scholarly journals Looking through the lens of a sexual assault examiner: novel trends and approaches in forensic photography

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renjulal Yesodharan ◽  
Tessy Treesa Jose ◽  
M. Nirmal Krishnan ◽  
S. Anitha ◽  
Vinod C. Nayak
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Healthcare Service ◽  
Crime Scene ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Digital Cameras ◽  
Main Text ◽  
Legal Evidence ◽  
Forensic Photography ◽  
Game Changer

Abstract Background Sexual violence is cancerous, and it malignantly affects all strata of our community regardless of age, gender, race, ability, and social status. Excellent healthcare service requires professionals who can do a sexual assault examination, collect medico-legal evidence, take photographs of patients' anatomy that was involved in the assault and document what is there and where it is in relation to the victims or perpetrators body or other parts of the crime scene, whether or not it is connected to the crime. Main text The objective of this article to orient the professions to the novel trends and approaches in forensic photography, namely e-consent, digital cameras and their accessories, dedicated forensic software, and photographic protocols and procedures. Conclusion The inadequate and improper collection, preservation and presentation of evidence can lead to crime scene errors and fewer conviction rates. Training in forensic photography is vital and a game-changer in the sexual assault examination.

The Right to Bodily Integrity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Brysk
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
Global Pattern ◽  
Popular Resistance ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Right

In Chapter 7, we profile the global pattern of sexual violence. We will consider conflict rape and transitional justice response in Peru and Colombia, along with the plight of women displaced by conflict from Syria and Central America, and limited international policy response. State-sponsored sexual violence and popular resistance to reclaim public space will be chronicled in Egypt as well as Mexico. We will track intensifying public sexual assault amid social crisis in Turkey, South Africa, and India, which has been met by a wide range of public protest, legal reform, and policy change. For a contrasting experience of the privatization of sexual assault in developed democracies, we will trace campus, workplace, and military rape in the United States.

The Castle of Otranto

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horace Walpole
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Game Changer ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Grotesque

‘Look, my lord! See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions’ The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction. After the grotesque death of his only son, Conrad, on his wedding day, Manfred determines to marry the bride–to–be. The virgin Isabella flees through a castle riddled with secret passages. Chilling coincidences, ghostly visitations, arcane revelations, and violent combat combine in a heady mix that terrified the novel's first readers. In this new edition Nick Groom examines the reasons for its extraordinary impact and the Gothic culture from which it sprang. The Castle of Otranto was a game-changer, and Walpole the writer who paved the way for modern horror exponents.

Mandatory Reporting and Adolescent Sexual Assault

2021 ◽  
pp. 152483802110302
Author(s):  
Caroline Bailey ◽  
Jessica Shaw ◽  
Abril Harris
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mandatory Reporting ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Long Term Consequences ◽  
The Impact

Adolescents experience alarmingly high rates of sexual violence, higher than any other age-group. This is concerning as sexual violence can have detrimental effects on teens’ personal and relational well-being, causing long-term consequences for the survivor. Still, adolescents are hesitant to report the assault or seek out services and resources. When an adolescent survivor does seek out services, they may interact with a provider who is a mandatory reporter. This scoping review sought to synthesize the current U.S.-based research on the role, challenges, and impact of mandatory reporting (MR) in the context of adolescent sexual assault. Database searches using key words related to MR, sexual assault, and adolescence identified 29 peer-reviewed articles. However, none of these articles reported on empirical investigations of the phenomenon of interest and instead consisted of case studies, commentaries, and position papers. The scoping review was expanded to provide a lay of the land of what we know about the intersection of adolescent sexual assault and MR. Results of the review indicate that though implemented broadly, MR policies vary between individuals, organizations, and states and have historically been challenging to implement due to this variation, conflicts with other laws, tension between these policies and providers’ values, and other factors. Based on the available literature, the impact of MR in the context of adolescent sexual assault is unknown. There is a critical need for research and evaluation on the implementation and impact of MR policies, especially in the context of adolescents and sexual violence.

scholarly journals [De]-Centering the Victim: Police Perceptions of Victims of Sexual Violence through a Comparative Lens of Evidence Collection and Processing

2021 ◽  
pp. 155708512110319
Author(s):  
Deborah White ◽  
Lesley McMillan
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Evidence Collection ◽  
Police Perceptions

Police are central to the statutory response to sexual violence, shaping the direction an investigation may take. Evidence provided by victims is also key to the processing of sexual assault cases. From a 2013 comparative qualitative study involving interviews with police officers in one province in Canada ( n = 11) and one region in Scotland ( n = 10) who investigate such cases, we discovered striking unanticipated differences between the two groups in terms of how they perceived victims and the evidence they provide. This paper presents a thematic analysis of these data and considers possible implications and explanations.

The U.S. Marine Corps’ Response to Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: An Analysis of the Family Advocacy Program and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program

2020 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2097439
Author(s):  
Stephanie Bonnes ◽  
Jeffrey H. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Marine Corps ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Sexual Assault Prevention ◽  
Family Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Program ◽  
Assault Prevention ◽  
The U.S

In this article, we show how the U.S. military treats domestic violence and sexual assault as distinct forms of abuse, which has particular consequences for victims of intimate partner sexual violence. We explore how a specific U.S. military branch, the Marine Corps, complicates these issues further by providing services to intimate partner sexual violence victims from two different programs. Analyzing military orders and documents related to Family Advocacy Program and Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, interviews with eight military prosecutors, and the experiences of one military lawyer, we examine program and interactional-level factors that shape victim services, advocacy, and processes. We find that there are program differences in specialized services, coordinated services, and potential breaches of confidentiality related to victim’s cases. We recommend that the Marine Corps recognize the intersections of sexual violence and domestic violence and offer more tailored services to victims of intimate partner sexual violence.

Capturing sexual assault data: An information system designed by forensic clinicians and healthcare researchers

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Aqif Mukhtar ◽  
Debbie A Smith ◽  
Maureen A Phillips ◽  
Maire C Kelly ◽  
Renate R Zilkens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Data Management ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Management System ◽  
Data Management System ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Quality Data

Background: The Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) in Perth, Western Australia provides free 24-hour medical, forensic, and counseling services to persons aged over 13 years following sexual assault. Objective: The aim of this research was to design a data management system that maintains accurate quality information on all sexual assault cases referred to SARC, facilitating audit and peer-reviewed research. Methods: The work to develop SARC Medical Services Clinical Information System (SARC-MSCIS) took place during 2007–2009 as a collaboration between SARC and Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. Patient demographics, assault details, including injury documentation, and counseling sessions were identified as core data sections. A user authentication system was set up for data security. Data quality checks were incorporated to ensure high-quality data. Results: An SARC-MSCIS was developed containing three core data sections having 427 data elements to capture patient’s data. Development of the SARC-MSCIS has resulted in comprehensive capacity to support sexual assault research. Four additional projects are underway to explore both the public health and criminal justice considerations in responding to sexual violence. The data showed that 1,933 sexual assault episodes had occurred among 1881 patients between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2015. Sexual assault patients knew the assailant as a friend, carer, acquaintance, relative, partner, or ex-partner in 70% of cases, with 16% assailants being a stranger to the patient. Conclusion: This project has resulted in the development of a high-quality data management system to maintain information for medical and forensic services offered by SARC. This system has also proven to be a reliable resource enabling research in the area of sexual violence.

Rereading Rape in the Critical Canon

differences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-160
Author(s):  
Erin A. Spampinato
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Rape Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Criminal Conduct ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
As If ◽  
Physical Outcomes

This essay identifies what the author terms “adjudicative reading,” a tendency in literary criticism to read novels depicting sexual violence as if in a court of law. Adjudicative reading tracks characters’ motivations and the physical outcomes of their actions as if novels can offer evidence, or lack thereof, of criminal conduct. This legalistic style of criticism not only ignores the fictionality of incidences of rape in novels, but it replicates the prejudices inherent in historical rape law by centering the experiences of the accused character over and against the harm caused to the fictional victim of rape. By contrast, the “capacious” conception of rape proposed here refuses to locate rape in a particular bodily act (as the law does), rejects the yoking of rape’s harms to a particular gender, and understands various forms of violence as equally serious (rather than creating a hierarchy of sexual assault, as current legal conceptions tend to do).

scholarly journals We Still Have Mutual Friends

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sierra Burrier
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Qualitative Interview ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Qualitative Interview Study ◽  
The World

The project We Still Have Mutual Friends is a qualitative interview study into women’s experiences with sexualviolence. Through the interview process, mostly face-to-face recorded interviews, I have evaluated multiplefacets of sexual abuse/marginalization and their consequences on survivors. In total, I interviewed thirty-twowomen about their familial background, their adolescence, and depending on their age, their life experienceswith their sexuality. Some of the facets I have focused on are the disparity between a subject’s definition andtheir experience of sexual assault. I have also evaluated their self-awareness of this disparity, and why they thinkit occurs. I tried as much as I could, to ask questions in an order/way that did not create preferential answering.Because these interviews followed a standard oral history format of open-ended questions with follow-ups basedon the interviewee’s answers, instances of leading answers were possible. Seventeen out of thirty-two womenwere white, with the next largest group being Hispanic, and then Black. With ages ranging from eighteen upto fifty-eight, several generational voices are accounted for. While there were certain trends found within typesof assault, and who it was (trends not entirely new to us), one thing I discovered is a similar background everyperson shared with their family. All the women had at some point experienced some sort of “body policing.” Ihope this project has provided a more holistic view into the world of sexual violence that women face.

scholarly journals Athlete as Agitator, Assaulter, and Armor

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-56
Author(s):  
SHELBY BOEHM ◽  
KATHLEEN COLANTONIO-YURKO ◽  
KATHLEEN OLMSTEAD ◽  
HENRY "CODY" MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Young Adult Literature ◽  
Figured Worlds ◽  
Male Athletes ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
The Way

An increasing number of young adult literature features male athletes sexually assaulting female classmates. These books can be generative spaces for examining relationships between athletic identities and sexual violence. This manuscript provides an analysis of six YAL novels addressing sexual assault: Moxie (Mathieu, 2017), The Nowhere Girls (Reed, 2017), The Way I Used to Be (Smith, 2017), Some Boys (Blount, 2014), Asking For It (O’Neill, 2016), All the Rage (Summers, 2015). The authors examine athlete identities and figured worlds in the six titles and then present teaching suggestions to investigate in English classrooms athlete identities and sexual assault.

scholarly journals Where is it? Examining Post-Secondary Students' Accessibility to Policies and Resources on Sexual Violence

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-108
Author(s):  
Jacey Magnussen ◽  
Irene Shankar
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Policies And Programs ◽  
Sexual Assault Policy ◽  
Similar Legislation

Faced with a growing demand for adequate policies and programs that meaningfully address sexual violence on campus, the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario and Manitoba have introduced legislation requiring all post-secondary institutions to institute a sexual assault policy. The remaining provinces and territories do not have similar legislation. In absence of such legislation, using the case study of Alberta, we examined how equipped post-secondary institutions in this province are to assist students in need. Utilizing publicly available data we examined: 1) whether Alberta’s post-secondary institutions have a sexual violence policy which is readily and easily accessible to the student; and 2) the ease with which students can access university resources and support services for sexual violence. The results indicate that most institutions do not have an accessible policy and support services for students in need. We are hopeful that this study can inform those designing and advocating for sexual violence policies on campus to institute measures to clarify institutions’ sexual violence policies, increase accessibility to those policies, create policies where they are missing, and work on clarifying the availability of resources for students on and off campus.

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