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Labelled 'the shadow pandemic' by UN Women, violence against women received considerable global public attention during 2020–21. Underpinning this moment of public concern, there lies a substantial history of efforts to document the nature of, and campaign against, the extent of violence against women globally. This is also the case in relation to femicide. Whilst we recognise that this is a contested term, for the purposes of this paper we use femicide to refer to the killing of women and girls because they are female by male violence. Femicide, as a death to be specifically counted in law only exists in a small number of jurisdictions. Where it is so recognised, primarily in South American countries as feminicidio, such deaths represent only the tip of the iceberg of such killings globally. This paper, in drawing on empirical data from a range of different sources (including administrative data, media analysis, and Femicide Observatory data) gathered throughout 2020, considers: what it means to call a death femicide, what implications might follow if all the deaths of women at the hands of men were counted as femicide, and the extent to which extraordinary times have any bearing on this kind of ordinary death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 and the associated public health response directing people to stay at home and/or shelter in place generated acute awareness of, and concerns about, the likely impact on violence(s) against women across the globe. Initial reports from support services suggested that such violence increased, and that its impact was more complex. Early evidence of increased demands in relation to domestic abuse on policing was however less clear. This paper, based on findings from a larger project, offers an analysis of the initial responses to domestic abuse by the police and the courts in England and Wales during the initial pandemic lockdown of 2020. These findings are situated within wider debates concerned with the nature and impact of the current organisational structure of policing and suggests that whilst police forces responded both quickly and innovatively in order to maintain a focus on domestic abuse, their capacity to continue in this vein will be limited in the absence of wider structural and organisational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Justice processes have long been criticised for their inability to meet the needs of intimate partner violence victims and provide remedies that facilitate recovery. Despite a bevy of victim-oriented reforms, victims continue to report dissatisfaction in their engagement with the legal process. Recognising the failures of policy responses to date, the Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016) in Victoria, Australia, sought to reimagine justice responses to victims of intimate partner violence through innovative models of reform, such as the introduction of legal representation for victims in court. In the absence of prescribed detail as to how this could be achieved, this article contends that there is a need to tread cautiously in this space. It sets out the potential benefits from trialling legal representation for victims in emerging Victorian specialist family violence courts, as well as the perceived risks that should be kept in mind prior to instituting state wide reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of the coalition government's plans to enshrine the tenets of the military covenant in law this article addresses the issue of the human rights of soldiers in the British Armed Forces. Over the last decade an increasing number of active and ex-service personnel, alongside families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, have sought legal redress with recourse to human rights legislation. Drawing upon a qualitative study involving veterans of the Iraq conflict, we present experiential accounts of structural and institutional deficiencies which indicate that the British state has placed military personnel at unnecessary risk and violated the military covenant. In conclusion, we argue that continuing to cast soldiers as ‘exceptional actors’ under the auspices of the covenant serves to conceal institutional negligence and compromises their fundamental human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the rising policy and academic concern with resilience. We trace the etymology of resilience and go on to focus on three academic narratives that have emerged: the psychological, the sociological and the whole-life. Comparing academic views on various states of resilience with policy narratives, we home in on the mobilisation of resilience in the area of counter terrorism. Highlighting an uncomfortable fit between academic and policy narratives, we posit that contemporary forms of neo-liberal governance do not simply attest to a search for resilience, but are indicative of the quest to develop a resilient State that attempts to compel individuals, communities and voluntary agencies to perform security on its behalf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the extent to which it is possible to mobilize communities in order to combat crime and the fear of crime. General observations on the changing nature of managing crime; Responsibilization strategy; Importance of cooperation between the government and property owners, residents, retailers and individual citizens; Consultation with community in setting local targets for crime reduction.

The title of this paper, borrowed from a government White Paper, is concerned to explore the viability of the proposed stance towards youth crime and disorder exemplified in the UK Crime and Disorder Act 1998. In that legislation, much is made of the notion of 'making amends' as a way of informing young people of both the nature and the impact of their offending behaviour, in the hope that this will prevent further re-offending and repair some of the damage experienced by the victim of crime. This principle of reparation has been available to public discourse on law and order for some time. Much has been made of the practical value of this principle in Australia and New Zealand translated as it has been in that context from Braithwaite's (1989) exposition of reintegrative shaming. In the UK various attempts have been made to introduce similar projects from the Home Office sponsored projects of the mid-1980s to the much publicised work currently being undertaken in the Thames Valley area. Such international and national 'successes' notwithstanding, the question remains as to what might work, how, when, and for whom, in relation to this general principle of making amends. In introducing the importance of the concept of trust, this paper will explore these questions both for the individuals involved in the process of making amends, for the communities in which such projects may be situated, and for the criminal justice process as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1980's perceptions and evaluations of policing by members of the public have featured prominently in both academic and policy arenas. This paper suggests that the data available on these issues has largely been gathered as if ‘the public’ and their images of policing were gender neutral. Through an analysis of a relatively unique data set (references written for prospectives applicants to a Southern Police Force) suggestions are made concerning the value of developing a more gender informed view of public images of policing. This paper particularly focusses on public images of prospective policewomen as compared with prospective policemen and illustrates how deeply rooted and conservative views of policewomen may be. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses how risk is being utilised in the development of policies on crime control and criminal justice. It states that although risk has been a key factor in crime regulation, the anticipatory dimensions of risk seem to have been increased in recent years. It mentions that although some terrorist groups present a threat to public safety, it is necessary to identify if the degree of intervention, surveillance and regulation is proportionate with the risk of harm.

Comparative research, as is well known, is thwart with difficulties. Give those difficulties Nelken (1994) is right to ask the question, ‘What is the point of doing research in comparative criminology?’ The same question might well be asked of victimology. There are, of course, a number of points to engaging in comparative work, as Nelken goes on to argue, not least of which lies in the potential for the theoretical development of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]