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Virtual Special Issue: Gender-based Violence

Journal of Criminal Psychology

Dr Dominic Willmott (Editor-in-Chief) - Loughborough University, UK

Whilst there is a growing awareness of global prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV), recorded (and unrecorded) crime figures for related offences continue to rise. At the same time, data indicates that for many of the most serious forms of gendered violence, rates of attrition are also on the rise. Best estimates suggest that around 5 out of 6 victims of sexual violence will never formally report their abuse to the authorities and of those that do, only a small number successfully navigate the criminal justice process to arrive at a ‘successful outcome’. For many a successful outcome may be a conviction at trial – though for most this will not be achieved. As researchers from across the disciplines of psychology, criminology, and law continue to work together to examine the true scale of the problem, the consequences for all involved, as well as how best to detect, intervene, and treat perpetrators of such violence, I have drawn together a series of the ‘latest and greatest’ research published in the Journal of Criminal Psychology (JCP) that deal with the problem that is GBV.

The eight articles selected and referenced below seek to help us better understanding the scope and scale of the gender-based violence problem; from spotlighting violence encountered by restaurant workers in under-researched regions such as Ethiopia, assaulted whilst attempting to complete their work (Yasegnal, 2023), to the role that government social policy can have on GBV incident rates. Here, Ali, Rogers and Heward-Belle (2021a) found covid lockdowns not only led to an increase in rates of partner violence but also exacerbated the mental health consequences that victim-survivors encountered. In a separate paper, Ali and colleagues (2021b) also found problems in the accuracy of recorded and reported IPV prevalence rates, further compounding the impact of lockdown policies highlighted above given that rates of victimisation are not accurately recorded and therefore under-reported. 

Studies continue to highlight the scale of public misunderstanding and deep-rooted socially constructed negative attitudes held towards GBV victim-survivors. Scott and Gavin (2018) evidence the role that factors such as victim and offender gender and sexting tendencies can have on perceptions towards ‘revenge pornography’ offence seriousness and victim blame attributions, and in their analysis, de Motte and Mutale (2019) explore how social constructions of women can influence our perceptions towards female sexual offenders likelihood of perpetrating abuse against children.  In the final three articles included in this virtual GBV special issue, we spotlight research on arguably the most serious form of gendered violence, rape. Where perpetrators not only sexually abuse their victims (DeLisi et al. 2016) but take their victims life after the sexual abuse has occurred. Stefanska, Bloomfield and Carter (2021) examine the characteristics of cases where the sexual murderer was intimately acquainted with their victim and Chopin and Beauregard (2021) investigate motivations underpinning overkill in sexual homicide, findings impulsive and sadistic acts to be prominent. 


Please download and explore the eight articles referenced below, published in the journal of criminal psychology that I hope may help us all to better understand the problem of gender-based violence. 
 

1.   Gender based violence against women: the crisis behind being a restaurant waitress.
•    Yasegnal, A.S. (2023) 

2.   Our love was a two-person game. At least until one of us died, and the other became a murderer: sexual homicide perpetrated by intimate partners.
•    Stefanska, E., Bloomfield, S. and Carter, A. (2021)  

3.   COVID-19 and domestic violence: impact on mental health.
•    Ali, P., Rogers, M. and Heward-Belle, S. (2021).  

4.   Patterns of overkill in sexual homicides.
•    Chopin, J. and Beauregard, E. (2021).  

5.   How accurate and useful are published UK prevalence rates of intimate partner violence (IPV)? Rapid review and methodological commentary.
•    Ali, P., Allmark, P., Booth, A., Seedat, F., Woods, H.B. and McGarry, J. (2021).  

6.   How the construction of women in discourse explains society’s challenge in accepting that females commit sexual offences against children.
•    de Motte, C. and Mutale, G. (2019). 

7.   Revenge pornography: The influence of perpetrator-victim sex, observer sex and observer sexting experience on perceptions of seriousness and responsibility.
•    Scott, A.J. and Gavin, J. (2018). 

8.   The dark figure of sexual offending: new evidence from federal sex offenders
•   DeLisi, M., Caropreso, D.E., Drury, A.J., Elbert, M.J., Evans, J.L., Heinrichs, T. and Tahja, K.M. (2016).