Introduction

This chapter provides a critical overview of historical and contemporary approaches to preventing sexual violence. It also presents an overview of all chapters, outlining their contribution to the field and provide a clear message related to the coherence of the book.

Women Who Commit Sexual Offences: Improving Assessment to Prevent Recidivism

This chapter explores the utility and potential implementation of a new female version of an assessment tool called the Active Risk Management System (ARMS) along with some of the limitations and challenges academics and practitioners face when attempting to engage with strengths-based approaches. In doing this, an analysis of the areas to be assessed is offered with a special focus on protective factors that have been highly overlooked in the past. Forwarding women to programmes that enhance their strengths and empower them is a very promising strategy that can be used at all levels of prevention (primary, secondary and tertiary) but that can only happen if they are assessed accordingly.

Disclosing Sexual Crime

Disclosing to someone that you have been the victim of a sexual offence has been described as stepping out of an airplane door and not being sure if your parachute is going to work. This is especially true of historic sexual offences, where the victim has lived with, and sometimes normalised their experiences, often over decades. The stigma of being a victim, the shame about not stopping the offence or making a disclosure sooner, the anxiety about how family, colleagues and partners will view you, all act as inhibitors to making disclosures; these continue even after disclosure is made. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the authors lived experiences of investigating sexual offences and of making a disclosure of historic sexual abuse to his employer.

Behavioural Crime Linkage in Rape and Sexual Assault Cases

Behavioural crime linkage (BCL) analyses offender crime scene behaviour with the aim of identifying groups of crimes that share similar (and distinctive) behaviours. This allows police to infer that the same person/s were responsible for crimes, allowing them to be “linked” as a crime series. Successful BCL can increase the quantity and quality of evidence available to the police, which increase the likelihood of apprehending and successfully prosecuting the offender. This chapter will review the theoretical framework underpinning BCL (behavioural consistency and behavioural distinctiveness) and summarise key literature on rape and sexual assault - including the latest, cutting-edge, collaborative work jointly-led by academics and law enforcement practitioners. The chapter will also outline (using real life case studies) how BCL can be used to support the investigation of sexual offences, and will critically discuss future research directions and how this work might enhance the detection, prosecution, and prevention of serial sexual offending.

What Do We Know about the Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children? Implications for Research and Practice

This chapter takes a critical view of the prevention and intervention approaches used in children sexual exploitation (CSE) in the UK. The author presents an exploration of the way risk, vulnerability and educative responses to CSE may perpetuate victim blaming of children and misuse ‘prevention’ approaches. The chapter includes an examination of the evidence base, literature and practice knowledge that is available or lacking in CSE. The author will explore myths, misconceptions and biases in CSE that have led to responses and preventative practice which is steeped in rape myths. The final conclusions will move the field towards trauma-focussed, anti-victim-blaming approaches to supporting children affected by CSE.

The Istanbul Convention: A Genuine Confirmation of the Structural Nature of Domestic Violence against Women within a Human Rights Law Framework?

This chapter analyses the recently adopted Istanbul Convention in the special context of domestic violence against women. Before the adoption of the Convention, human rights bodies developed several approaches in order to address the issue in particularly last three decades. However, all these developments occurred within existing, mostly gender neutral and non-binding human rights law instruments, particularly in Europe. This picture has been reversed entirely by the adoption of the Istanbul Convention. For the first time in Europe, the Convention gave legally binding status to the fact that domestic violence in its nature is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men and therefore prevalent. This affirmation of the historical nature of the problem is strengthened through its 4(P)s structure bringing detailed measures to be taken by state parties to eliminate the problem. This chapter argues that the Istanbul Convention constitutes the strongest confirmation of the ordinary and structural nature of the problem of domestic violence against women within international human rights law.

Preventing Sexual Violence against Older Women

Despite the vast amount of sexual violence research, there exists an important gap in knowledge around older victims and offenders. Internationally, the focus of academic research, policy and practice has been on young women who are consistently found to be most 'at risk' of experiencing sexual violence. Consequently, we know very little about the extent, nature and impacts of sexual violence for older adults. The 'real rape' stereotype of the young, white attractive woman who is raped by a young stranger, often at night in a public place, has contributed to the exclusion of older victims and the denial that sexual violence occurs across the life course. Furthermore, the majority of prevention initiatives and campaigns have often exacerbated and reinforced the 'real rape' stereotype. Drawing on the first national study to examine sexual violence against older people in the UK, this chapter presents the findings from qualitative interviews with practitioners working in sexual violence organisations (n=23), age-related organisations (n=4) and older survivors (n=3) to examine challenges and opportunities for preventing, and responding to, sexual violence in later life.

Concluding Thoughts

This chapter will provide a summary of the key themes applicable to all chapter contributions and will particularly focus on: implications for practice and recommendations for priority areas related to preventing sexual violence for both academic and practitioner audiences.

Reporting as Risk: The Dangers of Criminal Justice for Survivors of Sexual Violence

For many victims of sexual violence, the trauma does not end with the incident itself, but may be drawn out for several months or even years. Secondary victimisation caused by conscious or non-conscious promotion of rape myths, negative stereotypes, or empathy fatigue can happen at the hands of both the public, personal relations, or sadly even those who are meant to support and protect victims. For those few victims who do engage with criminal justice, secondary victimisation poses a serious threat to their wellbeing, with the potential to negatively affect both mental health and future willingness to report crime.Sexual victimisation is seriously under-reported by both male and female victims. The social stigma attached to sexual victimisation, the trauma of police interviews, court proceedings, and medical examinations, as well as the psychological implications of victimhood, are all significant motivations to avoid reporting, especially in cases of sexual violence. The risk of experiencing this secondary trauma is so severe that some go so far as to suggest that victims may be better off not reporting their ordeals to the police at all.This chapter will firstly introduce the data on the under-reporting of sexual crimes, review current explanations and discuss the dismal prosecutorial success rates in relation to sexual violence in Scotland. It will then present evidence regarding the traumatic nature of the criminal justice system for victims of sexual violence, drawing on the academic literature including a critique of existing policy and practice, ongoing qualitative research with victims of crime in Scotland, as well as some highly publicised recent cases in the British media. Finally, the chapter will end by providing suggestions for reducing the risk of secondary victimisation and making the criminal justice system more victim friendly

Rendering the Ordinary Extraordinary in Order to Facilitate Prevention: The Case of (Sexual) Violence against Women

Prevention is a seductive concept. It has a wide range of positive connotations largely derivable from the medical world. However, in order to prevent, it is important to locate the cause and have an accurate picture of the associated epidemiology of the problem. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the extent to which either of these factors are present in what is known about sexual violence and further to explore the extent to which what is known informs preventive strategies. Starting from the position that violence (against women) is 'an everyday experience this chapter will consider the ways in which strategies designed to prevent sexual violence actually deny the ordinariness of such, but rather rely on rendering it extra-ordinary in order to render such strategies justifiable. These practices of denial, by implication, also deny what is known about its causes and its epidemiology. As a result, such practices tent to serve the interests of the professionals engaged in then rather than those so afflicted by such violence