Consequences of sexual violence: criminological dimension

Abstract

The article substantiates the need to activate criminological knowledge of the fundamental problem of the consequences of crime. The consequences of sexual violence, their parameters, levels of manifestation, the addressees of causation, the «price» and other points are of theoretical as well as practical interest. It is suggested that the material consequences of sexual violence be considered as various forms of causing physical violence, materialized in the consequences: death, violation of the anatomical integrity and physiological function of organs and tissues of the person; as well as economic losses related to the temporary or permanent withdrawal of a person from the sphere of social relations and the response of state or public institutions to a crime. Formulated author's definition of intangible consequences of crime as generated by crime for the individual, society, state of consequences of undeclared nature, forms of manifestation of which cause mental (moral) harm to individuals, as well as non-pecuniary damage to legal entities of the public and private society. At the individual level, the non-material consequences of sexual violence are post-traumatic and mental disorders of victims of crimes by individuals. On the basis of the provisions of criminological science, legal psychology, medicine, the material and intangible consequences of sexual violence were analyzed, taking into account the criminal statistics. It is emphasized that obtaining objective and up-to-date data on criminal practices of sexual violence in Ukraine is a paramount condition for the formation of an information base for the socio-legal assessment of the relevance of combating this type of crime. Despite the incompleteness and inconsistency of official statistics data, the high latency of detecting and fixing post-traumatic and mental disorders of sexually abused victims, the lack of effective algorithms for calculating their «price», collecting this criminologically relevant information, and facilitating the development of action.