scholarly journals "I Want Justice From People Who Did Bad Things to Children": Experiences of Justice for Sex Trafficking Survivors

Author(s):  
John G Morrissey ◽  
◽  
James Havey ◽  
Glenn M Miles ◽  
Nhanh Channtha ◽  
...  

This research from the Butterfly Longitudinal Research Project focused on understanding the experiences and perceptions of justice and the justice system for 93 Cambodia participants (including 88 survivors of sex trafficking) as they navigated the legal system. Thirty-two of these survivors had experiences in court and provided details into their courtroom experiences, predominantly within Cambodia but also in the United States. The survivors’ experiences were diverse; however, the prevailing themes were: fear throughout their legal journeys; a low level of awareness and understanding of their legal experiences; and that NGO support was essential for these survivors to engage in the often complicated, lengthy and emotionally challenging legal processes. The recommendations generated from the results at the individual survivor level included: encouraging active participation to make informed decisions on their legal journey; survivors need compassionate support from all stakeholders throughout their legal journey; questioning needs to be appropriate, sensitive and age appropriate; and survivor safety needs to be central both in the courtroom and in the community, as perpetrators and their associates may be threatening. At a wider, societal level, the legal system should be accessible and encourage victim participation. Further, the outcomes of court should be adequate for survivors, in that they provide justice, restitution and deter future crimes; trust in the legal system needs to be developed; information and education about the legal system and legal rights should be promoted; and protection for survivors must be enhanced.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Altier

Recent questions surrounding the repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration of those who traveled to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the reintegration of violent extremists in conflict zones including Somalia, Nigeria, Libya, and Mali, and the impending release of scores of homegrown violent extremists from prisons in the United States and Europe have heightened policymaker and practitioner interest in violent extremist disengagement and reintegration (VEDR). Although a number of programs to reintegrate violent extremists have emerged both within and outside of conflict zones, significant questions remain regarding their design, implementation, and effectiveness. To advance our understanding of VEDR, this report draws insights from a review of the literature on ex-combatant disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR). The literature on DDR typically adopts a “whole of society” approach, which helps us to understand how systemic factors may influence VEDR at the individual level and outcomes at the societal level. Despite the important differences that will be reviewed, the international community’s thirty-year experience with DDR—which includes working with violent extremists—offers important insights for our understanding of VEDR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-282
Author(s):  
David P. Farrington

This article summarizes national data on completed homicides for eight countries in three time periods: around 1980, 1990, and 2000. The eight countries are England/Wales, the United States, Sweden, Australia, Scotland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Canada. In each year, the article presents the number of police-recorded crimes, the number of persons convicted, the number of offenders sent to custody, average sentence length, average time served, and all linking probabilities. It also shows changes in all these measures between 1980, 1990, and 2000 in different countries. It would be desirable to carry out longitudinal research, tracking offenders through the criminal justice system.


Author(s):  
Cheryl Marie Webster ◽  
Anthony N. Doob

Until the early 1970s, the United States and Canada both had relatively stable imprisonment rates. This paper uses Canada’s continued stability in its rate of incarceration since this period to develop two intertwined explanations for the growth in US imprisonment between 1973 and 2010. First, using data on the relative size of the growth in imprisonment of the individual states, it presents findings that suggest that increased imprisonment was intimately linked to underlying social values. For instance, those states with the largest increases in incarceration were, in terms of the values of their citizens, least “Canadian-like.” In addition, high imprisonment states tended to have values favoring social exclusion. Second, we argue that the United States has consistently demonstrated penal optimism—that is, a strong faith in the ability of the criminal justice system to reduce crime. Prior to the mid-1970s, it was broadly believed that the recourse to prison through a rehabilitation model whereby offenders were treated or “cured” could reduce crime. Starting in the mid-1970s, the focus of optimism changed such that crime was now seen as being able to be controlled through the deterrent and incapacitative effects of high imprisonment. In contrast, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, Canada has never been optimistic that the criminal justice system—through any mechanism—could have a substantial impact on crime rates. By extension, imprisonment was seen as a necessary evil to be minimized as much as possible.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.


Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.


Incarceration ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 263266632097780
Author(s):  
Alexandra Cox ◽  
Dwayne Betts

There are close to seven million people under correctional supervision in the United States, both in prison and in the community. The US criminal justice system is widely regarded as an inherently unmerciful institution by scholars and policymakers but also by people who have spent time in prison and their family members; it is deeply punitive, racist, expansive and damaging in its reach. In this article, we probe the meanings of mercy for the institution of parole.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174889582110173
Author(s):  
Douglas Evans ◽  
Adam Trahan ◽  
Kaleigh Laird

The detriment of incarceration experienced by the formerly incarcerated has been increasingly explored in the literature on reentry. A tangential but equally concerning issue that has recently received more research attention is the effect on family members of the incarcerated. The stigma of a criminal conviction is most apparent among families of convicted sex offenders, who experience consequences parallel to those of their convicted relative. Drawing from interviews with 30 individuals with a family member incarcerated for a sex offence in the United States, this study explores manifestations of stigma due to familial association. The findings suggest that families face negative treatment from social networks and criminal justice officials, engage in self-blame and that the media’s control over the narrative exacerbates family members’ experiences. Given the pervasiveness of criminal justice system contact, the rapid growth of the sex offender registry in the United States, and the millions of family members peripherally affected by one or both, justice system reforms are needed to ensure that family members are shielded from the harms of incarceration and registration.


1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
George J. Annas

In an extraordinary and highly controversial 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court decided on June 30, 1980, that the United States Constitution does not require either the federal government or the individual states to fund medically necessary abortions for poor women who qualify for Medicaid.At issue in this case is the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment. The applicable 1980 version provides:|N]one of the funds provided by this joint resolution shall be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term; or except for such medical procedures necessary for the victims of rape or incest when such rape or incest has been reported promptly to a law enforcement agency or public health service, (emphasis supplied)


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