Serial offenders? Defining the boundaries of series and serial TV for screenwriting practice and theory

Serial storytelling dominates the international TV landscape, yet the terms used to describe this form as distinct from ‘series’ vary across industry, scholarship and popular media. While many scholars have observed the series/serial ‘divide’, none of them have done so from the vantage point of screenwriting practice. This article argues there is both the scope and a need to provide clearer definitions for discussion of TV drama screenwriting, particularly as it intersects with extant notions such as ‘complex’ and ‘quality’ TV. In this article, we consolidate the literature on the series/serial and provide our own terms to describe contemporary trends in serial storytelling – finite, infinite and franchise – terms that we hope speak more directly to the screenwriter and screenwriting scholar.

Enacting an Improved Response to Sexual Assault: A Criminal Justice Practitioner’s Guide

Sexual assault is a violent crime that traumatizes individual victims and endangers entire communities. Every victim of sexual assault deserves an opportunity for justice and access to the resources they need to recover from this trauma. In addition, many perpetrators of sexual assaults are serial offenders who also commit other violent crimes, including armed robberies, aggravated assaults, burglary, domestic violence, and homicides, against strangers and acquaintances. Criminal justice agencies have the power to create a strategic, sustainable plan for an improved response to sexual assault that aligns with current best practices and national recommendations. In this document, we define an “improved response” as an approach that supports effective investigation and prosecution of sexual assault cases, holds perpetrators accountable, and promotes healing and recovery for victims of sexual assault. This guide will help prosecutor and law enforcement agencies create a process with milestones, goals, and suggested actions, all designed to support a successful and sustainable approach for addressing sexual assault cases. Improving the criminal justice system’s response to sexual assault ultimately improves public safety and promotes trust between criminal justice agencies and the communities they serve.

A conceptual model on reintegration after prison in Norway

Purpose Many offenders struggle when attempting to reintegrate into society after release from prison, and the conditions they face after release often lead to reoffending. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model on reintegration after prison. The model has the potential to guide practitioners in their understanding of the relationships between welfare services and the agency of the offender. Design/methodology/approach The model was developed from a small-scale study in the Norwegian Criminal Justice system, which is well known for its emphasis on rehabilitation and crime prevention. Data collection aimed to explore the reintegration process from the perspective of the hard-to-reach and vulnerable population of serial offenders. Nine prisoners in two different prisons were interviewed. A thematic analysis identified two main themes that related, first, to the personal challenges the offenders faced in the rehabilitation and reintegration process and, second, to the factors in the welfare services that interacted with the prisoners’ psychosocial issues in the reintegration process. Findings Findings suggest that the interaction between the psychosocial needs of the prisoners and the organization of the welfare services is complex and does not harmonize. The findings underpin the argument that the current reintegration strategies for certain groups of inmates need to be questioned and challenged. Research limitations/implications The model is a conceptual model intended to provide a lens from which to reinterpret offenders’ experiences of reintegration and applied to only the small and exploratory study described in this paper. As such, it requires further testing and substantiation, and the model and the study’s findings should be regarded as tentative and cannot be generalized to a larger population. The prisoners were selected by the first author for convenience, and it is possible that this also influenced the findings. Other inmates may have presented other experiences. Originality/value There are few studies looking into reintegration from the reoffenders’ perspective, and this study also presents a model that serves as a reflective and analytical tool to developing new approaches to supporting offenders in their reintegration into society from prison in the future.

Crime Analysis and Conventional Policing Strategies: Evidence from a Community in the Western Region, Ghana

The study investigated the application of crime analysis at various police stations within the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality in the Western Region of Ghana with the objective of understanding crime, crime analysis, crime control and crime information management and their implications on conventional policing strategies. Qualitative and quantitative research adopting the questionnaire and interview were conducted with crime analysts and specialized investigators/intelligence analysts through descriptive and explorative research design. The study had a dual purpose of generating operational crime management information in assisting crime prevention initiatives as well as identifying the strengths and weaknesses of current practices for improving performance, mainly focusing on the criminal activities of group offenders (organized crime related), repeat offenders and serial offenders.

American Serial Rape, 1940–2010

Little is known about the social correlates of serial rape or about trends in offending across time and space in the United States. Furthermore, the limited serial rape scholarship that exists was largely generalized from small, captive samples. The current study aims to amplify our understanding of serial rape by pursuing three fundamental objectives. First, guided by theory and research we propose a new, more precise, and comprehensive conceptualization of serial rape. Next, we draw from media representations of serial rape published in five major American newspapers from 1940 to 2010 to develop an offender social profile and to identify patterns in attack style. Our analysis of a broad and diverse sample of serial offenders described in media accounts ( N = 1,037) produced the following profile estimates—age: 27 years; race/ethnicity: African American, 46%; Caucasian, 29%; Latino, 19%; Asian, 5%. Most offenders were employed in unskilled or semiskilled occupations and the most common attack strategy was the surprise approach (47%). Finally, our data allow us to estimate and interpret historical trends as depicted in media accounts. Our analysis revealed low levels of serial rape in newspaper accounts during the 1940s to 1950s, followed by a steady increase (with periodic decreases) leading to a peak in 1991. This peak is followed by a steady and dramatic decline from 1992 to 2010.