Timothy Verhoeven, de l’université de Monash en Australie, est spécialiste de l’histoire contemporaine de la France et des États-Unis. Son ouvrage Sexual Crime, Religion and Masculinity in Fin-de-Siècle France: the Flamidien affair se situe à la croisée de deux thématiques qu’il avait déjà étudiées auparavant, l’anticléricalisme et les relations entre Église et États d’un côté, et l’histoire des masculinités à partir des sexualités cléricales de l’autre. À partir d’un fait divers propice à me...

What should we do about low conviction rates for sexual offences? Much of the discussion focuses on the problem of prosecution: i.e. too few accusations of sexual assault make their way to court. Here, I want to consider the problem from a different angle—namely, what should we do if prosecution rates rise, but conviction rates do not? After all, prosecutions are not an end in themselves. The problem is that too few people who are guilty of sexual (...) assault are being punished. So, what steps, if any, should be taken if conviction rates fail to rise along with prosecution rates? (shrink)

본 논고는 대한민국 사회를 관통하고 있는 불법촬영물이라는 특정 포획물을 기반으로 분포하고 있는 ‘관음충’에 대한 형태발생학적인(morphogenetic) 고찰이다. 형태발생학적 고찰이란 대한민국의 사회문화적 환경 안에서 디지털 성범죄 시스템을 추동시키는 ‘관음충’이라는 특정 군집구성체(population)가 어떠한 젠더와 조건을 중심으로 발생과 생장, 증식을 거듭하는지를 추적함을 의미한다. 필자는 한남유충-관음충-한남충이라는 용어가 배태하고 있는 곤충 군집체의 형태발생학적 착상(conception, idea)을 적극적으로 활용하여 본 논의의 배경(background)으로 삼고자 한다. 그리하여 한남충을 알-유충-성충의 단계에서 탈피와 성장을 거듭하지만 형태상으로 비슷한 상태를 유지하는 ‘불완전변태(homomorphism)’의 모델로 분석하고자 하는 것이다. 또한 ‘한남유충’에서 ‘한남충’으로의 변태(metamorphosis) 과정의 추이가 ‘관음충’의 지수(factor)를 통해 (...) 구체적으로 어떠한 방식으로 단계적으로 진화 가능한지를 첨예하게 드러내고자 한다. 이를 위해 필자는 미국의 신물질주의(New materialism) 이론의 선두주자이자 들뢰즈의 현대적 계승자인 마뉴엘 데란다(Manuel De Landa)의 이론적 틀을 창의적으로 재해석함으로써 관음충 군집체의 발생과 진화과정, 그것의 잠재적 궤적 방향과 현실적 양태에 대한 비판적 분석을 시도할 것이다. 그러하기에 첫째, 데란다가 제시한 ‘군집구성체적 사고(population thinking)’ 틀을 통해 한국에서 태어난 남아가 어떻게 ‘관음충’으로 집단적으로 생장, 진화하는가를 분석하고자 사회문화적으로 다양한 자가복제 기제들(replicators)을 들여다보도록 하겠다. 둘째, ‘강렬도의 사고(intensive thinking)’ 틀을 통해 관음충의 형태발생학적 변화 과정을 ‘영토화(territorialisation)와 코드화(coding)’라는 두 가지 기준척도를 통해 각각의 변이국면의 주요 특이점들을 파악하고 고찰할 것이다. 셋째, ‘위상학적 사고(Topological thinking)’ 틀을 통해 가부장제 자본주의 사회지평 내 관음충 군집체가 주파할 잠재적 궤도 방향과 메커니즘을 분석, 고찰하고 대한민국 사회가 이 궤도로부터 어떻게 이탈 가능할지를 페미니즘적으로 사유하도록 하겠다. (shrink)

Hamas militants have raped and mutilated the bodies of dozens of men and women in Israel during their attack and captivity in Gaza. The exact extent of these atrocities, however, is unknown. For reasons of this sort and others, prosecuting sexual abusers during armed conflicts is notoriously difficult. In an attempt to make a legal case against Hamas militants, the Israeli authorities have recently ordered civilian hospitals to breach medical confidentiality and report unidentified data of patients who have suffered (...) bodily mutilation and sexual abuse during the Hamas attack or during captivity in Gaza. Patients were not informed about this policy. This article first establishes a case for why medical confidentiality is such an important existential and normative value. In this light, it then argues that the Israeli policy is morally unjustified. (shrink)

Its critics call it ‘feminism-as-crime-control’, or ‘Governance Feminism’, diagnosing it as a pernicious form of identity politics. Its advocates call it taking sexual violence seriously – by which they mean wielding the power of the state to ‘punish perpetrators’ and ‘protect vulnerable women’. Both sides agree that this approach follows from the radical feminist analysis of sexual violence most strikingly formulated by Catharine MacKinnon. The aim of this paper is to rethink the Governance Feminism debate by questioning this (...) common presupposition. I ask whether taking MacKinnon’s analysis of sexual violence seriously might, in fact, itself give us reason to be critical of political strategies that embrace the punitive state. By raising this question, I hope to persuade radical feminists to listen to critics of carceral politics rather than dismissing them as rape apologists, and critics of carceral politics to listen to radical feminists rather than dismissing them as state apologists. (shrink)

Two predictions concerning the perceived severity of crimes can be derived from evolutionary theory. The first, arising from the theory of inclusive fitness, is that crimes in general should be viewed as more serious to the degree that the victim is genetically related to the perpetrator. The second, arising from the deleterious effects of inbreeding depression, is that heterosexual sexual coercion should be perceived as more serious the closer the genetic relationship of victim and perpetrator, particularly when (...) the victim is a female of fertile age. Two hundred and thirty university students estimated the magnitude of the severity of brief crime descriptions in three separate studies. In the first two, the biological kinship of victim and perpetrator was varied, and in the third, the hypothetical genetic relatedness of the subject and the fictitious victim was varied. All three studies found the linear relationships between biological kinship and perceived crime severity predicted by theory. (shrink)

International criminal law (ICL) has traditionally overlooked sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and struggles to understand it. Prosecutions have been largely inefficient and not reflective of gender harms. The Rome Statute requires interpreting SGBV as a social construction (article 7(3)), in consistency with international human rights law (IHRL) and without discrimination (article 21(3)). There is, however, little guidance to implement these approaches. This article argues that intersectionality, an IHRL-based approach that reveals compounded discrimination, is an efficient tool to interpret (...) SGBV and, therefore, should be integrated in ICL. The article traces the origins of intersectionality in feminism and its recognition by IHRL dealing with violence against women. It establishes the applicability of intersectionality in ICL that it demonstrates with a comparative analysis of the Lubanga and Ntaganda cases. The findings show that intersectionality suits ICL’s specific needs which allows labelling and explaining some of those contributions throughout the judicial process. (shrink)

This article has two broad purposes. First, as a political philosopher who has been interested in the concepts of coercion and exploitation, I want to consider just what the analysis of the concept of consent can bring to the question, what sexually motivated behavior should be prohibited through the criminal law? Put simply, I shall argue that conceptual analysis will be of little help. Second, and with somewhat fewer professional credentials, I shall offer some thoughts about the substantive question itself. (...) Among other things, I will argue that it is a mistake to think that sexual crimes are about violence rather than sex and that we need to understand just why the violation of sexual autonomy is a serious wrong. I shall also argue that the principle that “no means no” does not tell us when “yes means yes,” and that it is the latter question that poses the most interesting theoretical difficulties about coercion, misrepresentation, and competence. In addition, I shall make some brief remarks concerning two questions about consent and sexual relations that lie beyond the criminal law: What “consent compromising behaviors” should be regarded as indecent, although not criminal? When should someone consent to sexual relations within an enduring relationship? (shrink)

Though their biographies vastly differ, Karl Barth's long-term extra-marital relationship with Charlotte von Kirschbaum and John H. Yoder's sexual crimes have been the focus of a range of reactions and proposed approaches on how to read the theology of the two theologians given their biographies. This article will examine those critical responses using an analytical framework appropriated from Sameer Yadav's work on cognate conversations about locating and remedying the causes of white supremacy in the church: are the problems (...) due to problematic theology, problematic institutional practice, or both? A correct diagnosis helps the theologian to then propose the right remedy. This adapted framework will be applied to the cases of Barth and Yoder to critically examine how Steven Plant and Rachel Muers respond to Barth's biography and how Stanley Hauerwas and Hilary Scarsella respond to Yoder's biography. After demonstrating how the different respondents address the issue as one primarily of problematic theology or problematic institutional practices, I will argue that it is both theology and practice that must be addressed in order to satisfactorily deal with the reality and scale of infection when it comes to influential theologians. Sample treatments will be offered for responding to Barth's and Yoder's biographies. (shrink)

In the year ending March 2020, an estimated 773,000 people in England and Wales were sexually assaulted. These types of crimes have lasting effects on victims’ mental health, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. There is a large body of literature which identifies several factors associated with the likelihood of the victim reporting a sexual assault to the police, and these differences may be due to rape myth stereotypes which perpetuate the belief that rape is only “real” (...) under certain conditions. Less is known, however, about the effect these rape myths and stereotypes have on the investigation process itself and the subsequent police outcomes assigned to sex offences. This study aimed to address this gap, providing a profile of all RASSO (rape and serious sexual offences) committed over a 3-year period in one English police force, the police outcomes of these offences, and whether any offences, suspect, or victim variables were associated with different outcomes, in particular the decision to charge or cases where victims decline to prosecute. In line with previous research, the majority of victims were female while the majority of suspects were male, and the most frequent victim–suspect relationship was acquaintance, followed by partner/ex-partner. Charge outcomes were more likely in SSOs and less in rape offences, more likely with stranger offences and less likely than offences committed by partners/ex-partners and relatives, and some non-white suspects were more likely to be charged than suspects of other ethnicities, including white suspects. Victim attrition was more likely in cases where the suspect was a partner or ex-partner and least likely where the suspect was a stranger, more likely in SSOs than in rape cases, and more likely when the victim ethnicity was “other”. Law enforcement should be aware of the potential biases, both relating to rape myths and stereotypes and to the biased treatment of victims and suspects based on demographic characteristics, and work to eliminate these to ensure a fairer and more effective RASSO investigative process. (shrink)

This article discusses the views of Immanuel Kant on sexual perversion (what he calls "carnal crimes against nature"), as found in his Vorlesung (Lectures on Ethics) and the Metaphysics of Morals (both the Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). Kant criticizes sexual perversion by appealing to Natural Law and to his Formula of Humanity. Neither argument for the immorality of sexual perversion succeeds.

One of the most heated debates in psychological science concerns the concept of repressed memory. We discuss how the debate on repressed memories continues to surface in legal settings, sometimes even to suggest avenues of legal reform. In the past years, several European countries have extended or abolished the statute of limitations for the prosecution of sexual crimes. Such statutes force legal actions (e.g., prosecution of sexual abuse) to be applied within a certain period of time. One (...) of the reasons for the changes in statutes of limitations concerns the idea of repressed memory. We argue that from a psychological standpoint, these law reforms can be detrimental, particularly when they are done to endorse unfounded psychological theories. The validity of testimonies is compromised many years after the alleged facts, and abolishing the statute of limitations increases the chance that even more (false) recovered memories of abuse might enter the courtroom. We propose solutions to these changes such as establishing an independent expert committee evaluating claims of sexual abuse. (shrink)

Does the black struggle for civil rights make common cause with the movement to foster queer community, protest anti-queer violence or discrimination, and demand respect for the rights and sensibilities of queer people? Confronting this emotionally charged question, Ladelle McWhorter reveals how a carefully structured campaign against abnormality in the late 19th and early 20th centuries encouraged white Americans to purge society of so-called biological contaminants, people who were poor, disabled, black, or queer. Building on a legacy of savage hate (...) crimes—such as the killings of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd—McWhorter shows that racism, sexual oppression, and discrimination against the disabled, the feeble, and the poor are all aspects of the same societal distemper, and that when the civil rights of one group are challenged, so are the rights of all. (shrink)

In India, Dalits faced a centuries-old caste-based discrimination and nowadays indigenous people too are getting a threat from so called developed society. We can define these crimes with the term ‘atrocity’ means an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury. Caste-related violence has occurred and occurs in India in various forms. Though the Constitution of India has laid down certain safeguards to ensure welfare, protection and development, there is gross violation of their rights such (...) as killing, murder, torture, burning, abduction, rape and molestation. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, “Dalits and indigenous peoples (known as Scheduled Tribes or adivasis) continue to face discrimination, exclusion, and acts of communal violence. Laws and policies adopted by the Indian government provide a strong basis for protection, but are not being faithfully implemented by local authorities.” Human rights issues are very often understood and analyzed from socio-political and cultural perspectives. Apart from such perspectives, the issue of human rights also can be analyzed from a strictly philosophical perspective, which implies that the idea of human rights is centered on the inspiration of human dignity. Several studies on the situation of human rights of Dalits in several parts of India show more reports on violation of human rights than on protection of them. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading condition, and routinely abused at the hands of the police and higher-caste groups that enjoy state protection. For example, Dalit women are regularly subjected to sexual violence as a result of their lower caste status-often in response to their demands of basic rights. Hate crimes towards indigenous peoples is a daily reality in many countries across the globe. The challenge is to change such a dehumanized situation. The challenge is to each one of us that whether engaged in governance of the civil society or voluntarily engaged in social and economic development of society, one thing to remember is that leaving behind the vulnerable units of our society – Dalits and indigenous peoples – will not take us to a prosperous society. This paper is an attempt to study the situation of human rights of two most neglected segments of society namely, Dalits and STs as a serious international human rights issue. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Chemsex is a phenomenon in which typically gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and/or related communities of men take psychoactive drugs while having sex, often without a condom. The practice can lead to increased rates of HIV transmission, sexual assault, and in extreme cases murder. GBTQ+ men are already a stigmatised group so those who engage in chemsex face multiple stigmas. This study examines the ways that two types of media report on chemsex while negotiating these stigmas. We take a (...) large data set of newspaper articles written for the general British public and a smaller data set of magazines aimed at GBTQ+ men to examine how chemsex is represented in the media. We find that the mainstream press focus on extreme criminal cases involving chemsex, while the media aimed at GBTQ+ men focus on counselling services and discuss chemsex in relation to gay culture. Chemsex is unlikely to go away, and so we address how information about it is conveyed in different media and call for more research in this area. (shrink)

Recent rape law reform is most saliently characterised by a turn to gender neutrality in its definition of the crime of rape. The few possible advantages of a gender neutral approach to rape are offset by a series of disadvantages regarding gender justice when viewed from a feminist perspective. Formal gender neutrality does not safeguard against the effective influence of pervasive and enduring symbolic constructions pertaining to male and female sexuality and of a normalised hierarchical binary constructed between the two (...) sexes, in particular where sexual relations are concerned. Such efficacy may impede justice for both male and female victims of rape. The question about the place of sexual difference or rather sexual specificity within feminist theories of justice should be considered anew in light of this critical analysis of gender neutrality in rape law. (shrink)

In mainstream discussion, violent crimes against women frequently are presented as inexplicable and their perpetrators as social deviants. Feminists have argued for an awareness of the sexually political and conformist nature of such crimes and have invented the word gynocide to name the range of systematic violence against women by men. I look at the issues raised by three recent manifestations of gynocide in the United States: the battering of Hedda Nussbaum and murder of Lisa Steinberg by Joel (...) Steinberg, the execution of serial killer Ted Bundy, and a series of murders of “prestigeless” women. (shrink)

After World War II, a change of the “sexual economy” was beginning in the most highly developed industrial societies, the islands of prosperity with “mixed economic systems” (P. Mattick). In the thirties, indeed even in the fifties, bourgeois-capitalist society was still considered by both opponents and defenders to be one in which the sexual needs of its acculturated members are limited, prohibited and penalized as much as possible, with sexuality banned from publicity (except as a scandal or a (...) crime). The “sex-wave” however, brought a return of the repressed. Since then “sex” is not only recognized but propagated as a “central life interest.”. (shrink)

How wrong is it to deceive a person into having sex with you? The common view seems to be that this depends on the nature of the deception. If it involves something very important, such as your identity, then the wrong done is very serious. But if it involves something more trivial, such as your natural hair colour, then the wrong seems less great. Tom Dougherty rejects this view. He argues that sexual deception is always seriously wrong. In this (...) paper, I present a response to Doughterty’s argument. I propose an analysis of the wrongness in deception according to which acts of deception, in sexual relations and elsewhere, may differ in their degree of wrongness, and some may not be seriously wrong. (shrink)

Advances in forensic techniques have expanded the temporal horizon of criminal investigations, facilitating investigation of historic crimes that would previously have been considered unsolvable. Public enthusiasm for pursuing historic crimes is exemplified by recent high-profile trials of celebrities accused of historic sexual offences. These circumstances give new urgency to the question of how we should decide which historic offences to investigate. A satisfactory answer must take into account the ways in which the passage of time can erode (...) the benefits of criminal investigation, the costs associated with investigating old crimes, and the need to prioritize investigations in the face of limited police resources. This article emphasizes the first of these factors. It begins by considering the moral goals of a criminal justice system and the contribution of criminal investigations to the achievement of these goals, distinguishing between contributions that depend on further steps in the criminal justice process, such as prosecution and punishment, and contributions that can have value independently of these further steps. Using this important distinction, the article then examines a range of factors that relate the passage of time to criminal justice goals, including the seriousness of the crime; deterioration of evidence; death of the offender, victim and others affected by the crime; and diminished psychological connectedness between those affected by the crime and their current selves. While the range and non-uniformity of relevant factors preclude a simple answer to the question of when historic crimes should be investigated and call instead for case-by-case assessment, we find that the analysis does support some general conclusions that can guide such an assessment. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed rape and sexual violence used on such a massive scale and often in a widespread and systematic program that the international community has had to recognize that rape and sexual violence are not just war crimes but might be crimes against humanity or even genocide. I suggest that just war theory, while limited in its applicability to mass rape, might nevertheless offer some framework for making the determination of when sexual violence (...) and rape constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. In addition, just war theory can provide the normative justification individual soldiers need to resist orders and actions that demonstrate egregious moral breakdown as found in instances of mass rape and systematic use of sexual violence, and just war criteria demonstrate that the use of rape and sexual violence in war time can never be legitimated, especially in the case of prisoner interrogation. (shrink)

Building rapport is considered important in investigative interviewing of children about alleged sexual abuse, but theoretical understanding of the nature of rapport and how to judge its presence remains sketchy. This article argues that the conversation analytic concept of progressivity may provide empirical tractability to the concept of rapport and indeed may be partially what people are detecting when they judge the presence of rapport. A single case is analysed, drawn from a corpus of 11 video-taped interviews with children (...) conducted by police in an Australian sexual crime unit. Analysis focuses on how the interviewer responds when progressivity breaks down, and how restoration is collaboratively achieved. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future work that might investigate a more thoroughly social interactional account of rapport, and in terms of new ideas about what might constitute skilful interviewing practices amongst investigative interviewers. (shrink)

Whether in the form of testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, or contributory injustice, epistemic injustice is characterised an injustice rather than simply an epistemic harm because it is often motivated by an identity prejudice and exacerbates existing social disadvantages and inequalities. I argue that epistemic injustice can also be utlised against some members of privileged social identity groups in order to preserve the dominant status of the group as a whole. As a case-study, I analyze how the harms to male victims (...) of sexual violence is exacerbated by the failure of the law to recognise the rape of men as a crime and the failure of other people to recognise the testimony of male rape victims as credible. Analyzing shifts in the legal concept of rape and examples from Project Unbreakable, I uncover how these failures of recognition undermine the victims’ status as legal, moral, and epistemic subjects and inflict epistemic injustice against them. (shrink)

Aquinas and the idea of law -- Aquinas on criminal culpability -- Crimes against the person -- Aquinas on sexual offenses -- Aquinas on property offenses -- Offenses involving judicial process -- Aquinas on offenses against public morality -- Law, justice, sentencing and punishment.

Violence against women is a growing health problem, especially when perpetrated in intimate relationships. Despite increasing attention, there is little comparative evidence on the different types of violence involved and there is a paucity of research on sexual femicides. This study examines cases of violence against women in northern Italy, focusing on sexual and non-sexual femicides and comparing them with rape that does not result in femicides. The sample included 500 women who were victims of sexual (...) and non-sexual femicides, and of rape. Results show sexual femicides mostly involved unknown victims or women who were prostitutes. Sexual femicidal offenders used improper weapons to kill their victims, acted in secluded locations, and fled the crime scene; their crime was more likely the result of predatory intentions, with antisociality and sexual deviance being the most significant factors related to this type of femicide. The criminal and violent pattern that characterized sexual femicides in this study shared significant similarities with the pattern of violence involved in rape. Rape victims were in fact mostly unknown, or involved in a brief relationship with their killer. When the victim was known it was more likely that the abuse occurred at home and in front of the woman’s children. Rapists were often under the effect of alcohol or drugs. Non-sexual femicides mainly involved known victims, and they were more often committed in the context of domestic disputes. It was not seldom that the long relationship between the victim and perpetrator was likely to be characterized by contentiousness, suggesting that the woman was often victim of an oppressive climate of emotional tension and domination. Morbid jealousy contributed to aggravating the tone of a controlling relationship. Non-sexual femicides bore more similarities to cases of rape within the pattern of intimate partner violence. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for prevention and intervention. (shrink)

Fear of public disclosure that will add to the humiliation of rape or other sexual assault is real for victims. In discussing this issue, cases for concealment and for disclosure are examined and suggestions are made for determining whether to publish names of victims.

New York defines rape as forced penile vaginal penetration, which means only women can be rape victims. Given this definition, rape should always be considered a type of hate crime and thus eligible for sentencing enhancement because the perpetrators target victims based on their group membership. Such a narrow definition of rape is problematic because it fails to acknowledge oral and anal rape and overlooks the fact that men can also be raped. I argue that regardless of the type of (...) sexual assault that occurs, rape should be considered a hate crime when the rapist chooses the victim based on gender, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation and the rape reinforces the patriarchal and heteronormative hegemony. (shrink)

International law has recently recognized that sexual atrocities can be acts of genocide. This precedent was pioneered through a landmark lawsuit in New York against Radovan Karadžić, head of the Bosnian Serbs (Kadic v. Karadzic, 1993–2000), a case in which I played a central role. I argue that we may situate this development philosophically in relation to Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. She aims to secure a better understanding of genocide than was (...) achieved at the Nuremberg Trials (1945) and at the Eichmann trial (1961). Arendt claims that these trials were limited by formalism because they applied familiar paradigms onto these new experiences in a manner that obscured what was distinctive about them and that demanded original thinking and a new paradigm. Nuremberg obscured genocide by miscasting it as a traditional “war crime,” a problem that the Jerusalem court exposed butcould have better clarified. Through a first-hand account, I show how we too had to secure a new paradigm by treating the facts on their own terms and coining the crime as “genocidal rape.” We had to wrest this paradigm from a prevailing approach that also formally applied the category of “war crimes” onto these experiences in a way that obscured them and interfered with justice. (shrink)

Military-on-military sexual violence—the type of sexual violence that most directly disrupts operations, harms personnel, and undermines recruiting—occurs with astonishing frequency. The U.S. military has responded with a campaign to prevent and punish military-on-military sex crimes. This campaign, however, has made little progress, partly because of U.S. military law, a special realm of criminal justice dominated by legal precedents involving sexual violence and racialized images. By promulgating images and narratives of sexual exploitation, violent sexuality, and female (...) subordination, the military justice system has helped to sustain a legal culture that reifies the connection between sexual violence and authentic soldiering. (shrink)

This thesis examines some of the legal philosophical issues that are implicated in the problem of outcome luck. In the context of criminal law, the problem asks whether we should hold agents criminally liable for the consequences of their actions given that those consequences are never wholly within anyone’s control. I conclude that outcomes should matter to an agent’s liability and punishment, and I make this argument indirectly by examining some of the foundational questions in legal theory. The thesis begins (...) by considering a current trend in some areas of philosophy. This trend involves attempts to address philosophical problems surrounding luck by doing conceptual analyses on the nature of luck. Chapter 1 critically examines modal theories, which conceptualize luck, as well as the related concept of risk, in terms of close possible worlds rather than probabilistic likelihood. I argue that not only are modal theories uninformative, but conceptual analyses on luck are unhelpful in addressing philosophical questions surrounding luck. Chapter 2 then returns to the traditional notion of luck as lack of control, and focuses on the relationship between luck, risk, and culpability. Some theorists argue that culpability, for any offence, is in part a function of the degree of risk the agent imposes on others. In the context of criminal law, degrees of luck and risk can both be understood in terms of degrees of control, so the suggestion that culpability is a function of the level of risk imposed (and thus of the degree of control an agent exercises) is attractive for insulating culpability judgments from luck. However, I argue that this view is mistaken because culpability is only sensitive to risk in reckless actions, but not in purposeful actions. The problem of outcome luck may raise different questions for reckless actions and purposeful actions. Chapter 3 looks at the mens rea element of criminal attempts, which is crucial for understanding the problem of luck in the context of purposeful actions. I discuss a variation of what are sometimes referred to as impossible attempts, which have helped shape current English law. I argue that the current doctrine is largely correct, and that perhaps with the exception of few paradigm sexual offences, the mens rea element for attempts should require a direct intention as to the consequence element of an offence, and knowledge or belief as to the circumstance element of that offence. Chapters 4 and 5 then look at normative justifications of criminal punishment. In order to understand whether outcomes should matter for punishment, we must first understand whether and why punishment is an appropriate response to criminal offending. Here, I defend a communicative theory, where punishment is a communicative process between the offender, the political community, and the victim. What punishment communicates is the appropriate degree of censure that is warranted in response to the offender’s wrongdoing. And in doing this, it publicly recognizes the wrong that has been committed by the offender. Chapter 4 offers a detailed explanation of this account, and argues that the political community’s recognition of wrongdoing is a valuable aim of communication. Chapter 5 then takes up a crucial challenge against communicative theories of punishment, which is that such theories fail to take crime prevention seriously. Against this criticism, I will show that general prevention can in fact be an essential part of communicative punishment. And I will show that it is specifically the political community’s recognition of wrongdoing that entails punishment’s preventive aims. (shrink)

Preventing sexual and gender-based violence—and mitigating its devastating impacts on individuals and societies—is a central challenge of public health. A Woman in Berlin is 34-year-old journalist Marta Hillers’s first-hand account of life during the 1945 Red Army occupation of Berlin at the conclusion of World War II, when Russian soldiers collectively raped 2 million German civilians. Reflecting upon Hillers’s testimony, I argue that historical narratives about large-scale acts of sexual and gender-based violence deserve a more central place in (...) public health discourse. I also question how the ethical challenges of memorializing and studying mass crimes might inform future public health efforts to advance gender equity and mitigate sexual violence globally. (shrink)

In a sex selective abortion, a woman aborts a fetus simply on account of the fetus’ sex. Her motivation or underlying reason for doing so may very well be sexist. She could be disposed to thinking that a female child is inferior to a male one. In a hate crime, an individual commits a crime on account of a victim’s sex, race, sexual orientation or the like. The individual may be sexist or racist in picking his victim. He or (...) she could be disposed to thinking that one race or sex is inferior to another. I argue that while a prohibition on sex selective abortions is anomalous in a liberal, criminal legal framework, hate crime legislation may not be. The former but not the latter constitutes a thought crime. I define a thought crime as one where an agent’s motivation is not just relevant but sufficient to take an act from the domain of the non-punishable to the domain of the punishable. Ignoring a woman’s sexist motivation in procuring an abortion suddenly renders her act of abortion legal. On the other hand, discounting an agent’s bias in committing a hate motivated assault or murder does not transform the act from a punishable one to a non-punishable one. Assaulting or murdering is already a crime. (shrink)

International criminal tribunals established by the UN Security Council in the 1990s have been widely acclaimed as active participants in the modern system of dynamic criminal justice. One of their best known achievements is the prosecution of rape and sexual assaults. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set an example for other tribunals to follow. By interpreting a variety of international laws, the community of international legal professionals has (...) been able to shift the prevailing understanding of rape and sexual violence away from that of an “unfortunate byproducts of war.” Not only has the epistemic community of legal professionals been able to end impunity for these crimes, but case-law of international tribunals has become a basis for subsequent trials at quasi-international tribunals. Decisions of the tribunals have been instrumental in drafting the Statute of the International Criminal Court and can be regarded as an example of the formation of new international norms by means of judicial decisions. (shrink)

Contestable motives of filing reports comprise a set of factors which were not present in the origin of the reported criminal act, as stated by the reporting individual. The objective of such reports is to create circumstances which would lead to the either an imaginary or implicated perpetrator being brought to criminal justice. These types of reports generate a number of doubts and investigative problems. Recently, in the light of newly introduced legislative changes into the methods of investigative procedures in (...) relation to sexual assault, this issue has become much more significant. The following publication includes a detailed description of the legal and psychological situation of an individual who has been classified as a victim in a case of sexual assault. The article includes an analysis of statistical data encompassing the period after the introduction of the aforementioned legislative changes in the type of investigative procedures as well as a qualitative analysis of the major factors influencing the process of filing contestable reports of such crimes. The research has been conducted on the basis of analysing a total of 50 cases. It is the opinion of the author that an expert court psychologist, whose presence is mandatory in these types of cases and whose opinion formulated in the course of preparatory proceedings ought to play a key role in the disclosure of false pretences accompanying such reports. (shrink)

As the suspect interview is one of the key elements of a police investigation, it has received a great deal of merited attention from the scientific community. However, suspect interviews in child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations is an understudied research area. In the present mixed-methods study, we examine Swedish (n= 126) and Norwegian (n= 52) police interviewers' self-reported goals, tactics, and emotional experiences when conducting interviews with suspected CSA offenders. The quantitative analyses found associations between the interviewers' self-reported goals, (...) tactics, and emotions during these types of suspect interviews. Interviewers who reported experiencing more negative emotions were more likely to employ confrontational tactics. Specifically, anger was positively associated with the goal of obtaining a confession and with aggressive tactics like raising one's voice and emphasizing the seriousness of the crime. Frustration and disgust displayed similar patterns. Somewhat contrasting these quantitative results, the thematic analysis identified a strong consensus that emotions should not and do not affect the police interviewers' work. Furthermore, the police interviewers described a range of strategies for managing emotions during the interview and for processing their emotional reactions afterwards. The present findings highlight the relevance of emotional processes in CSA suspect interviews and provide an initial exploration of the potentially complex relationship between the goals, tactics, and emotional experiences of police interviewers who question CSA suspects. (shrink)

The political articulation of sexual violence, as legally understood today, took place in India from 1970s onward. In succeeding decades, its definition broadened, positioning it in contexts of caste-based violence, of violence against women at workplaces, and of custodial violence. The Delhi gang rape case, in 2012, introduced another set of political and legal articulations, simultaneously revealing the very politics around them. This paper begins by tracking these phases and definitions, to emphasize one area where such violence has been (...) vocalized the most in recent years, i.e. institutes of higher education in India. Legal codes in this context, carry grave contradictions. Beside, altogether different interpretation occurs when these are applied within institutes of higher education via bureaucratic channels. Recorded cases have shown presence since 2013, except in some regions which appear in negligible measure. Therefore, alongside tracing the historical journey of political articulations of sexual violence in institutes of higher education, this paper takes the case of Raipur city, in the state of Chhattisgarh located in the central-eastern part of India, which has negligible presence in sexual violence crime records in the context of higher educational institutes. Based on a close reading of legal texts, and field visits conducted across institutions in Raipur between 2020–2022, I argue that the limitation of law in combating gender violence, appears not when it is neglected, but often when it is consciously reinterpreted against minority communities, despite claiming to protect those very communities. I attempt to reassess the potential of ‘law’ as a tool to combat gender violence, around existing debates around society and law. (shrink)

In 1998 Ghia Van Eeden was sexually assaulted by a serial rapist who had escaped from police custody due to the negligence of the South African police authorities. Claiming that the State owed a common law duty of care to potential victims to protect them from violent crimes, Van Eeden sought damages for the harm she had suffered. In a path-breaking decision, the Supreme Court of Appeal (S.C.A.) found that a duty of care did indeed exist and that its (...) execution had to be considered in line with the constitutional requirement to protect women's right to be free from violence and the constitutional obligation to develop the common law so as to promote the spirit, purport and objects of the South African Bill of Rights. Examining the Van Eeden decision in terms of its substantial development of the circumstances in which the State may be judged liable for a wrongful omission, this note positions the S.C.A.'s decision in the context of the evolving case law of the Constitutional Court on sexual violence and ultimately questions its practical significance for addressing the prevalent abuse of women in South Africa. (shrink)

In this paper I make a preliminary analysis of Western (or global North) discourses on sexual violence, focusing on the important concepts of “consent” and “victim.” The concept of “consent” is widely used to determine whether sexual violence has occurred, and it is the focal point of debates over the legitimacy of statutory offenses and over the way we characterize sex work done under conditions involving economic desperation. The concept of “victim” is shunned by many feminists and nonfeminists (...) alike for its apparent eclipse of agency. Putting these concepts into a global framework sheds light on their limitations. Bringing in the debate over the concept “honor crime” reveals contrasting assumptions about the nature of sexual violence. The comparative analysis used in this paper shows how we can avoid universalizing from specific frameworks, but also how we can learn from the discourses elsewhere toward developing an account of commonalities across contexts. Ultimately I argue that in applications to sexual violence, “consent” has intrinsic limitations, “victim” has context-based dangers, and “honor crime” makes both correct as well as incorrect assumptions. (shrink)

Feminist legal scholarship has questioned the usefulness of non-consent as a criterion for rape. Under conditions of generalized sexual oppression, consent may not be an adequate for absence of coercion. I defend this argument and propose that rape law reform can be usefully informed by state protection of workers in the capitalist labor market, where it is assumed that the parties occupy an unequal bargaining position.

In 2012, the politician Todd Akin caused a firestorm by suggesting, in the context of an argument about the moral permissibility of abortion, that some forms of rape were. This seemed to imply that other forms of rape must not be legitimate. In response, several commentators pointed out that rape is a and that there are. While the intention of these commentators was clear, I argue that they may have played into the very stereotype of rape endorsed by Akin. Such (...) a response, I claim, actually obscures a range of sexual harms, including some that may not rise to the level of being a crime. I also offer some thoughts on the moral psychology behind anti-abortion arguments of the kind advanced by Akin. (shrink)

This article draws upon recent works in sociology, jurisprudence, and feminist theory in order to assess the ways in which feminism, and sex and gender more generally, have become intricately interwoven with punitive agendas in contemporary US politics. Melding existing theoretical discussions of penal trends with insights drawn from my own ethnographic research on the contemporary anti-trafficking movement in the United States—the most recent domain of feminist activism in which a crime frame has prevailed against competing models of social justice—I (...) elaborate upon the ways that neoliberalism and the politics of sex and gender have intertwined to produce a carceral turn in feminist advocacy movements previously organized around struggles for economic justice and liberation. Taking the anti-trafficking movement as a case study, I further demonstrate how human rights discourse has become a key vehicle both for the transnationalization of carceral politics and for the reincorporation of these policies into the domestic terrain in a benevolent, feminist guise. I conclude by urging greater and more nuanced attention to the operations of gender and sexual politics within mainstream analyses of contemporary modes of punishment, as well as a careful consideration of the neoliberal carceral state within feminist discussions of gender, sexuality, and the law. (shrink)

States began passing legislation mandating the collection of genetic material from certain convicted offenders in 1988. By 1998, all 50 states had passed laws allowing DNA databases for convicted sexual offenders, and some states collected DNA from all those convicted of a felony. A survey of 416 persons in Maryland revealed wide support for the inclusion of convicted violent offenders (89%) in DNA databases, in sync with most states’ policies. Between two thirds and three quarters of respondents also supported (...) expanding DNA databases to include those suspected of a violent offense, any convicted felon, as well as all convicted offenders, minor and major. Support for collecting the DNA of those suspected of any crime and for all newborns was considerably less (44% to 45%). Although a comprehensive database is most effective for solving and deterring crimes, vigorously enforced protections against abuse of this technology must be in place. (shrink)

The sexual exploitation of children in Indonesia is a serious crime that threatens the fundamental rights of children and their physical, emotional, and mental development. Cases of child sexual exploitation continue to rise, whether in the form of human trafficking, pornography, or sexual abuse, yet the response remains far from optimal. Although regulations and prevention programs are in place, the lack of coordination among law enforcement agencies and the low level of public awareness are major obstacles to (...) resolving these cases.This study employs a qualitative approach using a normative-empirical method, involving an analysis of the legal framework as well as in-depth interviews with legal practitioners and relevant stakeholders. The results indicate that although there is a strong legal foundation, policy implementation is often hindered by bureaucracy, limited human resources, and low legal awareness in society. Additionally, social stigma against victims exacerbates the situation, especially in rural areas.The study recommends an interconnected approach involving substantive law, legal structure, and legal culture as an effective solution to address the escalation of child sexual exploitation. These findings imply the need for improved inter-agency coordination, law enforcement training, and more extensive public awareness campaigns. (shrink)

In 1998, the Labour government introduced legislation broadening British sentencing powers in relation to crimes aggravated by the offender's hostility towards the victim's actual or perceived race, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Gender is a notable omission from this list. Through a survey of eighty-eight stakeholders working in the violence against women (VAW) sector, this paper explores both the potential benefits and possible disadvantages of adding a gender-based category concerned with VAW to British hate crime legislation. The majority (...) of participants believed that a hate crime approach would offer significant benefits, especially in terms of the symbolic power of the law to send a message to society that VAW is unacceptable. However, most also recognised that the addition of a VAW category to current legislation would involve major practical and conceptual difficulties, not least those resulting from problematic assumptions about the nature of hate crimes versus VAW, and a general unwillingness on the part of policy-makers to address the socio-cultural inequalities that underpin VAW. Overall, the fact that the majority of participants favoured inclusion, on the basis that the possible symbolic benefits were likely to outweigh the potential practical disadvantages, is significant: it speaks to the power of hate crime legislation to challenge many forms of inequality and discrimination still endemic in British society. (shrink)