Assessing the Impact of the Violence Against Women Act

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has been hailed as the federal government's signature legislation responding to gender-based violence. VAWA, passed in 1994 and reauthorized three times since then, has created several new programs and protections for victims of gender-based violence. VAWA is, however, primarily a funding bill and what it primarily funds is the criminal legal system. But the criminal legal response to gender-based violence has not been effective in decreasing rates of gender-based violence or deterring violence. A VAWA that discontinued funding for the criminal legal system and instead focused on economics, prevention, and community-based resources—a noncarceral VAWA—could better meet the needs of victims of gender-based violence and target the underlying causes of that violence.

A Critical Analysis of Post-Conviction Review in New South Wales, Australia

Wrongful convictions leave an indelible mark on society. They are a tangible demonstration that the criminal legal system has failed, and a poignant reminder that all human institutions are fallible. Robust post-conviction review mechanisms are essential to provide an opportunity for justice to be eventually achieved for those who are wrongfully convicted. Through a critical examination of the post-conviction review mechanisms in NSW, which includes determining the existence of independence, transparency and accountability in the system, some deficiencies will be identified and analysed. Drawing on insights from the author’s role as a lawyer for Kathleen Folbigg (a woman convicted in 2003 of the murder of three of her infant children, and the manslaughter of her first child), this article will outline some of the key problems with the current system of post-conviction review in NSW. It then critically compares the existing system with the United Kingdom Criminal Cases Review Commission (“UK CCRC”). The UK CCRC has been chosen because it is a pioneering model which is designed to identify and remedy wrongful convictions in an independent, transparent, and accountable way. The article concludes that a version similar to the UK CCRC should be implemented in NSW to achieve justice for those wrongfully convicted.

Punishment by Association: The Burden of Attending Court for Legal Bystanders

Scholars have shown how legal bystanders experience punishment at the hands of the state in their homes and neighborhoods, as well as jails and prisons. Other scholars have shown how bureaucratic processes, such as attending court, are punitive toward people charged with crimes. There is less information about how legal bystanders also experience punishment in courtrooms. In this article, we bridge the literatures between secondary prisonization and procedural punishment to illustrate how legal bystanders, such as family and friends of bond court defendants, experience punishment when attending bond court. We utilize courtroom ethnography of Central Bond Court in Chicago’s Cook County and interviews with family and friends of people charged with a crime to illustrate this form of punishment in three themes: extraction, destabilization, and degradation. With these findings, we argue that secondary prisonization begins not at the point of incarceration, but at the moment a loved one’s contact with the criminal legal system begins.

Gender-Based Violence, Law Reform, and the Criminalization of Survivors of Violence

Criminalization is the primary societal response to intimate partner violence in the US. This reliance on criminal legal system interventions ignores several unintended consequences. One of the serious unintended consequences of criminalization — perhaps the most serious unintended consequence — has been the increased rates of arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of those whom criminalization was meant to protect: victims of intimate partner violence. Criminalized survivors follow a variety of pathways into the carceral system, which fails to recognize their status as victims of violence and punishes them for failure to conform to victim stereotypes as well as for their acts.

Menstrual Equity, Organizing and the Struggle for Human Dignity and Gender Equality in Prison

This Essay takes a look at the movement for social change around menstruation, especially through the lens of the criminal legal system and prisons and jails in particular. Part I reviews the issues of period poverty and justice that are driving a larger social movement to recognize that safe and ready access to menstrual hygiene products should be framed through a lens of full civic participation in order to understand its full implications for the lives of people who menstruate. Part II dives into the particular needs and problems of abuse and control that incarcerated and detained people face related to menstruation. Part III examines the growing movement to transform menstruation in America along equity lines that focuses both on the rights of all menstruators while bringing social pressure to bear on behalf of the most vulnerable—incarcerated people, the unhoused, students, and those living in poverty—to demand greater governmental and cultural support for the needs, inclusion, and dignity of all people who menstruate. This Part particularly takes note of the fact that the menstrual equity movement gains strength and force when it centers the leadership and voices of people who menstruate as key players demanding social change and evolution of the culture as a whole. Part IV examines the importance of the momentum and success this social movement represents for potential litigation strategies to develop constitutional jurisprudence regarding incarcerated people and menstrual equity. It observes that the pertinent “evolving standards of decency” that inform Eighth Amendment jurisprudence must and will be influenced by the prevailing movement for menstrual equity as a deliberate strategy to ensure that incarcerated people who menstruate are not left out of the social development and rights framework that menstrual equity demands. At the same time this evolution in jurisprudence represent the opportunity for Eighth Amendment jurisprudence—and constitutional framework generally—to place a greater focus on the need for human dignity as a cornerstone of the law.

To Report or Not to Report? A Focal Concerns Analysis of Victim Reporting Decisions Following Victimization

Sexual assault (SA) decision-making literature primarily focuses on criminal-legal actors and often overlooks victim decision making. This relative dearth in research is problematic, as victims are principal gatekeepers of the criminal-legal process who influence whether perpetrators are arrested and prosecuted. Subsequent victim support is also contingent on the reporting decision. Overall, this body of research would benefit from a better understanding of how victims activate and participate with the criminal-legal system and the potential impact of these decisions on criminal-legal processes. Moreover, victim decision making is often situated in a theoretical analyses. Victim decision making is complex and should be studied within a criminological decision-making framework. Therefore, the current study relies on National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data and applies a focal concerns perspective (FCP), informed by rape culture concepts, to examine why victims of sexual violence may or may not choose to report to legal authorities. The current study offers initial support for the application of FCP to victim reporting decisions. We found that victims consider each of the focal concerns (FC). Victims were more likely to report when offenders threatened them with harm (i.e., suspect blameworthiness), when the offense occurred in a private location (i.e., protection of the community), and when they sought help from victim support agencies or medical treatment (i.e., practical considerations). Additionally, we found that Black victims were more likely to report than other racial-ethnic groups (i.e., perceptual shorthand). These findings highlight a nexus between reporting to police and help-seeking via support agencies. Importantly, the results emphasize the importance for police to implement cultural competence and antiracist training to better support Black victims.

Criminal Record Stigma and Surveillance in the Digital Age

This review analyzes criminal record stigma and surveillance through the concept of digital punishment: the collection and widespread dissemination of personally identifiable data by the American criminal legal system and subsequent private actors. The analysis is organized into three parts: a descriptive account of the technological, legal, and social factors that have created mass criminal record data; a theoretical framework for understanding digital criminal records through stigma and surveillance theories; and an argument that contemporary criminal records constitute digital punishment, with emphasis placed on how digital records are disordered, commodified, and biased. I close by raising policy-relevant questions about the widespread disclosure and uses of criminal legal system data for extralegal purposes. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 5 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.