cyber and in-person dating abuse, most research has relied on cross-sectional data, limiting the ability to determine temporality. This study tested the longitudinal associations between cyber and physical and psychological forms of in-person dating abuse. Data were from an ongoing longitudinal study following a group of high school students originally recruited in Southeast Texas, US, into their young adulthood. Three waves of data (Waves 4–6) were used, with each wave collected one year apart. At Wave 4, participants' age ranged from 16 years to 20 years (mean = 18.1, median = 18.0, SD =.78). The analytical sample consisted of 879 adolescents/young adults (59% female, 41% male; 32% Hispanics, 28% Black, 29% White, and 11% other) who completed the dating abuse questions. Cross-lagged panel analysis showed that dating abuse victimization and perpetration were predictive of subsequent dating abuse of the same type. Cyber dating abuse perpetration was found to predict subsequent physical dating abuse perpetration as well as physical dating abuse victimization, but not vice versa. Further, cyber dating abuse perpetration predicted psychological dating abuse victimization, but not vice versa. Cyber dating abuse victimization was not significantly associated with either physical or psychological dating abuse temporally. Overall, findings suggest that cyber dating abuse perpetration may be a risk marker for both physical and psychological forms of in-person dating abuse. Interventions may benefit from targeting cyber dating abuse perpetration as means to prevent in-person dating abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine psychological and relational variables such as dependence, forgiveness (both in their positive and negative dimensions), and hope that may explain why women reconciliate with abusive partners. We administered a questionnaire to women victims of violence. Relational dependence was indirectly associated with greater intentions to return to the violent partner via benevolent forgiveness and hope of a change in the partner. The positive dimension of forgiveness (benevolence) could represent a phase of the cycle of violence, during which the hope for change in the partner can increase the probability of reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homelessness poses serious health risks, and those risks may be exacerbated among slum-dwelling youth in the developing world. We administered a cross-sectional survey to youth receiving services from a community organization in Kampala, Uganda. This secondary analysis explores the relationships between homelessness and various health outcomes. We also explored possible moderating relationships between neighborhood support, homelessness, and health. Logistic regression and t -tests were used to model these relationships. Homelessness was associated with all outcomes analyzed, with youth who reported having been homeless having higher odds of reporting poor health (odds ratio [OR] = 12.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 6.43, 23.92), higher odds of HIV infection (OR = 1.941; 95% CI = 1.274, 2.958), and higher odds of experiencing rape (OR = 3.459; 95% CI = 2.4, 4.987). No moderation by neighborhood support was observed, though this may be due to low variability. Homelessness warrants specific investigative attention due to its strong association with a broad range of negative health outcomes among slum-dwelling youth. Interventions targeting the specific health risks faced by homeless youth in the developing world may improve social welfare service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has focused on the legacies of civil war violence on political preferences, finding that wartime victimization decreases support for the perpetrator or its political identity in the long run. However, we know little about the conditions under which this effect takes place. Historical accounts from civil wars suggest that the long-term effect of violence is not homogenous, nor consistent across areas within a single conflict. Addressing this gap, this article explores the effects of wartime victimization on long-term political preferences at the local level, looking at the conditioning effect of the local social context. In particular, I argue that the effect of wartime violence depends on the existence of local networks that create and maintain memories of the violence and capitalize on them for future mobilization. This argument is tested in the context of the Spanish Civil War. I build a novel dataset using archival data, historical secondary sources, and already existing datasets, covering 2,100 municipalities across Spain. In line with the argument, it is found that Francoist wartime victimization during the civil war is linked to an increase in leftist vote share after democracy was restored four decades later, but mainly in those municipalities where clandestine, left-leaning political networks were active after the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presented here are the findings of a research study undertaken between 2015 and 2018 that focused on existing arrangements and mechanisms for front-line identification of the victims of forced labour in the UK. The study drew upon interviews with service professionals in enforcement and policing organisations together with workers in non-governmental victim support agencies. These findings reveal significant failings in current approaches, that suggest processes for the identification of victims remain, at best, uneven from service to service, location to location, at worst wholly inadequate. The study also exposed widespread stakeholder concerns around UK government regulatory guidance and immigration policies, suggesting that these were hindering rather than assisting them in the process of identification. Further, that the deregulated employment environment was one in which forced labour practices could both thrive and remain well-hidden amongst wider employer exploitation and abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Adolescent bystanders (i.e., witnesses to violence) can prevent sexual and dating violence among their peers and create a safer social environment if they detect the opportunity. The current study prospectively examined the association of demographic (i.e., age, gender, sexual orientation), psychosocial (i.e., knowledge, rape myth acceptance, victim empathy), and behavioral (i.e., binge drinking) factors with bystander opportunity detection in situations regarding sexual and dating violence among adolescents (N = 1,322, 50.3% girls/women, 88.9% White/non-Hispanic, 85.9% heterosexual, 18.6% free/reduced lunch, aged 13–19). Sexual minority girls, adolescents with greater victim empathy, and binge drinkers were more likely to detect bystander opportunity than heterosexual girls, boys, adolescents with less victim empathy, and nonbinge drinkers. These findings suggest that current theoretical frameworks used to understand bystander opportunity and action may be enhanced by the consideration of demographic and personal characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined interpersonal violence victimization and prior interpersonal violence exposure as predictors of suicide risk, namely, suicide ideation and suicide attempt, in a sample of 207 Indian college students. Results of regression analyses indicated that interpersonal violence victimization, but not prior interpersonal violence exposure, was a unique predictor of suicide risk, independent of age and sex. Finally, we found support for a significant Interpersonal Violence Victimization × Past Interpersonal Violence Exposure interaction effect consistent with the notion that the association between interpersonal violence victimization and suicide risk is potentiated by the presence of prior interpersonal violence exposure among Indian students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence victimization is prevalent in the US and is linked to costly mental health outcomes, including dissociation and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Black Americans are at increased risk for violence victimization, while additionally enduring racism that impacts mental health. Moreover, discrimination affects outcomes of violence. Cultural betrayal trauma theory (CBTT) is a new framework for examining the impact of within-group violence victimization (termed cultural betrayal trauma) and minority status on outcomes. Furthermore, CBTT examines posttraumatic group dynamics, such as (intra)cultural pressure. As pressure to protect the minority in-group by not disclosing cultural betrayal trauma, (intra)cultural pressure may impact outcomes. The purpose of the exploratory study was to examine the impact of cultural betrayal trauma and (intra)cultural pressure on dissociation and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Participants (N = 43) were Black/African American university students who completed online measures assessing violence victimization and outcomes. Linear regression analyses revealed that cultural betrayal trauma predicted PTSS, whereas (intra)cultural pressure predicted dissociation. The current study has implications for examining the impact of group dynamics, such as (intra)cultural pressure, in clinical interventions for Black victims of cultural betrayal trauma. Such cultural competency in mental health care treatment may help reduce mental health disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do foreign fighters affect civilian victimization in the civil wars they join? Scholars of civil war have gone to great lengths to explain why states and insurgent groups victimize civilians, but they have not explicitly examined the impact of foreign combatants. Furthermore, while contemporary conventional wisdom attaches an overwhelmingly negative connotation to foreign fighters, history shows that the behavior of those who travel to fight in wars far from home varies significantly, especially when it comes to interacting with local populations. To address this variation, I demonstrate how differences in the embeddedness of foreign fighter populations combine with incentives that foreign fighters face to remain in the conflict zone over the long term to shape tendencies towards civilian victimization. My findings from an analysis of insurgent groups from 1990 to 2011 suggest that, overall, foreign fighters lead to escalations in violence against civilians. When comparing across groups that recruit foreign fighters, however, levels of violence differ depending on foreign fighter populations' coethnicity to the rebel groups they join, and the distances they travel to reach a conflict zone. Specifically, the presence of coethnic foreign fighters leads to fewer escalations in violence, relative to the recruitment of non-coethnic individuals from non-neighboring states. The study provides empirical support to the claim that degrees of embeddedness across foreign fighter populations are important indicators of when and where their presence is likely to pose significant dangers to local populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women who blog about politics or identify as feminist in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States face great risks of online abuse. In-depth interviews with 109 bloggers who write about feminisms, family, and/or maternity politics revealed that 73.4% had negative experiences due to blogging and/or social media use. Most of these negative experiences involved not only abusive comments but also stalking, trolls, rape threats, death threats, and unpleasant offline encounters. Response strategies included moderating comments, exposing abuse, adaptation, and solidarity. I argue that the democratic potential of social media in democracies remains haphazard because online abuse is not fully recognized as entangling online and offline communication, constituted and constructed through technological, legal, social, and cultural factors. Using the theoretical approaches of digital feminisms, I call for more systematic empirical work on global recognition of online abuse as punishable crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some civil wars feature the mass killing of civilians while others do not? Recent research answers this question by adopting a ‘varieties of civil war’ approach that distinguishes between guerrilla and conventional civil wars. One particularly influential claim is that guerrilla wars feature more civilian victimization because mass killing is an attractive strategy for states attempting to eliminate the civilian support base of an insurgency. In this article, I suggest that there are two reasons to question this ‘draining the sea’ argument. First, the logic of ‘hearts and minds’ during guerrilla wars implies that protecting civilians – not killing them – is the key to success during counterinsurgency. Second, unpacking the nature of fighting in conventional wars gives compelling reasons to think that they could be particularly deadly for civilians caught in the war’s path. After deriving competing predictions on the relationship between civil war type and mass killing, I offer an empirical test by pairing a recently released dataset on the ‘technology of rebellion’ featured in civil wars with a more nuanced dataset of mass killing than those used in several previous studies. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I find that mass killing onset is more likely to occur during conventional wars than during guerrilla wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberbullying has become a critical social issue, which severely threatens children and adolescents’ physical and psychological health. The current research systematically examined the predictors of cyberbullying from the social cognitive and media effects approach. Specifically, this study identified 16 predictors of cyberbullying perpetration and victimization and examined the magnitude of the effects of these predictors by meta-analyzing 81 empirical studies, which represented a total sample of 99,741 participants and yielded 259 independent correlations. The results revealed that risky information and communications technology (ICT) use, moral disengagement, depression, social norms, and traditional bullying perpetration were the main predictors of cyberbullying perpetration, while risky ICT use and traditional bullying victimization were the major contributors of cyberbullying victimization. According to the moderator analyses, country of the sample, sampling method, age, and media platform were significant moderators of the relationships between some specific predictors and cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Implications for future cyberbullying research were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature has shown a link between violent victimization and pro-sociopolitical behavior. This study asks why victimization is shown to increase the likelihood of political participation in regions of ongoing armed conflict. I argue that previous answers to this question have overlooked a key variable for predicting civilian behavior: individual-level social context. As a step forward in connecting social networks to behavior outcomes, I present the kinship network as a novel measure for proxying an individual’s valuable and private social interactions. Building on previous victimization literature, I suggest that to comprehensively understand the effects of victimization, scholars should account for social context. Specifically, I examine the hypothesis that as kinship ties strengthen, victimization positively influences the likelihood of political participation. To test this argument, I turn to the Mexican criminal conflict. I use original survey data of 1,000 respondents collected in July 2012 from the ongoing drug war in Mexico, and in doing so, I find that kinship plays a key role in motivating political participation during armed conflicts in that survivors of criminal violence with strong ties to kinship networks are the most likely to participate in political groups; these results are robust to state-level fixed effects and are unlikely to be driven by victimization selection bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1989, 96 Liverpool Football Club supporters were killed at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. It was the biggest sporting disaster in British football. The original inquests returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’. For over 20 years the families of the 96 and the survivors campaigned against this verdict. In 2010 the government set up an Independent Panel with myself as its Chair. Its remit after consultation with the families and survivors was to access and analyse all the documents related to the disaster and its aftermath and to write a report to add to public understanding. The Panel’s Report was published in 2012 and led to the quashing of the original verdicts and the setting up of fresh inquests. After two years and the longest inquests in British legal history, the jury gave its determination of ‘unlawful killing’. Here I reflect theologically on the public and pastoral role of the Church of England and its mission to wider society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the influence of both contextual and individual urban characteristics on violence victimisation in Brazilian cities. A multilevel approach is used to capture the effects of the urban contextual variables with respect to the probability of becoming a robbery victim in Brazilian urban centres. The results demonstrate that factors associated with social context, such as proportions of cities’ recent migrants or female-headed households, affect victimisation, as do individual characteristics. Furthermore, based on an analysis of the intra-class correlation coefficients, the context produces a non-negligible amount of variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish houses, and especially their apertures, were frequent targets of assault in premodern Europe. Were these attacks just a matter of Christians letting off steam, as some historians have argued, or were they signs that ‘Jewish life was a perennial struggle for survival’? This question leads into a much larger methodological issue – namely, how historians should approach and frame violence in premodern Christian-Jewish relations. This article argues that assaults committed by Christians against Jews may well be said to form a specific category of violence; but to assess and analyse this phenomenon properly, one must take into account the general backdrop of the dynamics of violence – especially urban violence – at the time. In the specific case of window-smashing, it is important to consider the symbolism as well as the complex function of liminal spaces such as windows in the everyday lives of Jews and Christians. The conclusion will outline how anti-Jewish window violence left an imprint on both cultural life and economic activities (such as glassmaking) in Jewish communities well into the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New media outlets have been deemed a vital instrument for protesters and opposition groups to coordinate activities in the recent civilian uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. But what happens when regimes respond by shutting down the internet? I argue that governments have a strategic incentive to implement internet blackouts in conjunction with larger repressive operations against violent opposition forces. Short-term intermissions in communication channels are expected to decrease opposition groups’ capabilities to successfully coordinate and implement attacks against the state, allowing regime forces to strengthen their position. Network blackouts should consequently be accompanied by significant increases in military activity. Analyzing daily documented killings by the government in the Syrian civil war, I find that blackouts occur in conjunction with significantly higher levels of state repression, most notably in areas where government forces are actively fighting violent opposition groups. In addition, I estimate the number of undocumented conflict fatalities prior to and during network blackouts to test whether they are implemented to hide atrocities from outside observers, and find no support for this hypothesis. The results indicate that such network blackouts constitute a part of the military’s strategy to target and weaken opposition groups, where the underreporting of violence is not systematically linked to outages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This project examines violent victimisation and offending in poor urban neighbourhoods in Nairobi, Kenya. Using data from the 2000 Nairobi Cross-sectional Slum Survey (NCSS), the study assesses neighbourhood characteristics utilising the foundation from US-based neighbourhood effect research. Results from multilevel models demonstrate that social disorganisation theory and neighbourhood effect research can work as a framework for studying neighbourhood-level processes and public safety in the rapidly urbanising region of sub-Saharan Africa. However, important exceptions exist. A robust and positive relationship between residential stability and violent victimisation by strangers was found. This relationship between residential stability and personal victimisation, in addition to a positive association between household-level residential stability and family violence, shows support for the negative effects associated with poverty traps in urban Africa. Neighbourhood characteristics matter for public safety in Nairobi, but frameworks for examining neighbourhood effects must consider the context of chronically poor neighbourhoods in urban Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses a study that evaluated a probation work to ensure that offenders are aware of the effects of crime on the victims and the public. Topics discussed include the use of Victim Personal Statements (VPS) and restorative justice (RJ) approaches to enhance the engagement of victims of crime with criminal justice and the impact of victim-focused policies on the work of the probation service.

‘Ensuring offenders' awareness of the effects of crime on the victims of crime and the public’ is one of five stated aims of the National Probation Service of England and Wales and specifically undertaking victim awareness work is an expectation of the service’s work. The nature and putative value of such work appears to be rarely questioned however. It is argued that ‘victim awareness’ is a confused concept in terms of its rationale, definition, and empirical basis as a criminogenic need. These issues are evaluated and the practice implications discussed. A possible model of victim awareness work is described. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The allegedly complex relationship between trust and victimization has rarely been modeled and, when done, the effect of trust on victimization has been found not statistically significant. This study finds otherwise, estimating an instrumental model with community data from Cali, Colombia. Cali’s dismal levels of victimization were only second to Medellin, the most violent city of the world in the 1990s. But Cali also pioneered a strategy of social capital formation as the backbone of a deliberate public policy to crack down on high levels of crime. This article first develops a model of victimization that includes interpersonal trust as determinant and then instruments interpersonal trust with district-level average trust. We argue that an individual-specific level of trust in his or her community members does not affect the community level of interpersonal trust in the margin. However, the levels – or perceived levels – of interpersonal trust in the community may affect the specific level of trust of an individual in other members of that community, along with personal characteristics and experience. Using GMM estimates, this study finds evidence of a relationship between interpersonal trust and victimization, statistically significant and negative in sign. The result is robust across specifications of trust, victimization, and estimating techniques. We conclude that increasing trust in trusting communities contributes to reducing victimization in its own right, although the effect is modest. Consequently, strengthening interpersonal trust is another bullet to combat victimization but it is not a silver bullet. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

More than 200 years after its first publication, the Malthusian thesis is still much debated, albeit in a modified form. Rather than predicting a global catastrophe, most neo-Malthusians stress the local character of the relationship between population pressure, natural resource scarcity, and conflict as well as its dependency on the socio-political and economic context. This softened version of Malthus’s thesis has received little empirical support in cross-country studies. In contrast, a number of subnational analyses have provided some evidence for local conditional Malthusian catastrophes, although ‘catastrophe’ is a big word since these studies have largely focused on low-intensity violence. This article adds to the small body of subnational studies, but focuses on a high-intensity conflict – the Rwandan genocide. In particular, it provides a meso-level analysis of the relation between population pressure and the intensity of violence measured by the death toll among the Tutsi across 1,294 small administrative units. The results indicate that the death toll was significantly higher in localities with both high population density and little opportunity for young men to acquire land. This finding can be interpreted as support for the neo-Malthusian thesis. On the other hand, it is possible that another mechanism operated – in densely populated areas, it may have been relatively easy for the elite to mobilize the population, because of dependency relations through the land and labor market. Alternatively, in densely populated areas, there may have been more lootable assets, and the violence may have been opportunistic rather than driven by need or by fear. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We address the role of volunteers in victim support in regard to the growing issue of specialization. We argue for a generic basis of victim services and that working with volunteers and professionals holds chances and pitfalls. Volunteers can function as camouflage or as a mirror for professional social work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the prevalence of racial violence in the UK’s night-time economy. Fifty-five racial attacks are documented over a six-month period, showing the risks faced by members of the public and workers at taxi firms, takeaways, convenience stores and service stations. It argues that flexible and highly casualised labour conditions, combined with increasing numbers of immigration raids, exacerbate the risk of racial violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined the relationships between cyber and traditional bullying experiences regarding gender differences. Also, the contributions of frequent and risky usage of internet to cyberbullying experiences were examined. The participants were 276 adolescents (123 females, 151 males and 2 unknown) ranging in age from 14 to 18 years. The results revealed that 32 percent of the students were victims of both cyber and traditional bullying, while 26 percent of the students bullied others in both cyber and physical environments. Compared to female students, male students were more likely to be bullies and victims in both physical and cyber-environments. The multivariate statistical analysis indicated that cyber and traditional bullying were related for male students but not for female students. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis revealed that both frequent and risky usage of internet account for a significant variance of cyberbullying but their contributions differ based on genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey among 2052 primary and secondary school children reveals that cyberbullying among youngsters is not a marginal problem. However, there are discrepancies between the prevalence figures based on direct measurement versus indirect measurement of cyberbullying. Youngsters who have bullied someone via the internet or mobile phone during the last three months are younger, and are more often victims and bystanders of bullying via the internet or mobile phone, and are more often the perpetrators of traditional bullying. Youngsters who have been bullied via the internet or mobile phone during the last three months are more dependent upon the internet, feel less popular, take more internet-related risks, are more often a bystander and perpetrator of internet and mobile phone bullying, and are less often a perpetrator and more often a victim of traditional bullying. The implications for future research into cyberbullying and for cyberbullying prevention strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]