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This paper explores teenage girls' responses to general advice, and formal prevention messages, designed to reduce sexting-related risk and prevent harm. We conducted workshops with seven groups of girls (28 in total), aged 16-17 years, in a New Zealand city. Each group participated in a series of three workshop sessions. Drawing on a Freirean 'problem-posing' approach, we designed the workshops as spaces in which girls were invited to observe and critically discuss norms related to sharing nudes as well as harm prevention messages. Girls noticed the problematic gender and sexual politics that shape abstinence-based models that target girls (implicitly) to not send nudes, but which leave boys who distribute or otherwise misuse them out of the picture. Participants navigated a careful path between attending to risk and protection on the one hand, and endorsing their right to freedom of expression on the other. We argue for a subtle, but significant, shift away from a focus on sexting safety to a focus on the prevention of image-based sexual coercion, harassment and abuse. This reframing would help to direct prevention efforts to the gendered drivers and dynamics of harm perpetration, and the ways in which they are problematically socially ignored or condoned.

Universities have implemented a range of education programmes to address the problem of sexual violence on campus. While these programmes can improve the attitudes and behaviours that contribute to rape culture, little is known about the factors influencing students' decisions to participate in such programmes. The aim of this study was to understand university students' decisions about attending sexual violence prevention workshops. Focus groups or individual interviews were conducted with 28 students at a university in Aotearoa/New Zealand who had attended a prevention workshop (n = 11) or who had had the opportunity to attend (n = 17). Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data with a focus on barriers to students' willingness to engage with sexual violence prevention education. Three themes were developed. Each theme concerned preconceived ideas about sexual violence that impacted students' perceptions of and willingness to engage in sexual violence prevention. The three barriers consisted of perceptions concerning the relevance of programmes, participants' perception that they already knew the content, and the impact of cultural ideas about gender and sexual violence. These findings have practical implications for the development and promotion of future campus sexual violence prevention programmes.

This article describes a focus group study exploring university students' perspectives of sexual violence prevention campaigns with the goal of developing a social marketing campaign that would resonate with university students. Seventy-one students at one university in Aotearoa/New Zealand provided feedback in 15 focus groups. Findings of an inductive thematic analysis indicate that students think sexual violence prevention campaigns should depict diversity in perpetrator and victim identity and focus on more subtle contexts of sexual violence. These findings have implications for the development of sexual violence prevention campaigns. In particular we discuss how universities must balance tensions between designing palatable and relatable prevention campaigns while also reflecting and addressing the underlying gendered nature of sexual violence.

Sexual consent education is increasingly used as an educational tool for sexual violence prevention. Yet very little research exists on the effectiveness of consent education to reduce rates of sexual violence. Prior to understanding the effectiveness of any prevention programme, it is essential to understand the mechanisms through which the approach will prevent incidents of sexual violence. For instance, some programmes address perpetrating behaviour while others focus on increasing bystander behaviour. The mechanisms behind consent education may appear on the surface to be very clear. If everyone knows how to ask for and communicate consent, and everyone then does so, there would be no sexual violence. However, if this were the case, then consent education would only prevent sexual violence that was caused by people who were naïve to the communication of consent. To develop a better understanding of the mechanisms through which consent education could work, I interviewed educators involved in designing and delivering consent programming. Their perceptions of the potential for consent education to create change are complex. Educators simultaneously see transformative potential in consent education while maintaining scepticism about the possibility of consent education to change perpetrating behaviour.

Universities across the world have been increasingly focused on responding to campus sexual violence. Developing a response is complex and involves addressing policy, support for those impacted by sexual violence and prevention. This manuscript outlines the structure and development of the University of Otago's whole campus approach to sexual violence that includes staff and students and addresses policy, support and prevention work. Development of this model began in 2016 with the input from academic and general staff alongside students. It included the work of several working parties, a whole campus meeting about sexual violence, policy development and funding allocation. In 2018 the model has been implemented. The model will be described with a focus on the theoretical evidenced-based approach to the development of the model and the theory of change guiding ongoing evaluation.

Sexuality education and preventative sexual abuse education are often taught as separate subjects in secondary schools. This paper extends the argument against this separation by highlighting flaws in the logic that manifests this separation. Diffracting critical sexuality education theory with the monist logic of new materialism, I rethink sexuality as an array of intra-acting bodies that are always in a process of becoming anew. Realising the belonging together of dualist terms [Bergson, Henri. 1896 [1911]. "Matter and Memory". Translated and edited by Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.] and how the reductive structure of dualist logic affirms an original "One", I argue that the feminist push for pleasure-based, sex-positive education affirms sex-negative attitudes. Embracing Barad's [Barad, Karen. 2007. "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning". Durham: Duke University Press.] notion of ethics as inescapable entanglement woven through all matter(ing), I suggest that rather than any particular "aspect" of sexuality being emphasised in sexuality education it would be more useful to centre classroom discussions on ethics, as inescapable entanglement.

Sexuality education and preventive sexual abuse education emerged from different historical moments and social movements. Consequently, they are often taught as separate subjects in secondary schools. This paper seeks to highlight how this separation denies space for young people to grapple with the concept of consent, the art of negotiation, the interrelatedness and acknowledgement of pleasure, danger and ambivalence within sexually intimate relations and the complexities of sexualities. Importantly, this separation also negates possibilities for education to embrace a discourse of ethical erotics that includes space for the exploration of desire and pleasure; for it is not possible to discuss ethical erotics when one is not allowed to discuss ethics and erotics within the same conversation. To highlight this argument, we analyse the Health and Physical Education Curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand which states that programmes for the prevention of sexual abuse should not be taught concurrently or consecutively with programmes that emphasise the positive aspects of sexuality.

A qualitative analysis of the accounts of 29 adults who grew up in a controversial New Zealand community identified positive and negative experiences and their psychological implications. In addition to highly publicized child sexual abuse that occurred at Centrepoint, children also experienced parental neglect, psychological manipulation, illegal drug use and stigma from the broader society. These factors created an adverse matrix that facilitated sexual abuse. Positive experiences included support for vulnerable families and children, recreational activities, and the opportunity to develop communication skills. While there may be positive experiences for children living in intentional communities such as this one, it is important to be aware of the potential for psychological harm to children in communities with powerful, shared systems of belief, skepticism about the broader society, and strong dynamics of dependence. These findings may have implications for other similar communities operating elsewhere in the world. (Contains 1 footnote.)

This paper seeks to explore the relation between sexuality and pedagogy. This theoretical concern is examined with reference to two key pedagogical moments during a first-year undergraduate course about schooling and sexuality. Through critical reflection of these episodes it is argued that when sexuality is the intellectual focus of a course, the pedagogical scene becomes inescapably "sexual". While existing research analyses desire between teacher and student as a potential element of the pedagogical scene, this paper investigates how sexuality might manifest more generally and offer a pedagogical resource in educational encounters. The possibility of a sexual and embodied pedagogy that explicitly invites students to be sexual subjects in a space that traditionally prioritises mind over body is considered. How teacher and student subjects are invoked and to what ends this might be pedagogically productive are also investigated.

A study of 73 New Zealand women attending a sexual abuse program found that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were associated with higher levels of all psychopathology. However, the severity of PTSD symptoms was also associated with the extent of abuse which involved actual sexual intercourse. (Author/CR)

Surveyed New Zealand undergraduate students. Found that 51.6 percent of 347 women reported sexual victimization and 25.3 percent had either been raped or experienced attempted rape. Prevalence data are almost identical to those found using same instrument (Sexual Experiences Survey) in United States. New Zealand men reported perpetrating considerably less sexual aggression than did their U.S. counterparts. (Author/NB)

Describes an educational program that enables women to explore, in a safe environment, male violence and its impact on their lives. Topics include battered women, rape, incest, pornography, nonphysical violence, and sexual harassment. The course helps women realize that violence is a societal, not individual, problem and empowers them to take action. (SK)

Spousal immunity, a husband's exemption from the legal consequences of rape, was an English legal import that was comprehensively protected in the patriarchal colonial context of New Zealand. Spousal immunity was ended in New Zealand through the Rape Law Reform Bill No.2 (1985). Spousal immunity had existed for nearly 100 years within the legal system without challenge by legal professionals or politicians. During the reform process the vast majority of public submissions, political speeches and media coverage positioned the criminalisation of marital rape as the sensible and just thing to do. The relatively smooth passage of this significant legal reform seems incongruous with the clause's one-hundred-year history as a husband's protected and entrenched immunity. Spousal immunity provides a key example of legal and social change led by feminist action and knowledge. Feminists led change and politicians responded. This article explores how feminist legal change happens, by examining the conditions and tactics which led to the criminalisation of marital rape in 1980s New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The silencing of women's voices and the objectification of women's bodies have long been identified as ways in which society can facilitate men's use of violence against them. The purpose of this article is to further this argument using salient examples and analyses from two different media forms exploring ways they might reinforce rape culture and thus violence against women in New Zealand. Drawing from two separate studies, this article looks at newspaper representations of rape and women on magazine covers; critically examining the depiction of women in these two distinct media forms across the same 40-year period (1975–2015). Both studies show silencing and objectification within the media forms in both obvious and abstract ways. Taken together, the findings provide insights into the pervasive nature of silencing and objectification of women in New Zealand media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The victim's intervention in the proceeding and the hearing of the pain and injuries inflicted on them are considered influential factors while passing judgment on the accused under New Zealand criminal law. The victim is either injured because of the crime or has already been vulnerable for some reasons exuberates the situation. The New Zealand criminal system assesses type and offense-seriousness in both cases to pass sentence on the accused. The present research aims to study the impact inflicted on rape victims in determining sentences. It is a descriptive, analytical study conducted using the content analysis technique. A purposive sample of 15 rape cases was selected from the New Zealand criminal system and coded using ATLAS software. The results show that if the accused is found guilty of pre-planned raping by resorting to physical violence, making sense of humiliation and severe mental harm, or rape is committed against vulnerable victims, the court aggravates the culprit's punishment based on the extent of the harms inflicted on them. It can be in the form of an increases period of preventive imprisonment, rejection of the plea for mercy or conditional discharge, the traverse of revision, and the extension of therapeutic or rehabilitation courses or compelling the offender to join them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When women die at the hands of men, a not infrequent defence is that she consented to, or initiated, the beating, strangulation and penetration which contributed to her death. While strangulation has been a typical method of killing in male on female intimate partner homicide 1 for many decades ('thou little recognised), what has changed is men's excuses for their violence. Excuses such as 'She made me lose my self-control in an argument' or 'She was unfaithful to me' are being supplanted by 'She consented to rough sex'. 2 Since the dead cannot speak, nor is there any property in the dead, the defendant's tactic of impugning the deceased's character cannot be easily rebutted, and he, while maligning her in this way, may profit from a lighter sentence. Law reformers, politicians, academics and activists 3 are pressing for legal reform to shut down this misogyny. On 16 June 2020, during the Public Committee stage of the Domestic Abuse Bill, 4 cls 4 and 5 were approved. Clause 4, 'No defence for consent to death', provides '(1) If a person ("A") wounds, assaults or asphyxiates another person ("B") to whom they are personally connected as defined in section 2 of this Act causing death, it is not a defence to a prosecution that B consented to the infliction of injury. (2) Subsection (1) applies whether or not the death occurred in the course of a sadomasochistic encounter'. Clause 5, 'No defence for consent to injury', provides '(1) If a person ("A") wounds, assaults or asphyxiates another person ("B") to whom they are personally connected as defined in section 2 of this Act causing actual bodily harm or more serious injury, it is not a defence to a prosecution that B consented to the infliction of injury or asphyxiation. (2) Subsection (1) applies whether or not the actual bodily harm, non-fatal strangulation, or more serious injury occurred in the course of a sadomasochistic encounter'. These two new clauses would prevent the alleged consent of the victim from being used as a defence to a prosecution in intimate partner homicides and non-fatal assault which result in s 47 assault occasioning actual bodily harm, Offences Against the Person Act 1861, or more serious injury. Additional new clauses including, proposing that consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions would be required, in the case of death, to accept a charge to anything less than murder (cl 6); the requirement to consult with the family of the deceased regarding charges (cl 7); the prohibition of reference to sexual history of the deceased in domestic homicide trials (cl 10); anonymity of victims of domestic homicide (cl 11); and anonymity of domestic violence survivors (cl 14); the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk), while sympathetic, said there were difficulties with the clauses in their present form. 5 Of the proposal to make non-fatal strangulation 6 (cl 8) a standalone offence, he considered that 'creating a new offence could limit the circumstances covered, and create additional evidential burdens'. 7 These motions reflect the several debates since October 2019, when MPs, Harriet Harman and Mark Garnier, introduced the 'No defence for consent' amendment to the second reading of the Domestic Abuse Bill. 8 Since men also plead the 'sexual consent defence' on 'first dates', which may fall outside the definition of 'domestic abuse' as set out in the Bill, 9 a loophole also recognised by Alex Chalk at the Public Committee stage, 16 June 2020, this too will be addressed. 10 The murder of Grace Millane, in New Zealand 11 in 2018, murdered on a 'first date' provides such an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Aotearoa/New Zealand, sexual violence within minority ethnic communities is endemic, but grossly underreported. This paper presents the results of two small-scale qualitative studies that explored key issues in the underreporting of sexual violence. In-depth interviews were undertaken with key informants including academics, specialist sexual violence practitioners and community/social workers. The study identified two main factors that led to underreporting: first, internalised barriers as a result of a 'white' and 'male' gaze; and second, the cultural relativitism of meanings of violence. Themes within these broader areas highlighted issues of stigma; defensiveness surrounding traditional norms, especially concerning gender roles; and the referencing of minority group identity, as deterrents to disclosure and reporting. The paper also explored the implications of underreporting for help-seeking behaviours among women and for developing systems for the collection of robust evidence of sexual violence among minority ethnic women. The paper concludes with recommendations for improved strategic efforts to encourage safe disclosure among women in minority ethnic communities who experience sexual violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The three waterlogging stress levels of rapeseed were investigated. • Hyperspectral RGB images and VNIR spectra (400–1000 nm) of waterlogging rapeseed leaves were extracted and analyzed. • QDA, KNN and SVM classifiers were applied and compared in classify analysis. • Selection of optimal wavebands for detection of waterlogging stress using SPA algorithm. Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate the utility of hyperspectral images (HSIs) for the detection of oilseed rape waterlogging stress. We assessed two oilseed rape varieties, the non-hybrid NingYou 22 (NY 22) and hybrid NingZa 19 (NZ 19), and HSIs of oilseed rape leaves under different durations of waterlogging stress (0, 3, and 6 days) were collected to build three datasets (NY 22, NZ 19, and both combined). We extracted red–green–blue (RGB) images and visible and near-infrared (VNIR 400–1000 nm) spectra from a region of interest (ROI) in each HSI. Quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), k-nearest neighbor (KNN), and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers were used to build classification models for comparing images and spectra of samples under different waterlogging levels among the three datasets, and to conduct training and prediction. From each dataset, 70% of the images were used for training, and the remaining 30% were used for testing. In the classification of full-wavelength HSIs (400–1000 nm), QDA and SVM exhibited high multivariate classification accuracy, reaching 77.37% and 95.90% accuracy, respectively. In contrast, KNN displayed low accuracy, but good identification and prediction ability for variety NZ 19. Six optimal wavebands of 529, 641, 698, 749, 856, and 979 nm were used as input for successive projections algorithm (SPA) classification and analysis. The QDA mode had better classification performance, with identification accuracies of 100% and 94.44%, respectively. Overall, the VNIR classification results exceeded those of image classification. These results show that hyperspectral imaging technology is feasible and useful for the detection of oilseed rape waterlogging stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study ascertained the extent to which abuse and neglect are identified and recorded by mental health services. A comprehensive audit of 250 randomly selected files from four community mental health centres in Auckland, New Zealand was conducted, using similar methodology to that of a 1997 audit in the same city so as to permit comparisons. Significant increases, compared to the 1997 audit, were found in the rates of child sexual and physical abuse, and adulthood sexual assault (but not adulthood physical assault) identified in the files. Identification of physical and emotional neglect, however, was poor. Male service users were asked less often than females; and male staff enquired less often than female staff. People with a diagnosis indicative of psychosis, such as 'schizophrenia', tended to be asked less often and had significantly lower rates of abuse/neglect identified. Despite the overall improvement, mental health services are still missing significant amounts of childhood and adulthood adversities, especially neglect. All services need clear policies that all service users be asked about both abuse and neglect, whatever their gender or diagnosis, and that staff receive training that address the barriers to asking and to responding therapeutically to disclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses the representation of gender-based violence in paintings. It explores the prevalence of violence against women in New Zealand, such as rape, coercion, assault and threats. The difference between women in social media and women in feminist activism is explained. Also discussed is the self-representation of women in art.

The article reflects on the decision of the Privy Council of New Zealand in the case Pora v The Queen in which defendant was charged with burglary, rape and murder. It mentions that the evidence from three expert witnesses revealed that defendant suffered from a neuro-developmental disorder and his confession was not reliable. It also mentions that the New Zealand Evidence Act permits expert evidence to be given for the admissibility of the third expert's evidence.

A conference paper on Rape in Aotearoa, New Zealand in the newspapers between the span of 1975–2015 is presented. It discusses the current scenario of silencing and objectification of women covered in various range of media forms including newspapers, women's magazines and pornography. The author presents his views regarding the representation of rape in newspaper articles and the language usage that objectifies women.

The current research had the primary goal of investigating the difference in police reporting patterns by sexual assault victims in Western and in non-Western countries. The data for the present study were obtained from the International Crime Victimization Survey. The present work found a significant difference in police reporting behavior by sexual assault victims in Western and in non-Western countries. Gender, urban residency, and the number of offenders were important factors for victims in non-Western countries, but not for those in Western countries. On the other hand, a victim's prior relationship with his or her offender and family income level were significantly related to police reports in Western countries, but not in non-Western countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual violence prevention has shifted from centering around a message of ‘no means no’ toward a message of ‘get consent.’ This paper explores how young adults conceptualise consent in relation to how they talked about expressing a willingness to participate in sex. The analysis here argues that understandings of consent are disconnected from how young people understand communication about sex. Consent is viewed as a formal minimum requirement for ‘ok’ sex. At the same time, young people were more sophisticated when discussing how they understand and communicate a willingness to have sex. Implications for sexual violence prevention education and research on sexual consent are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports on a study that compared the content of video-recorded police interview with the live evidence-in-chief at trial of the same adult rape complainant in real cases in New Zealand. Careful analysis showed that over two-thirds of the details that were central to establishing whether the alleged offending had occurred were later omitted from live evidence. The findings suggest that using the video interview as evidence provides an opportunity to provide the most complete evidence from a witness, and hence may improve just outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous reviews, reports and commissions of inquiry, the investigation and prosecution of rape cases remains fraught. Victims are still ambivalent about reporting incidents of sexual violence, while those who do often struggle to be believed and have their cases progress through justice systems. This paper explores some of the reasons why promised reforms materialise so rarely into tangible benefits for the majority of rape complainants, and focuses on six areas: reporting, attrition, adversarial justice systems, victim support, specialisation and attitudes. These are canvassed with particular reference to examples from England and New Zealand demonstrating the barriers to substantive reform and the ways in which gender inequalities and patriarchal beliefs continue to impact upon both the prevalence of sexual violence as well as state responses to its occurrence. The paper contains a cautionary message regarding the potential dangers involved in accepting the rhetoric of reform while the underlying realities remain little changed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although New Zealand has been a pioneer in the development and expansion of restorative justice in the adult and youth criminal justice systems, it has taken a more cautious approach to using restorative justice in adult cases of gendered violence. We present interviews of 19 New Zealand Opinion Leaders on the appropriateness of restorative justice for partner, family, and sexual violence, and child sexual abuse (CSA). We found that three groups, rather than two, better describe the range of positions: these are the Supporters, Skeptics, and Contingent Thinkers. All viewed child sexual assault as least suitable for restorative justice, with relatively more support in cases of partner, family, and sexual violence. The Opinion Leaders' positions were shaped by their experiences with restorative justice, professional position, racial and ethnic identities, and views of the criminal justice system. The participants' views were complex and varied, and not easily contained in a simple 'for' or 'against' dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1862 His Honor, Justice Johnston, issued his instructions to the jury of the New Zealand Supreme Court for two simultaneous rape trials - the alleged rape of a European woman by two Māori men, and an alleged 'assault with intent to commit a rape' of a Māori woman by a European man. This article argues that those instructions should be read within an historiographical critique of British colonial expansion, print capitalism and violence. Drawing on feminist postcolonial theorizing the question posed here, is, 'What is the historical, ideological context for a newspaper reporting of the possible rape of a Māori woman in 1862? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on interracial sexual violence and rape in colonial New Zealand in the 1860s. It examines the contexts of wars between the Māori people and the British on the East Coast and in the Taranki and Waikato regions of New Zealand. The author comments on relations between Māori and Pākehā, the colonial criminal justice system, and the policy of racial amalgamation. Other topics include ideas about masculinity and sexual immorality.

We map a discourse of the trauma of rape that was widely drawn upon by 29 “lay” New Zealand women and men in focus group discussions about the impact of rape. Using a discursiv e approach, we identify the key interlocking elements of this discourse. It centers on the contention that rape is traumatic, and depicts this trauma as unique, sev ere, long lasting, and in need of healing. We discuss the ways in which this ostensibly more enlightened and sensitiv e framework of meaning brings forth its own ways of potentially othering, stigmatizing, v iolating, and obstructing av enues of support and understanding for women who hav e experienced rape. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the crime patterns of 76 New Zealand serial sexual offenders in order to determine the extent to which offenders display locational consistency in their choice of crime locations. More specifically, the hypothesis was that there would be intraseries consistency in the distances travelled (spatial consistency) and the characteristics of the crime sites selected (environmental consistency) by serial sexual offenders. For spatial consistency to be tested, the distances travelled from home to offend and the criminal range for each offence series were analysed. Support was found for spatial consistency, and, in line with much overseas research, it was also found that the offenders typically did not travel very far from home to offend (median distance of 3 km). The environmental consistency measure was made up of various physical, temporal, and contextual variables that described the environmental characteristics of an offence. As hypothesised, it was found that offenders displayed intraseries environmental consistency in offence site selection beyond the level of that expected by chance. The implications of this both for understanding offender spatial decision making and for geographical profiling are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research over the past decade on rape and sexual coercion among gay and bisexual men has shown that significant numbers of men report some form of unwanted or coerced sexual experience. Most studies have investigated the prevalence and impact of sexual assault, with little exploration of the nature and meanings of sexual coercion. This paper contributes to understandings of the latter, analysing the notion of 'risk' as it appeared in the talk of 23 key informants interviewed. These informants offered expert perspectives on the issue of sexual coercion and unwanted sex among gay and bisexual men, based on their professional and community experience. Thematic analysis led us to identify two predominant patterns of talk around risk: a focus on sociocultural contexts as risky for sexual coercion and a focus on certain types of individuals as vulnerable and 'at risk' of sexual coercion. Accounts of individual risk fit with currently dominant prevention models, which work to strengthen individuals' abilities to avoid or resist coercion. The accounts that emphasised context fit with recent theorising which suggests broader interventions are also necessary to prevent sexual coercion, ones that challenge normative constructions of sexuality and sexual practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International research has suggested that rapist criminal histories can be predicted from certain offence behaviours. Ninety-six solved stranger rape cases were examined to determine if there was consistency in a New Zealand sample. Rapist behaviours during the offence were compared with criminal convictions prior to the rape. The primary statistical technique used was likelihood ratio stepwise binary logistic regression. Predictive utility of the results was limited, due to significant correlation coefficients between the criminal history variables. Nevertheless, the current study reflected the general findings of similar descriptive international research. These outcomes were: the majority of stranger rapists had prior criminal convictions, and the majority of those convictions were for property offences not sexual offending. Furthermore, ethnic minorities were over-represented among the offenders, and the majority of stranger rapists started committing their first known rapes in their mid- to late 20s. Finally, methodological difficulties were encountered during this study. This highlights the need to refine existing statistical approaches to predictive offender-based research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interviews conducted with victims of New Zealand serial rapist, Malcolm Rewa, this article highlights the limitations of the terms resistance and survival as they are typically applied to women's responses to rape attacks. Although acknowledging that formulations that stress women's abilities to resist and their capacities to survive have been critically important in challenging popular notions of women as passive victims, the women's accounts presented here suggest a need to question whether such formulations are adequate to reflect the complexity and diversity of women's responses to sexual assaults. A preliminary attempt is also made to explore the implications associated with embracing expanded understandings of what resistance and survival might mean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offence process models seek to capture the interactions between cognitive, affective, behavioural and volitional components of offences, as they unfold over time. These models are primarily descriptive and provide a foundation to higher levels of theorizing. Previous research into the offence chains of child sexual offenders has suggested that a number of different pathways are required to accommodate the most common variations in how men go about committing their offences. Offence chain research has established that the Relapse Prevention (RP) model accommodates a truncated range of these offence chain patterns, yet most treatment programmes for sex offenders rely heavily on the RP model. In recent research with rapists, we constructed an offence process model for rape, using qualitative data obtained from a sample of rapists incarcerated in New Zealand prisons. We present preliminary work on identifying the pathways that individual offences take through this model. We describe these pathways and examine their implications for tailoring of rehabilitation endeavours for men who sexually assault adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we analyse New Zealand media texts about so-called false rape allegations from 1995 to 1999, in relation to legislative and social change towards rape. In particular, we focus on a critical reading of a magazine article that stands out as being (the only) relatively balanced investigation into 'false rape'. We argue that despite the surface neutrality of this text, it privileges an interpretation of the issue in which it is taken for granted that reports of rape claimed to be false by police really are false (that is, women's lies). We show how this happens through the framing of the article, the tacit construction of 'the issue' and the denial of the broader social and historical context of rape. In these ways, we argue that it perpetuates contemporary rape myths. Widespread circulation and adherence to such myths, we suggest, hinder the criminal justice system and broader cultural responses to rape that are sympathetic to women who are raped. We further suggest that this construction of the 'new issue' of false rape allegations can be read as an expression of 'backlash anxiety' about the emergent gains made by feminists in challenging rape-supportive discourses and practices in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study was to report on the prevalence of genital findings documented in women attending a forensic examination following an allegation of recent sexual assault. A secondary aim was to investigate for any associations between genital findings and variables related to population demographics and clinical factors., Study Design: A retrospective review of clinical records was undertaken for 593 women, aged between 17 and 45 years of age, who underwent a forensic examination within 72 h following an alleged sexual assault at the Pohutukawa clinic, adult Sexual Abuse Assessment and Treatment Service (SAATS) in Auckland, New Zealand over a four-year period. Statistical analysis to examine for any associations between any documented genital findings and subject variables was performed., Results: The key finding was that 66.4% (394/593) of the women had a normal genital examination. Of the 182 women with genital findings the presence of skin disruption and/or bruising was noted in 21.1% (125/593) and non-specific findings in 9.6% (57/593). 17 women were not included as the genital examination was incomplete. For 9.5% (56/593) of women the presence of abnormal genital skin was documented. From the adjusted odds ratios obtained by multivariate analysis there was a statistically significant association between the presence of genital findings and abnormal skin condition (OR 3.13, p = 0.0004)., Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the majority of women seen within 72 h of an alleged sexual assault had a normal genital examination. Given the strength of the association between the presence of genital findings and skin condition, we recommend that documentation of the genital skin condition should become a routine part of a forensic examination following sexual assault. This is particularly important if genital findings are present, in order to present the full complexity of clinical examination findings to the court and provide an expert opinion regarding the limitations of attributing causation., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The article offers information on the legal considerations of rape offence in New Zealand. The subject of gender neutrality is discussed. Also mentioned is the section 128 of the Crimes Act 1961 highlighting the definitions of male reproductive organ and female genitalia. The act's definition of sexual violence that includes unlawful sexual connection, penetrative sexual offending is discussed.

The article discusses the New Zealand Independent Police Complaints Authority's (IPCA's) release of its "Report on Police's Handling of the Alleged Offending by 'Roastbusters'" in March 2015 which addresses a police investigation in which there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any of the suspects. According to the article, the police failed to follow-up on claimant Katharine Webb's complaint alleging that her estranged husband had raped her. Domestic violence is also examined.