Survivors Of Crimes Research Articles

BREAKING SILENCE, SHAPING HISTORY: UNVEILING MARGINALIZED FEMALE WAR-CRIME SURVIVORS’ VOICES

This paper is the synopsis of an ongoing qualitative research project on an intersectional and biopolitical analysis of selected war memoirs written by marginalized female war crime survivors. The primary object of this research is to explore the layers of subjectivity as expressed through the memoirs by women who, in different corners of the world, were subjected to different forms of war crimes during the late twentieth and the twenty-first century. The research paper aims to find whether these life-writings should be recognized only as chronicles of their silent sufferings or as bold proclamations of their resistance against the biopolitical oppressions they were exposed to. In order to do so, a theoretical framework comprising intersectionality and biopolitics will be used according to which the selected memoirs will be critically analyzed. The proposed research will follow a research methodology that is descriptive, correlational, analytical, and exploratory in approach. The primary findings reveal the historical trajectory of women's autobiographical writings related to war and conflicts, identifying the scarcity of such narratives that underscores the challenges faced by survivors in documenting their experiences. The expected outcome is to offer a counter-narrative to official war stories, demonstrating the efficacy of testimonial life-writings from marginalized individuals as human rights activism tools, with potential implications for policy-making, advocacy against sexual violence in conflict zones, and contributing evidence for prevention, justice, and support initiatives, while also highlighting ethical challenges and paving the way for further studies on the intersectional and biopolitical dimensions of sexual violence.

“Everything From That Era Was Kind of a Blur”: Improving Humanitarian Immigration Systems’ Resilience in the Wake of the NTA Memo

ABSTRACT This study sought to explore the impact of the 2018 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy memorandum generally referred to as the “NTA Memo” on the humanitarian immigration system in the United States. Key informant interviews were conducted with “policy agents” including immigration attorneys and social service providers who worked with trafficking survivors pursuing T nonimmigrant status (T Visas) in the Upper Midwest. Results of thematic analysis suggest that the NTA Memo effectively wore down the humanitarian immigration system while it was in place, and now that it has been lifted, distrust among policy agents remains, imperiling gains of the anti-human trafficking movement in encouraging survivors to come forward to report their traffickers and seek protections. Writing denied applicant confidentiality protections into law to protect the information of survivors of trafficking and other crimes and strengthening humanitarian immigration system infrastructure would begin to mend the harm caused by the NTA Memo and its contemporary anti-immigrant policies. Strengthening protections for immigrant survivors of crime is in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goal 16: promoting just, peaceful, and inclusive societies.

Brief of Amicus Curiae Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice in Support of Petitioner John Kowalczyk, In Re Kowalczyk

Brief of Amicus Curiae Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice in Support of Petitioner John Kowalczyk, In Re Kowalczyk

Forensic Art and Anthropology

Abstract Forensic artists must overcome ingrained ideas of what the human face “should” look like in order to learn how to draw it realistically. Ironically, those ingrained images and perceptions tucked away in our minds present the biggest obstacles to realism. As a teacher of a forensic art class in anthropology at Northern Arizona University, I encounter students of varying degrees of artistic ability and background. I do not require that students have pre-requisite courses in art before taking my course because I believe that any student can learn to draw faces more realistically if they apply some basic forensic art techniques used in composite sketching combined with an understanding of facial anatomy. This article is about teaching Northern Arizona University students forensic art drawing methods, but it is also about the lesser-known aspect of doing composite sketches, such as applying cultural understanding and sensitivity when interviewing traumatized witnesses and survivors of crime. The result is a very holistic approach to composite sketching rather than a purely technical one.

Cognitive Interviewing: Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Structured Interviews with Survivors of Crime

This article explores the use of cognitive interviewing among one sensitive population, survivors of crime, and shares lessons learned from a cognitive interviewing study of LGBTQ+ survivors of crime. Cognitive interviewing is a structured research method that assists researchers in designing survey questions that clearly and accurately operationalize construct(s) of interest for use with one or more sub-populations. This method may be particularly important when conducting research on sensitive topics or with survivors who have experienced marginalization, oppression, or stigmatization because specific language or phrases may be confusing or not reflected among tools validated with mainstream dominant populations. However, past research on survivor-centered interviewing has raised questions about how these structured research methods can attend to survivor choice and autonomy. Researchers critically reflect on their experiences conducting cognitive interviews with LGBTQ+ survivors of crime and examine their processes and protocols in light of survivor-centered interview practices. Recommendations on how to use structured methods with sensitive populations are also provided to inform future research.

Psychological support for the crime survivors with mental disorders in recording legal statements

Korean society began to show overt concern for the crime survivors since the Victim Protection Act implemented in 2005. The essence of support for them is psychological in nature, because crime survivors mostly suffer psychologically compared to other ways. The experience of being a crime survivor adversely affects the psychological well-being of healthy people without mental disorders; it would worsen the vulnerability of people with mental illnesses. The crime survivors with mental disorders were vulnerable cognitively and emotionally before being a victim to a crime, and experiencing the crime made them more vulnerable. Psychological support should include help for their aggravated emotional and cognitive state evoked by the crime in order to prove that they are victims in their legal statement. This study explored the mental vulnerability caused by the experience of being a victim of crime, and the cognitive functioning including memory and emotion of crime survivors with mental disorders such as mental retardation, autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and recurrent depression and those who are children. Then, this study examined the current state of psychological support related to court procedures including overall support system for crime survivors and in the verification process. Additionally, the real examples of cases of people with mental disorders were discussed, problems of current legal perspectives were analyzed, and current problem of the system that does not consider the mental disorders in the interview with crime survivors for the statement was identified. Finally, future prospects of the support of crime survivors were suggested including strengthening the professional competence in psychopathology and forensic service, the development of specific protocols according to mental disorders, specific technique development for mental disorders using the example of autism spectrum disorders, providing supplementary tools for recording the statement of survivors of crime with mental disorders.

A naturalistic study exploring mental health outcomes following trauma-focused treatment among diverse survivors of crime and violence

BackgroundAlthough considerable research has tested evidence-based practices in clinical trials, research is needed on the use of trauma-focused treatments by victims of crime and violence in naturalistic settings. This study investigated four trauma-focused treatments, prolonged exposure therapy (PE), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), eclectic therapy, and person-centered therapy (PCT), and assessed treatment dropout and symptom improvement over five assessment time-points. MethodsDescriptive comparisons and pattern mixture multigroup growth models were used to assess differences between treatments on time in treatment, rate of dropout, and improvement in posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and depression symptoms in an outpatient sample of 526 clients seeking routine clinical care. ResultsPCT was significantly associated with the highest number of therapy sessions completed and the lowest rate of dropout (41.75%) compared to CBT and eclectic treatments. All treatment groups reported PTSD symptom improvement with no significant differences based on therapy type. For depression, the rate of improvement for clients in PCT who dropped out of treatment after session 3 was significantly steeper than the rate of improvement for clients in eclectic treatment who dropped out of treatment after session 3. Clients who stayed in treatment longer generally had larger decreases in symptoms compared to those who dropped out earlier. LimitationsThe small sample size in each of the treatment groups may have limited power to detect change. ConclusionsSeveral trauma-focused treatments offered in a community-based setting may result in significant symptomatic improvement.

Three Transformative Ideals to Build a Better Crime Lab

This Article proposes that policy makers should consider establishing their jurisdiction’s crime laboratories as government corporations independent of law enforcement as a means of improving their quality and efficiency. Simply building new buildings or seeking accreditation will not solve the endemic problems that crime laboratories have faced. Rather, we propose that crime laboratories be restructured with a new organizational framework comparable to the Houston Forensic Science Center's (HFSC) status as a local government corporation (LGC), which has proven to be conducive to creating a new institutional culture. From our experience with the HFSC, we also believe that crime laboratories are well-advised to embrace the three ideals that have helped transform the HFSC: transparency, efficiency, and quality. These ideals do not exist independently of each other, rather each ideal overlaps with and reinforces the others. By providing concrete examples of the three transformative ideals in operation, this Article will illustrate how even a struggling laboratory can become high-functioning in a few short years without large public expenditures. Most importantly, in our view this success can be replicated. To determine the extent to which crime laboratories make documents pertaining to their internal operations public, we undertook an empirical study of crime laboratory transparency by researching the websites of local, state, and federal laboratories. The study tabulates the number of laboratories that provide online disclosure of critical documents, such as standard operating procedures, backlogs, and corrective action reports (also known as incident reports). Part I of the Article reports the findings of the study and provides a critical analysis of the results. Part II describes the HFSC’s corporate governance structure. This section demonstrates how the hybrid model of a public agency organized as a corporation offers a distinct set of advantages consistent with democratic principles, while also incorporating the efficiencies of a private-sector corporation. This part of the paper also addresses the organizational advantages of making a forensic laboratory independent of a law enforcement agency. However, we discuss advantages as viewed from the perspective of a laboratory director, rather than revisiting concerns about motivational and cognitive bias. Finally, Part III of the Article addresses the three transformative ideals — transparency, efficiency, and quality — that have guided the HFSC’s operations and have proved critical to its success. This section of the Article provides concrete examples to illustrate how the ideals can be put into action by laboratory administrators. This part of the paper demonstrates that, at least with regard to HFSC, the establishment of a crime laboratory as an independent LGC has generated benefits for law enforcement and crime survivors as well as defendants, the judiciary, and jail administrators. Indeed, by creating a transparent, high-functioning crime laboratory, the entire community wins.

Restorative justice as empowerment: how to better serve the goals of punitive retribution

Restorative justice practices are only applied to the margins of criminal justice systems. These systems generally punish the wrongdoer in order to give him his 'just desert'. For restorative justice to be more attractive, we need to understand why punitive retribution is such a powerful motive. If the scales of justice are out of balance because of suffering inflicted (to the offended), why would the infliction of more suffering (to the offender) bring redemption? It is argued that much of the sting of being harmed by an offender derives from the identity implications of the act. Punitive retribution may satisfy short lasting vindictive desires, but its main symbolic function is to restore the victim's self-image and dignity by humiliating the perpetrator. This is done in a notoriously indirect and ineffective way, though. It is argued that restorative justice can do much better, if it is understood in terms of empowering the offended. This involves procedures that restore the victim's autonomy, prestige, and self-confidence. Apart from bringing the offended back into the driver's seat of the process, restorative justice empowers survivors of crime by making them face offenders, face themselves, and face their community. Punitive retribution may be satisfying for those offended and for the general public, but restorative justice can ultimately be much more rewarding.

The Prospects, Problems and Proliferation of Recent UN Investigations of International Law Violations

Atrocity crimes rage today in Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, Burundi, and Yemen. Given their potential to establish facts and promote accountability, recently opened United Nations investigations of international law violations in each of these states are thus a welcome, even if belated, development. However, these initiatives prompt questions about their designs, both in isolation and relative to each other. This article describes the investigations into alleged violations in these five states, examines their respective sponsors and scopes, and presents a wide range of questions about the investigations and their implications, including their coordination with each other and their use of evidence in domestic, foreign, hybrid, and international courts (such as the International Criminal Court). The article concludes that, while seeking accountability for international law violations is certainly laudatory, these particular investigations raise significant questions about achieving that goal amidst rampant human rights abuses in these five states and beyond. International lawyers, atrocity crime survivors, and other observers thus await answers before assessing whether these investigations will truly promote justice.

'Helpfulness' is a Two-Way Street: How the Commonwealth of Virginia Can Support Undocumented Survivors of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is not limited to one race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, nationality, or religion, nor to one town, city, or region. Immigrant survivors of domestic violence residing in the United States face barriers to reporting the violence they have experienced similar to U.S. citizen survivors, such as a fear of more violence upon leaving the relationship, religious and social pressure, and a fear of being “outed” as LGBTQ+ by their partner. However, these barriers may be exacerbated or seem insurmountable because of their immigration status, or lack thereof. In 2000, Congress created the U Visa to help support undocumented immigrant survivors of crimes—including domestic violence—by creating a path to lawful status if they worked with law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of the crime. Because of the increased collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement authorities, it is imperative that states, including Virginia, pass legislation that meets survivors halfway. Survivors overcome layering barriers to seeking help in cases of domestic violence, and especially in reporting to law enforcement. In recognition of the barriers that survivors face in reporting domestic violence cases, states like Virginia should pass legislation that (1) makes federal definitions of key terms in the U Visa regulations part of Virginia law, (2) includes a presumption of helpfulness for the purposes of Law Enforcement Certifications, (3) explicitly says that the conviction of the perpetrator or testifying at trial are unnecessary for helpfulness, (4) ensures that education on U and T Visas is part of police training, and (5) includes a data collection mechanism on U Visa certifications. This localized legislation would drastically change the lives of survivors across the Commonwealth of Virginia, bringing stability to the lives of survivors and rebuilding trust between survivors and law enforcement.

Supporting Young Men of Color as Survivors of Crime and Violence.

Supporting Young Men of Color as Survivors of Crime and Violence.

Posttraumatic growth in students, crime survivors and trauma workers exposed to adversity

Generalised models of positive change following adversity do not fully account for differences in adjustment among populations who experience posttraumatic growth (PTG). The contributions of event intentionality, frequency of the adversity types, age at serious event, spirituality/religiousness, active coping, PTSD symptoms and social support were explored as predictors of PTG across three samples of university students (N=101; Study 1), survivors of violent crime recruited from support services (N=71; Study 2) and those working with survivors of adversity (N=96; Study 3). The results of Study 1 revealed that age at serious event, active coping, PTSD symptoms and social support positively predicted PTG. Within Study 2, spirituality/religiousness, active coping and social support were the significant positive predictors of PTG. Finally in Study 3, spirituality/religiousness, active coping and social support were the significant positive predictors of PTG. Across all studies, event intentionality and frequency of adversity types did not determine PTG. These results indicate that while participants within each of the populations have the ability to experience PTG, different factors predicted whether PTG was observed. The findings offer greater insight into the multifarious nature of adjustment following adversity.

Remembering Beatrice Remembering: Sexual Crime and Silence in Shelley's The Cenci

In The Cenci, Percy Shelley calls attention to the challenges of articulating and proving sexual crime. Placing The Cenci in the historical context of nineteenth-century legal language requirements for survivors, I contend that Beatrice's struggle with remembering and expressing her rape underscores the obstacles that nineteenth-century sexual crime survivors faced when attempting to achieve justice. If justice is measured in part by the level of truth achieved, Beatrice's silence and the partial truths her trial uncovers suggest problems with the conditions created to encourage disclosure in cases of rape. Furthermore, her refusal to admit to her part in her father's murder highlights how repressive processes fail to achieve accountability or provide healing. Taken to the play's most extreme suggestion, her actions outside of the justice system warn that victims may pursue their own drastic outcomes if they are denied adequate recognition and redress within criminal justice structures.

The Immigration Hotel

The image of a hotel with each floor representing different immigration statuses provides a way to introduce students to the confounding immigration system we have in the United States, on both technical and policy levels. The imagery of the hotel helps to explain how one gets into the immigration hotel (the admissions process), and also how one gets kicked out (through various forms of removal proceedings). Analogies to different forms of eviction allow for parallels as well, depending on the nature of the building in question (e.g. hotel room, apartment, or condo) and the legal status of the person being removed (temporary traveler, renter/lease holder, home owner). Drawing on property law also allows for different floors to represent different types of immigration status. In a nutshell, citizenship occupies the top floor and is akin to cooperative or condominium ownership. Legal permanent residency occupies the apartment floor, with occupants tied to leases with strict terms. Breaking the terms of the lease can lead to eviction (i.e., deportation). Traditional hotel rooms are reserved for temporary non-immigrant visa holders. Sandwiched on a hard-to-get-to floor between the apartments and the hotel rooms is the sanctuary: a place for refugees, survivors of crimes and human trafficking, unaccompanied children, and those stranded in the US as the result of natural and human made disasters in their homelands. The lobby serves not only as the admissions entry point, but also as a place of legal limbo (sort of like an easement), where people are sometime allowed to hangout for years on end in renewable quasi-status like parole and deferred action. Finally, the basement holds those without status – either they never had it, by entering unauthorized at an unregulated entry point; or those who entered legally but have violated their terms of status. The cellar or dungeon is immigration detention. The building analogy proves durable – both on the surface as an explanatory heuristic (e.g., “citizenship is like ownership”) and as a way to explore the history behind immigration categories (e.g., who has been entitled to citizenship mirrors who has been entitled to own real property). Parallels between the history of property real ownership and its protection (through the use of restrictive covenants) and the history of immigration regulation (such as the Chinese Exclusion Acts) illustrate how the analogy can also do more than just explain the current operation of immigration law, but illuminate how the laws came into being in larger historical context. Racial and economic barriers to real property ownership and control are often paralleled in the immigration hotel – the poor and marginalized often face high challenges to securing immigration status as well as stable and living situations.

A University Partnership for Victim Service Professional Development: Model Standards for Serving Victims and Survivors of Crime

This paper describes processes and products of a partnership to promote professionalization of the field of victim services. The National Victim Assistance Standards Consortium was established by the federal Office for Victims of Crime in partnership with the University of South Carolina. The Consortium reached across geographic, philosophical, and disciplinary divides to forge a common ground in professional development, including a definition and mission for the field as well as three sets of model standards for serving victims and survivors. The project included a review of literature on victim services, town hall meetings across the country, and layered review and refinement of standards by approximately 50 professionals working at the local, state, and national levels. The online document, Achieving Excellence: Model Standards for Serving Victims & Survivors of Crime, will provide standards for promoting competence and ethical integrity as well as quality and consistency of service.

Creating a More Responsive and Seamless Refugee Protection System: The Scope, Promise and Limitations of US Temporary Protection Programs

Temporary protection programs can provide haven to endangered persons while states and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) work to create durable solutions in sending, host and third countries.1 They have the potential to further the interests of forced migrants in protection, states in effective and coordinated migration management, and the international community in solidarity. US temporary protection programs rest primarily on executive discretion and have not been substantially revisited for nearly 25 years. “Parole” represents the primary vehicle for temporarily admitting noncitizens for emergency and humanitarian reasons.2 Prior to 1980, the United States used parole to admit large refugee and refugee-like populations to whom (in most cases) it later extended lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. The 1980 Refugee Act made the US refugee resettlement program the primary vehicle for refugee admissions, limited the use of parole to individuals (not groups), and created a presumption against granting parole to refugees. The United States provides immigrant (permanent) visas to abused, neglected and abandoned children, as well as to certain Iraqis and Afghanis who worked for the US military or for military contractors. It can also award up to 5,000 nonimmigrant (temporary) “T” visas each year to victims of human trafficking and up to 10,000 nonimmigrant “U” visas to survivors of crime who assist law enforcement officials in investigating and prosecuting crimes. However, since 1980, the United States has lacked a dedicated legal vehicle for admitting other refugee-like populations. Temporary protected status (TPS) applies to noncitizens from states experiencing armed conflict, the aftermath of natural disaster, or other extraordinary, temporary conditions that make it unsafe to return. The TPS statute allows the secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to designate states or regions within states for TPS, although the United States has never limited TPS to substate groups. TPS does not cover persons from designated states who arrive following the effective date of the designation, even those who fled great peril. TPS recipients cannot petition for the admission of close family members. In addition, TPS cannot be granted to persons in substantial need of protection from undesignated states. Like refugees and asylees, TPS recipients receive work authorization. Unlike refugees or asylees, they are not eligible for resettlement benefits or deemed “qualified” for most federal public benefit programs. They can apply for political asylum and immigration benefits. However, TPS does not, in itself, lead to permanent status or other durable solutions. Beyond TPS, the executive branch can exercise its discretion not to remove persons who fall outside its law enforcement priorities, including persons who might otherwise suffer violence, extraordinary hardship, or death at home. This paper outlines international standards for the design and operation of temporary protection programs, describes the US refugee protection program writ large, and identifies gaps in protection. It recommends that Congress create a nonimmigrant “protection” visa for noncitizens who are at substantial risk of persecution, danger, or harm in their home or host countries, and that DHS expand its use of parole for de facto refugees and individuals in refugee-like situations. It also argues that the United States should prioritize the reconstruction and development of TPS-designated states and work to establish regional migration and development agreements covering North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Congress should also pass legislation to extend LPR status to long-term recipients of temporary protection. In particular, it should advance the “registry” date to January 1, 1999 (which would provide LPR status to most noncitizens in the country since that date) and it should automatically move up the registry cut-off date each year thereafter by one year. It should also pass broad immigration reform legislation, including a legalization program that would credit years in receipt of temporary protection toward the time required to “earn” legalization. And it should allow temporary protection recipients to apply affirmatively for “cancellation of removal” (which brings LPR status) after 10 years. DHS should also create a more inclusive TPS determination process by hosting quarterly public hearings on conditions in TPS-designated and TPS-eligible nations. It should also re-designate more states for TPS in order to allow persons from designated states who have fled dangerous conditions and entered the United States between the initial designation and re-designation periods to qualify for TPS.

Families at war? Relationships between ‘survivors’ of wrongful conviction and ‘survivors’ of serious crime

Following the quashing of an unsafe conviction, the appellant and their supporters often rejoice that their quest for justice has been successful and that the appellant has been released from their wrongful imprisonment. For the survivors of crime involved in the criminal case, including those suffering bereavement after homicide, the appellant’s release from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) can engender feelings of resentment and hostility. This article will examine relationships between survivors of wrongful conviction and survivors of crime often involved in the same criminal case. The article argues that the antipathy between the families contributes to undermining both parties’ desire for emotional healing and recovery.

Restorative Justice: Some Facts and History

Restorative Justice: Some Facts and History

Gender Differences in the Appraisal of Violent Crime Experiences: A Qualitative Study

To help understand why women are at greater risk than men for developing adverse reactions to trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this study qualitatively explores differences and similarities in the way men and women cognitively appraise their experience as violent crime survivors. Findings reveal differences in the way men and women (1) view the event as traumatic or scary, (2) compare their experience to other life experiences, (3) believe the crime changed their lives, and (4) view the probability that they would eventually experience a violent crime. Differences in the way men and women appraise these experience are linked to post-trauma sequelae.