Offender Gender Research Articles

Leveraging video evidence in domestic violence misdemeanour cases: Examination of case dispositions and case length

Abstract Law enforcement has used video recording devices (e.g. dash camera, body-worn camera) for more than 40 years, with body-worn cameras emerging in 2005 as a policing tool. However, little is known regarding how video evidence is leveraged in case decision-making and outcomes for domestic violence. Law enforcement may use cameras to enhance evidence collection in domestic violence cases, take statements from victims, witnesses, and offenders, record injuries and damages, and document the administration of risk/injury assessments. Preliminary research has indicated video evidence may have strong evidentiary value in domestic violence cases, however, has rarely controlled for other contributing factors. This study furthers our knowledge by examining how video evidence taken by law enforcement impacts case outcomes and length of time to disposition in a sample of closed, misdemeanour domestic violence cases within a large county in a southwestern state. A random sample of cases (n = 612) with and without video evidence were examined for differences in case disposition and case length. Additional evidentiary factors and case characteristics are considered such as prior criminal charges, victim–offender relationship, presence of non-video evidence, presence of witnesses, and gender of offender. Analyses indicate significant differences, such that cases with video evidence are associated with increased guilty pleas, increased convictions, and less time to closure/final case disposition. Findings have implications for the use of video evidence in strengthening the criminal justice response to domestic violence incidents in combination with other case factors.

중학생과 고등학생 성폭력 피해경험에 관한 특성 분석

This study attempted to provide basic data by identifying differences according to the characteristics of adolescents' sexual violence and perpetrators. The subjects of this study were 228 case of middle school and high school students who visited a sexual assault agency in D city from January 2018 to July 2022. The results shows statistically significant differences in duration of assaults depending on graders of sexual assault victims, and statistically significant differences in types of assaults depending upon gender of assaults are presented. Depending on whether the victim had disabilities, statistically significant differences in the offender-victim relationship. Depending on whether the victim had two parent family, statistically significant differences in the offender-victim relationship, types of assaults. On characteristic of sexual assault by offender's characteristic, there were statistically significant differences in types, location of assaults depending upon offender's gender. There were significant differences in type, duration, frequency, location, time of assault depending upon offender's age. Depending on the offender-victim relationship, statistically significant differences in type, duration, frequency, location at assault are shown.

THE IMPACT OF LEGAL AND EXTRA-LEGAL FACTORS ON SEVERITY OF JUDGES SENTENCING REGARDING NARCOTICS OFFENDERS

The current study attempts to explain how judge sentencing varies as a response to the legal and extralegal factors of drug offenders. The variables of interest in this research are the recidivism factors among drug offenders. The utilization of ordinary least squares (log-level regression) gives results that mostly coincide with prior studies. However, the empirical evidence found indicates that the roles, gender, religion, and birthplaces of offenders reveal a different fact. This paper acknowledges the limitations related to the data of ethnicity, judge characteristics, and demographic situation in each province. Hence, this model could be improved in future research.

Coercive Control or Self-Defense? Examining Firearm use in Male- and Female-Perpetrated Intimate Partner Homicide

Objectives: Bridge the gap between feminist scholarship and sociological literature on gun utility by examining the correlates of gun usage in heterosexual intimate partner homicide by offender gender. Methods: Using data on 7,588 incidents from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) from 2003 to 2018, logistic regression models examined the odds of using a firearm during intimate partner homicide for both male and female offenders. Results: Men disproportionately employed guns to regain control when their dominance and/or masculinity was threatened, whereas women used firearms in self-defense against an armed partner. Conclusions: The results suggest that gender-based motivations distinguish whether or not a firearm is used in intimate partner homicide.

Online sexual harassment and depression in Chilean adolescents: Variations based on gender and age of the offenders

BackgroundOnline sexual harassment in adolescence is associated with depressive symptoms. There is, however, a dearth of research investigating variability of symptom profiles in this population in relation to offender gender and age. ObjectiveTo identify the proportion of adolescents reporting online harassment by different types of offenders and compare their levels of depression. Participants and settingParticipants were 18,872 Chilean students aged 12 to 17 years (3.063 of them online sexually harassed). MethodsThe study involved a secondary analysis of self-report data on online sexual harassment, poly-victimization, and depression collected as part of the National Poly-victimization Survey. ResultsIn 37.6% of the cases the offender was male under 18, in 22.4% an adult male, in 14.5% a female under 18, and in 2.9% an adult female. In 22.5% of cases the offender could not be identified. An ANCOVA demonstrated levels of poly-victimization across the lifespan and frequency of online sexual harassment in the last year to predict depressive symptomatology. In females, higher levels of depressive symptoms were observed among those sexually harassed by either a female under 18, an offender whose age and gender the victim could not identify, or an adult male. In males, higher levels of depression were observed among those harassed by either an adult male, an offender whose age and gender the victim could not identify, or a male under 18. ConclusionsThe current study highlights the importance of offender's age and gender in predicting depression levels in adolescent victims of online sexual harassment.

Child and Adult Attachment Styles among Individuals Who Have Committed Filicide: The Case for Examining Attachment by Gender

Gender differences in self-reported attachment styles of 18 individuals who had committed filicide were examined. Insecure attachment styles (avoidant and/or anxious-ambivalent) to primary caregivers were particularly common among males. Almost all experienced insecure romantic attachment. Partial support for insecure attachment continuity (childhood to adulthood), particularly among men, was found. Comparisons with 283 men and women who had committed other homicide types revealed that filicide males were the most common (across offender gender and victim-offender relationship) to hold insecure attachment to maternal caregivers. The role and nature of attachment patterns should be extended beyond the existing research focus on maternal filicide.

Gendered Perceptions of Sexual Abuse: Investigating the Effect of Offender, Victim and Observer Gender on the Perceived Seriousness of Child Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACTSexual abuse of children is a pervasive, global issue. Perpetrators of this kind of abuse are often stereotyped as male, meaning that research comparing perceptions of abuse by male versus female offenders is limited. This is an important omission as recent evidence attests to the unexpectedly high frequency of sexual crimes perpetrated by women. The gender of child sex abuse victims and observers of abuse have also been shown to impact perceptions of the offense. Thus, the present study aimed to explore the effect of offender, victim and observer gender on the perceived seriousness of an act of child sex abuse. To do this, we used a 2 (offender gender: male vs female) × 2 (victim gender: male vs female) × 2 (observer gender: male vs female) between-participants experimental design. We presented members of the British public (N = 213) with a vignette describing a hypothetical interaction between an offender and victim and asked them how serious they thought the offense was. They then reported their own gender. We found that abuse was considered more serious when the offender was male, or the observer was female. We also found a novel three-way interaction. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Boy sexual victimization: Characteristics of family configuration and of the offender

Abstract The study aims to identify the family profile of boys who were victims of sexual abuse and of their offenders. Intake documents from a health facility in the capital of Brazil, consisting of 35 cases from that institution over a period of 13 years were analyzed. Analysis of quantitative data with descriptive statistics for the following categories involved: age of family members; relatives living in the same household; education and occupation of family members; who did the victim reside with; victim’s main caretaker; gender and relationship of victim and offender. The families were economically deprived with low educational background, and in lack of community institutional support. As a result, they took protection initiatives by themselves, delegating childcare to immediate or extended relatives, a strategy which increased vulnerability.

Male Sexual Victimization: Examining Variation in the Probability of Weapon Use and Victim Injury.

The sexual victimization of adult males remains an understudied subject within criminology. Prior research has generally been restricted to descriptive analysis of small clinical samples and inmate populations. Using general strain theory (GST), this study examines the simultaneous influence of community- and incident-level factors on the likelihood of weapon use and victim injury in cases of adult male sexual victimization. This study applies hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) to 2,155 cases of sexual victimization of adult males nested within 113 U.S. cities. Community-level data are procured from the 2011-2015 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year summary file and incident-level data are taken from cases of sexual violence contained in the 2011-2015 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Findings demonstrate moderate support for GST as a framework through which to examine male sexual victimization, as community levels of disadvantage/violence and ethnic heterogeneity, as well as offender gender, race, intoxication, and weapon use each exhibit statistically significant relations with crime severity. This study finds that community and situational context are each important in predicting weapon use and victim injury, demonstrating the need to further explore male sexual victimization from a multilevel perspective.

Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South by Karen L. Cox

Reviewed by: Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South by Karen L. Cox Vivien Miller Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. By Karen L. Cox. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Pp. [xii], 227. $26.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-3503-3.) Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South provides a captivating exploration of a once-sensational murder case in Natchez, Mississippi, in August 1932. The robbery and murder of Jennie Merrill, an aging, wealthy spinster descended from the town's antebellum planter elite, a longstanding neighborly feud over marauding livestock, and an interracial group of conspirators—who included Richard "Dick" Dana and Octavia Dockery, white squatters and residents of a neighboring filthy and dilapidated mansion, and Lawrence Williams, a local African American man—enticed many observers. The primary motivation for the murder was old-fashioned greed. Yet this aspect and the treatment of African American suspects and innocent residents were soon overshadowed by prurient interest in Dana and Dockery, the "'Wild Man' and the 'Goat Woman'" (p. 14). Amid popular fascination with antebellum slave mansions, Old South nostalgia, and burgeoning Depression-era plantation tourism, locals and newspaper readers across the United States were riveted by the details of the crime and the personalities at its center. Drawing on extant personal papers, correspondence, legal case files, prison reports, extensive contemporary newspaper coverage, and recently recovered photographs and oral accounts, author Karen L. Cox makes evident her diligence and resourcefulness. She meticulously reconstructs the details of the botched robbery and the opportunistic shooting of Merrill, and by using genealogical information, Cox examines the life stories of the victim, the offenders, and the police. The book's chapters proceed through the various stages of the crime, community reactions, national interest, criminal and police investigations, and court proceedings, often retelling different aspects of the story from the perspectives of contemporary black and white residents, police, and others. Two less-developed aspects of the story relate to crime rates in early 1930s Natchez and the wider significance of the forensic investigations. Cox notes the growth of the state prison population in the early 1930s and mentions other offenders, but general information on crime in early 1930s Natchez and surrounding counties is sparse. While the unusual and esoteric features of the Merrill murder are clear, it would nonetheless be useful to know how common robbery, breaking and entering, murder, and manslaughter were in these years, [End Page 782] the more mundane circumstances of domestic murders and lethal brawls perhaps, and the race, class, age, and gender of so-called typical suspects and offenders in this section of Mississippi. The case also provides an intriguing window into local southern policing during transitional periods, when county sheriffs continued to rely on older methods (bloodhounds, intimidation, physical and psychological coercion) to obtain confessions while embracing, albeit rather selectively, forensic science, criminalistics, and technological innovations. Sheriff Clarence Powell Roberts willingly used fingerprint and ballistics expertise in the Merrill investigation, and there was considerable cross-jurisdictional cooperation, but how frequent or unusual were his methods? Much has been written on federal advocacy of scientific policing, but scholarly examinations of local decisions, changing tactics, and quasi-professionalizing personnel are limited, and high-profile cases can offer important insights. These small complaints aside, Goat Castle is clearly a story of wealthy white privilege, class advantage, and racial injustice with very real and depressing outcomes for the conspirators' unwilling lookout, Emily Burns. A widowed African American laundress in her mid-thirties, Burns was the only person held accountable for Merrill's murder. Convicted as an accessory to murder, Burns joined the predominantly African American population at Parchman prison in December 1932, where she remained for eight long years. Cox deftly moves Burns from a footnote in previous accounts of the case to the center of this important exposé of Jim Crow double standards. Vivien Miller University of Nottingham Copyright © 2018 The Southern Historical Association

Perceptions of Harm, Criminality, and Law Enforcement Response: Comparing Violence by Men Against Women and Violence by Women Against Men

ABSTRACTThe authors compare third-party evaluations of male violence against women and female violence against men with regard to perceived injury severity, criminal labeling, and recommending police contact. They determine if victim–offender gender directly influences third-party perceptions of injury, and test whether injury mediates victim–offender gender effects on assessments. Injury perception mediated but could not fully explain differences in labeling. Differences in police contact support remained significant after taking injury perceptions into account. Male and female respondents differed in injury evaluations in acts with male victims or female perpetrators, but not in injury rating of male perpetrator or female victim violence. Findings suggest gender stereotypes directly and indirectly influence third-party observers of violence, shaping assessments of injury and ability or willingness to criminalize violence.

Sentencing Recommendations by Probation Officers and Judges: An Examination of Adult Offenders Across Gender

Connecting the courtroom workgroup model with attributions and stereotyping based on the focal concerns perspective and gender sentencing literature, the present study investigates the extent to which probation officer recommendations influence judicial sentencing, and whether the gender of the offender further conditions this relationship. Results from logistic and ordinary least squares regression indicate that there is concordance between probation officer recommendations and sentencing by judges. Offender gender has both direct and indirect effects on judicial sentencing through its relationship with probation officer recommendations, and Black males tend to receive lengthier sentences than other race/gender counterparts. These findings provide evidence that probation officer recommendations are an important part of the sentencing process and offer additional insight on how extralegal factors such as gender and race impact criminal justice decision making.

U.S. Homicides: Multi-Offenders and the Presence of Female Offenders

Abstract Prior research reveals a clear need to distinguish between homicides committed by solo offenders and those who act with another person. Moreover, as gender is considered in homicides, the dynamics of the offense change. This study examined homicide incidents by several offender combinations that consider gender and number of offenders. We rely on 2006–2010 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data (N = 12,441). The findings indicate that male solo offenders commit the majority of homicides. When offenders act with other offenders, the characteristics of the offense and offender vary. Multi-offenders were more likely than solo offenders to be younger and black. They also are more likely to have a concurrent offense and have either a stranger victim or related victim. When a female offender was present, the dynamics also varied from incidents where a female offender was not present. Incidents with a female offender present were more likely to have older offenders and co-offenders. Such...

Justice, Morality or Politics: why did the British legal system execute Selina Wadge?

ABSTRACTAlthough infanticide was a capital crime, mothers who killed their children were seldom convicted of murder and, from 1849 onward, hardly ever faced the death penalty. In fact, between 1843—when the authorities began documenting the gender of offenders—and 1899, only five women were hanged for infanticide. This article follows the story of one of these women, Selina Wadge, who was hung in the prison yard of Bodmin Gaol in Cornwall on 15 August 1878. The author read depositions, trial proceedings, newspaper reports, letters, notes and petitions, attempting to understand why the court and the Home Office chose to circumvent the accepted lenient policy and apply the severe letter of the law. Was Wadge executed for infanticide? Or did her hanging serve other social and political agendas? Through analysis of the case, the article provides insights into the attitudes of the British establishment towards mothers living on the margins.

La violencia en la escena del crimen en homicidios en la pareja

Intimate partner homicide, considered a social problem, has not been analyzed in Spain in relation to crime scene (CS). The present research addresses the type of violence commited, expressive vs. instrumental, in CS of murders, homicides or attempts and their differences on the basis of the sex of the murderer. Based on a sample of 322 cases extracted from firm judicial rulings by the Violent Crime Analysis Protocol in Family Homicides, forensic awareness, structuring, and criminal behavior were analyzed. The results support previous studies carried out in other countries showing the predominance of expressive behaviors in homicides between members of the couple without any significant differences depending on the offender's gender, even though there is a greater use of the behaviors of stabbing and poisoning in women murderers.

Impact of Type of Intervention on Youth Reoffending: Are Gender and Risk Level Involved?

The objective of this study was to analyse the impact of the type of intervention on youth reoffending. Moreover, the possible influence that the offender's gender and level of risk could have on this relationship was also explored. Juvenile offenders from four different types of educational interventions participated in the study (N = 210): victim–offender mediation (VOM) as a diversion procedure, and case closure, reprimand, and community service as dispositions. Aged between 14-18 years, they were assessed by means of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI). Recidivism rates were evaluated as the number of new records in a follow-up period of 24 months. Results of this study showed that type of intervention (diversion versus dispositions) had no apparent effect on youth recidivism. Furthermore, an important aspect to consider in youth assessment was the different impact that risk level had on boys’ and girls’ recidivism.

The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007–2011

To describe the epidemiology of self-defense gun use (SDGU) and the relative effectiveness of SDGU in preventing injury and property loss. Data come from the National Crime Victimization Survey for 2007-2011, focusing on personal contact crimes. For property loss, we examined incidents where the intent was to steal property. Multivariate analyses controlled for age, gender of offender and victim, if offender had a gun, urbanicity, and thirteen types of self-protective action. Of over 14,000 incidents in which the victim was present, 127 (0.9%) involved a SDGU. SDGU was more common among males, in rural areas, away from home, against male offenders and against offenders with a gun. After any protective action, 4.2% of victims were injured; after SDGU, 4.1% of victims were injured. In property crimes, 55.9% of victims who took protective action lost property, 38.5 of SDGU victims lost property, and 34.9% of victims who used a weapon other than a gun lost property. Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that SDGU is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss.

Apology: A Relationship Remedial Behavior for the Offence

Apology refers to relationship remedial behavior which happens when the offender realizes his offence, and it aimed to remedy the relationship by admitting his offence, taking the responsibility, expressing regrets, and asking for the forgiveness. The apology behavior has involved a great number of factors, such as offender's gender, attribution tendency, offending intention and perceived effectiveness. Also, the perceived effectiveness has been influenced on the expression and content of the apology and the offender's gender. Apology promotes forgiveness, relationship reconciliation, as well as ethnic harmony. Future research need to be clarified the concept of apology, extended the research mode and measurement tools. Besides, researchers should attach importance to constructing apology theory and promoting its practical application which based on the systematic and in-depth examination of the apology mechanism and its results.

Factors Impacting Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse, Physical Abuse, and Neglect Cases Processed Through a Children’s Advocacy Center

This study examined the impact of victim, offender, and case characteristics on the decision to accept cases of child maltreatment for prosecution. Data were collected over a 2-year period from a large southern Children’s Advocacy Center, and the final sample consisted of 467 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. Logistic regression results indicated that sexual abuse cases were significantly more likely to be accepted for prosecution compared to physical abuse and neglect. Additionally, cases involving female victims and male offenders were more likely to be moved forward. When each type of maltreatment was examined separately, logistic regression results indicated that victim and offender age significantly impacted the decision to prosecute sexual abuse cases. Offender gender and age, as well as availability of medical evidence predicted physical abuse case acceptance, and offender gender and frequency of maltreatment significantly impacted prosecutorial decision making for cases of neglect.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics? Nineteenth Century Crime Statistics for England and Wales as an Historical Source

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics? Nineteenth Century Crime Statistics for England and Wales as an Historical Source