Allegations Of Violence Research Articles

New database tracks Title IX federal investigations

The Chronicle of Higher Education has launched a new free resource for campus security officials and campus officials to track the federal investigations of colleges for possible violations of gender equity laws protected under Title IX, specifically those involving allegations of sexual violence. The project tracks all investigations either currently open or resolved since April 4, 2011, when the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” to campuses, urging officials to resolve student reports of alleged assaults.

Politics of Sectarianism: Rethinking Religion and Politics in the Middle East

Allegations of sectarian violence and discrimination saturate popular and scholarly accounts of developments in the mena region, particularly in the wake of renewed violence in Syria and Iraq. These accounts should sound a warning bell to scholars of religion and politics. The discourse of sectarianism is a modern discourse of religion-in-politics authorized by particular authorities in particular times and places. It relies on a fixed and stable representation of the shifting roles played by that which is named as “religion” or “sect” in politics and society. The complex and often conflicting forces that come together in any given episode of violence or discrimination subvert the stable notions of sectarian motivation and causation that form the bedrock in which such accounts rest. This essay disaggregates and politicizes the discourse of sectarianism, drawing on examples from Egypt, Bahrain, and Israel. It argues for distinguishing between religious difference as construed by those in positions of power, and religious difference as construed and experienced—and at times downplayed or ignored—by individuals and communities that are subjected to, and shaped by, sectarian projects, policies, and narratives.

Ferguson and the Politics of Policing Radical Protest

While the norm amongst states seeking to repress protest movements which challenge their legitimacy is to resort to the ideology of the criminal law and allegations of violence against protesters as a means of depoliticising their activity there have been times when this method has appeared to those in power to be inadequate as a means of weakening or crushing a particular movement. The Ferguson protests in the summer of 2014 were initially met with police repression, but ultimately the National Guard was called in to respond to the protests, which were presented as being orchestrated by “outsiders”. In this way, the protests were re-politicsed for the purposes of justifying the deployment of the military against the people. This justification is antithetical to the notion and purpose of protest such as that in Ferguson, which is to be regarded as successful precisely in its having generated a broad movement that individuals and groups from across US states were moved to join.

GIs in Germany: The Social, Economic, Cultural, and Political History of the American Military Presence Ed. by Thomas W. Maulucci, Jr. and Detlef Junker (review)

Reviewed by: GIs in Germany: The Social, Economic, Cultural, and Political History of the American Military Presence Ed. by Thomas W. Maulucci, Jr. and Detlef Junker Kristen Dolan GIs in Germany: The Social, Economic, Cultural, and Political History of the American Military Presence. Edited by Thomas W. Maulucci, Jr. and Detlef Junker. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 365. Cloth $99.00. ISBN 978-0521851336. Scholars examining the American advance into Germany during the latter stages of World War II frequently mention the non-fraternization order through which military leaders sought to prohibit US troops from close contact with local residents. After years of bitter conflict, the fact that authorities issued this order is in many ways less telling than the decision to rescind it in the fall of 1945. Thomas W. Maulucci and Detlef Junker’s thought-provoking and very readable volume describes this revocation as one step toward a broader range of formal and informal interactions between Americans and Germans in the wake of the war. As Maulucci emphasizes in his introduction, the resulting encounters were shaped by both policy from above and initiatives from below. Profoundly influenced by Cold War considerations as well as local circumstances, the overarching tenor of these interactions changed over time. The book explores developments related to the US military presence in Germany not only from multiple perspectives but also over the course of several crucial postwar decades. Indeed, because the volume moves beyond the more heavily scrutinized periods of Military Government and High Commission for Occupied Germany, it is able to “deal with an American military that is no longer an occupier per se but instead one element in a complex relationship between two sovereign states” (2–4). Taken together, the fifteen well-researched essays succeed remarkably in illuminating much of the complexity to which Maulucci refers. The contributions begin by probing key aspects of the broader framework within which these German-American relations developed. Bruno Thoß, for example, deftly locates West German deliberations regarding the Bundeswehr within rearmament debates in the early Federal Republic, NATO disagreements about defense strategy, and the overarching concern that Washington would redeploy a sizeable portion of American forces. Hubert Zimmermann offers an astute take on how political and economic factors played into the decisions by successive US administrations to maintain troop strength in Europe despite strong domestic pressure for reductions. The essays then explore the many implications following from the US decision to bring the spouses and children of service members to Germany. Thomas Leuerer perceptively notes that, while largely intended to curb troop behavior, American families’ presence fundamentally transformed the character of the occupation. Military communities helped stabilize the new Federal Republic by symbolizing the degree of “U.S. commitment to the common defense of the West” (133). Yet as he also explains, the resulting housing areas, or “Little Americas,” periodically generated substantial concern for nearby communities—such [End Page 218] as in 1972 when “a large group of American teenagers, the children of military personnel, fought a street battle with local police in Wiesbaden” (132). In one of several essays investigating frictions that derived from the American military presence in Germany, Gerhard Fürmetz charts “the public order crisis caused by GIs” until the late 1950s (196). Constraints placed on the German police by the Allies, he argues, not only prevented them from addressing GI delinquency but also impeded “their efforts to regain authority in a shattered postwar society” (211). Jennifer V. Evans draws on courts-martial cases in Berlin from 1945 to 1948, in particular those involving allegations of violence between American soldiers and German women, to illustrate the extent to which “the American military government found itself having to deal with its own forces in its struggle to contain the disorder that followed Germany’s political and social collapse” (232). Focusing on the 1970s, Alexander Vazansky notes that “much of the attention given to the social problems in the army by the government and the national press” moved to Germany from Vietnam (273). While the racial tensions and drug-abuse problems described meticulously by Vazansky persisted at the end of the decade, he cites the example of General Michael S...

The Influence of Divorcing Mothers' Demeanor on Custody Evaluators' Assessment of Their Domestic Violence Allegations

A gap exists between empirical evidence demonstrating the risks posed by domestic violence (DV) and the weight that evidence is given by custody evaluators. This gap may result from common beliefs about DV that diminish or deny its seriousness, which include that mothers often make false allegations to gain advantage and that DV and high conflict are synonymous and do not require differential approaches. Using a multiple segment factorial vignette design, we systematically assessed how these beliefs influenced custody evaluators' (N = 603) recommendations and judgments of the believability of allegations. Mother's demeanor (i.e., hostile vs. pleasant) was the most consistent predictor of evaluators' recommendations and judgments of credibility. Findings have implications for providing research-based education and training for evaluators.

Documenting Mass Rape: Medical Evidence Collection Techniques as Humanitarian Technology

Aim: Emerging global networks of human rights activists, doctors, and nurses have advocated for increased collection of medical evidence in conflict-affected countries to corroborate allegations of sexual violence and facilitate prosecution in international and domestic courts. Such initiatives are part of broader shifts in human rights advocacy to document human rights violations using rigorous, standardized methodologies. In this paper, I consider three principal forms of medical evidence to document sexual violence and their use in these settings: the patient medical record, the medical certificate, and the sexual assault medical forensic exam (commonly known as the “rape kit”). Methods: Combining archival research with interviews of activists, healthcare practitioners, lawyers, investigators, and other experts, I trace the collection and use of medical evidence to document mass rape since the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former

Parental alienation diagnosis. A modern and effective subtype of domestic violence, endemic in Italian courts

In 1985 Gardner, publishing on sexual abuse [1], described a clinical picture, Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) as a “disorder that arises primarily in the context of childcustody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a good, loving parent, a campaign that has no justification.”[2]. Originally Gardner defined PAS in gender specific terms, mothers as alienators and fathers as victims. Later, he claimed that either parent could be an alienator [2]. However, almost always, PAS affects women. Gardner specified “when true parental abuse and/or neglect is present the child’ sa nimosity may be justified, and so the parental alienation syndrome diagnosis is not applicable” [2] but never clarified how to make such differential diagnosis [3-5]. In Gardner’s mind, women involved in divorce trial become psychopathic in the sphere of life related to parenting [6], although PAS “is not only simply a matter of brainwashing or programming in that the children contribute their own elements” [4]. It is based on three main principles: a. the children are liars; b. the father’s alienation is a mother’s responsibility; c. the allegations of maltreatment are false. To a large extent, PAS tautologically presumes lack of justification for the refusal, maternal programming and absence of children’s credibility. PAS’ treatment, based on legal coercion through court-ordered threats of deprivation of custody to force mothers and children to act with affection toward the father, violates the principles of good medical practices [7]. PAS’s theoretical roots lie on Gardner’s theory of human sexuality that justifies adult-child sexual contact and gender violence as beneficial to the reproduction of the species and PAS becomes “a defence strategy for abusive fathers, facilitating these men’s projection of blame for their children’s refusal onto mothers as a counter-claim to, and evidentiary shield against, allegations of violence” in domestic violence cases [7]. PAS is detrimental to children, women and honest men’ civil rights and to Justice! It is a tool aimed to punish women and children reacting to a patriarchical system that presumes all reports of male violence are false and punishes protective mothers. According to American Academy of Paediatrics family violence is a paediatric issue[8]. PAS-ideology’s influence on family and criminal Court could lead to wrong decisions with foreseeable emotional upset and trauma to the children and consequently to stark outcomes, including murder and suicide, as in the past [6].

God and State in Egypt

God and State in Egypt

The effects of domestic violence allegations on custody evaluators' recommendations.

Judges and attorneys often request professional assessments from child custody evaluators when allegations of adult domestic violence (DV) have been made, but it is unclear whether and how evaluators' recommendations are impacted by these allegations. Custody evaluators (N = 607) in the United States responded to a multiple-segment factorial vignette designed to examine the effects of 2 key factors in DV allegations: type of alleged violence (conflict-based, control-based) and counterallegations (none, mutual, and female-initiated). Effects of control- versus conflict-based DV allegations by the mother on custody recommendations were small and the majority of evaluators recommended joint custody regardless of violence type. Reported confidence in making a recommendation increased once the father responded to the allegation, but to a smaller degree when a counterallegation of mutual or female-initiated violence was made. Evaluators were no more skeptical about the potential motive of a counterallegation in the context of controlling behavior than in the context of conflict-based behavior. Overall, results indicate that most custody evaluators are not sufficiently sensitized to distinguish between situational couple violence and coercive controlling behavior, and the postseparation safety of mothers and their children may therefore be jeopardized.

Patterns of Multiple Victimization Among Maltreated Children in Navy Families

The current study examined the cumulative risk associated with children's exposure to multiple types of parent-inflicted victimization. The sample was comprised of 195 children who were 7 to 17 years old (64.1% female and 48.2% non-White) at the time of referral to the United States Navy's Family Advocacy Program due to allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or parental intimate partner violence. We conducted an exploratory latent class analysis to identify distinct subgroups of children based on lifetime victimization. We hypothesized that at least 2 classes or subgroups would be identified, with 1 characterized by greater victimization and poorer outcomes. Results indicated that 3 classes of children best fit the data: (a) high victimization across all 3 categories, (b) high rates of physical abuse and witnessing intimate partner violence, and (c) high rates of physical abuse only. Findings indicated that the high victimization class was at greatest risk for alcohol and substance use, delinquent behavior, and meeting criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression 1 year later (odds ratio = 4.53). These findings highlight the serious mental health needs of a small but significantly high-risk portion of multiply victimized children entering the child welfare system.

Factors influencing the prosecution of child physical abuse cases in a Swedish metropolitan area

To examine whether case characteristics of alleged child physical abuse, such as severity, influence criminal investigation procedures and judicial outcomes. We identified all police-reported cases of nonfatal child physical abuse during 2006 in a Swedish metropolitan area (n=158). Case characteristics were abstracted from police records. Over half (56%) of the victims were boys, and the median age group was 9-12years. The severity of the alleged violence was low in 8% of cases, moderate in 51% and high in 41%. Suspects were interviewed in 53% of cases, with fathers more likely to be interviewed than mothers. Children were forensically interviewed in 52% of cases, with 9% physically examined by a clinician and 2.5% by a forensic specialist. Seven per cent of the cases were prosecuted and 1.3% resulted in summary punishment. We found no association between severity of alleged abuse and whether the suspect was interviewed, the child was forensically interviewed or physically examined or whether the perpetrator was prosecuted. Despite the high severity of alleged violence, physical examination rates were low, suggesting a need for criminal investigative procedures on child physical abuse to be reviewed in Sweden.

Justice and revenge in online counter-publics: Emerging responses to sexual violence in the age of social media

This paper is concerned with the impact of online technologies on public representations of sexual violence. Drawing on Habermas’s theories of the public sphere and Fraser’s associated critiques, it argues that the Internet has become host to ‘counter-publics’ in which allegations of sexual violence are being received, discussed and acted upon in ways contrary to established social and legal norms. The potentialities of online technology (and social media in particular) to foster and disseminate counter-hegemonic discourses are examined through three case studies in which girls and women have used various online platforms to make extrajudicial allegations of sexual violence and abuse. Where alleged perpetrators of sexual violence are publicly named, it has been argued that such action represents an invasion of their privacy and a subversion of their right to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial. In online contexts such allegations can be received and understood very differently, and these understandings are then circulated in ways that can directly influence ‘old media’ coverage and court outcomes. However, as the paper notes, the principles upon which online counter-publics operate are not radically discontinuous with those of the hegemonic public sphere and not all girls and women have equal access to the support of online networks and activists.

Beyond Seduction: Lessons Learned about Rape, Politics, and Power from Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Moshe Katsav

In the last decade, two influential international political figures, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, and Moshe Katsav, former President of Israel, were accused of engaging in extreme and ongoing patterns of sexual violence. The collection of formal charges against the two men included rape, forcible indecent assault, sexual harassment, and obstruction of justice. The respective narratives surrounding the allegations against Katsav and Strauss-Kahn have their own individual characteristics, and each of the cases unfolded in diverging ways. Yet, the actions of these two men taken together, and the corresponding response of the legal systems in France, Israel, and the United States, offer an opportunity to evaluate contemporary issues of rape and power from a comparative perspective. This Article begins by telling the stories of how Strauss-Kahn and Katsav engaged in systematic patterns of sexual violence. It provides important background and context against which the two men are evaluated, offering a comparative analysis of the laws under which they faced accusations, formal charges, and in some instances, convictions. It is difficult to understand the ways in which the legal system and even the media responded to these allegations of sexual violence. This Article considers the victimization of women by the politically powerful by utilizing a framework created originally by Norwegian sociologist Nils Christie that identifies a set of characteristics describing the “ideal victim.” It next examines some of the legal issues impacted by stereotypes of “ideal” victims that conflict with the reality of “real” victims, making recommendations for expanding Christie’s framework to include an equally comprehensive evaluation of perpetrators and more importantly, the power differential that exists between victim and perpetrator. Midway through this Article, I explore the connection between sexuality, seduction, and sexual violence, and argue for a disentangling of these constructs. Finally, this article concludes by considering how the allegations against these powerful international political figures might advance the conversation on the intersection of sexual violence and power.

An Exploration of Recidivism and the Officer Shuffle in Police Sexual Violence

By examining a decade of newspapers accounts in the Midwest, the current study explores the nature of repeat or recidivist police sexual violence (PSV) in comparison to first-time offending in the characteristics of the offenders, nature of the PSV acts, and the departments and criminal justice system response. Results show that more than 41% of PSV cases are committed by recidivist officers who averaged 4 victims each over a 3-year span of offending. The idea of the officer shuffle is explored in the context of sexual offending by police, indicating that a minority of officers move across jurisdictions maintaining police certification despite allegations of violence and misconduct. Implications explore how policy changes, such as a national reporting system for police sexual offending, would impact problem-prone PSV offending.

PENDIDIKAN ANAK DALAM KELUARGA SEBAGAI BENTUK PERLINDUNGAN ANAK DALAM PERSPEKTIF AL-QUR’AN

Children are an important part of a family, and their condition within the family is consequential to their condition in the society and nation. There are many issues regarding children, one of them being allegations of violence committed against them. The efforts to reduce such violence require an effort to religious understanding through the Quran with respect to the protection of children, by elucidating rights and responsibilities. This effort is also support by Law no. 23/2003 on Protection of Children

Custody Evaluators’ Beliefs About Domestic Violence Allegations During Divorce: Feminist and Family Violence Perspectives

Approximately, 20% of divorcing couples in the United States require judicial intervention to reach a custody agreement. In such cases, courts often call on child custody evaluators to conduct comprehensive evaluations and recommend custody agreements and services that meet children's best interests. Estimates suggest that allegations of domestic violence (DV) are raised and substantiated in about 75% of these cases. Custody evaluators are thus in a position to ensure that divorcing parents with DV receive effective services and enter into safe custody agreements. They are also in a position to minimize or deny the seriousness of DV and its relevance to custody decisions. The present study uses grounded theory methods to examine how custody evaluators' theoretical perspectives on DV and beliefs about custody disputes in the context of DV are related to their evaluation process and recommendations.

Conducting Child Custody Evaluations in the Context of Family Violence Allegations: Practical Techniques and Suggestions for Ethical Practice

A review of the literature (i.e., Austin, 2001) and the daily practice of conducting child custody evaluations has revealed that there is an inadequacy assessing and incorporating family violence issues, including both partner and child abuse, into the context of a child custody evaluation when such allegations occur. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges has published attempts to address the lack of adequate assessments in family violence cases (e.g., Dalton, Drozd, & Wong, 2006), however more needs to be done. The current article discusses the existing approaches in conducting child custody evaluations when family violence is alleged and provides suggestions and practical techniques for adequately considering these issues in an evaluation. The various assessment and interview techniques that can be utilized in these complex custody evaluations are presented. The techniques discussed should aid child custody evaluators, attorneys, and judges in dealing with these complex cases, such that proper techniques can be followed to arrive at appropriate recommendations. If an evaluator conducts a child custody evaluation in a case where there are allegations of family violence but does not have specific training or expertise in this area, ethical concerns and questions arise.

Do Judicial Responses to Restraining Order Requests Discriminate Against Male Victims of Domestic Violence?

Every state in the United States authorizes its courts to issue civil orders of protection for victims of domestic violence. Ideally, restraining orders should be available to all victims. However, consistent with the patriarchal paradigm, research suggests that judicial responses to domestic violence temporary restraining order (TRO) requests may be sex-differentiated. This paper reports on a study that explored equal protection issues in family law by evaluating gender and violence profiles of a random sample of 157 TRO petitions involving intimate partners, dating couples, and married persons in a California district court. The majority of cases involved allegations of low or moderate levels of violence perpetrated by male defendants against female plaintiffs. Although there were no systematic differences in level of violence as a function of plaintiff sex, judges were almost 13 times more likely to grant a TRO requested by a female plaintiff against her male intimate partner, than a TRO requested by a male plaintiff against his female partner. Further analyses revealed that this sex differentiation was limited to cases involving allegations of low-level violence.

Fathers' Rights Groups

This article combines information from fathers' rights Web sites with demographic, historical, and other information to provide an empirically based analysis of fathers' rights advocacy in the United States. Content analysis discerns three factors that are central to the groups' rhetoric: representing domestic violence allegations as false, promoting presumptive joint custody and decreasing child support, and portraying women as perpetrators of domestic abuse. Fathers' rights organizations and themes are examined in relation to state-level demographics and custody policy. The implications of fathers' rights activism for battered women and their children are explored.

Violence allegations in parenting disputes: Reflections on court-based decision making before and after the 2006 Australian family law reforms

In this article I address the issue of support for decision making in cases of alleged violence in Australian family courts. I focus first on results from a 2007 Australian Institute of Family Studies Research Report, which examined cases of violence and abuse alleged prior to the implementation of the Commonwealth Government’s 2006 Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act (the reforms). A key finding of the Report was that although allegations were common and often serious, they appeared to have only minimal impact on court sanctioned parenting outcomes. The seemingly minimal impact appeared, in turn, to be linked to scarcity of detail within the allegations, combined with little corroborative or independent expert evidence. As a backdrop against which to consider post reform possibilities, I draw on five published responses to the AIFS Report as well as on key observations emanating from the North American Wingspread Conference on Domestic Violence and Family Courts. I acknowledge a number of Australian reform-related initiatives that are aimed at responding more adequately to allegations of violence and abuse. But I argue that the impact of these initiatives will be constrained by the extent to which courts have access to good information and assessments. When this is unavailable at interim hearings, I support those who argue that the default position of courts must be to adopt an initial risk management approach that privileges safety over relationships, and to follow this up as quickly as possible with services that can provide quality independent information. But I argue further that a truly effective family law system should be one in which independent forensic assessments, or at least good independently derived information, is available to courts right from the beginning. While it is too early to argue definitively that the reforms cannot achieve the goal of responding adequately to allegations of violence and abuse, I point to ongoing structural and resource reasons that are likely to make this difficult. I conclude by pointing to structural and resource-based changes, which may eventually prove necessary to address this problem.