Harm Imbrication and Virtualised Violence: Reconceptualising the Harms of Doxxing

This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing personal identifying information about someone on the internet, usually with malicious intent. Doxxing is not just a breach of privacy, nor are its effects limited to first‑order harms to an individual’s bodily integrity. Rather, doxxing increases the spectre of second-order harms to an individual’s security interests. To better understand these harms—and the relationships between them—we draw together the theories of Bhaskar, Deleuze and Levi to develop two concepts: the virtualisation of violence and harm imbrication. The virtualisation of violence captures how, when concretised into structures, the potential for harm can be virtualised through language, writing and digitisation. We show that doxxed information virtualises violence through constituting harm-generating structures and we analyse how the virtual harm-generating potential of these structures is actualised through first- and second-order harms against a doxxing victim. The concept of harm imbrication, by contrast, helps us to analyse the often-imbricated and supervenient relationship between harms. In doing so, it helps us explain the emergent – and supervenient – relationship between doxxing’s first- and second-order harms.

The Experience of Safety, Harassment and Social Exclusion Among Male Clients of Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre

Research on drug harm reduction services has found these operate as a safe haven from health harm. Less is known about the wider sense of security experienced by clients of such services as a counterbalance to social marginality in their daily lives. As part of a larger study of the experience of violence among Australian men, the authors completed 20 qualitative semi-structured interviews with male clients of Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) in 2016–2020. These were conducted anonymously in a private clinical room inside the MSIC and focused on aspects of drug use and general life experiences of violence, law enforcement, safety and security. Interviews were analysed by thematic content through a combination of preliminary and second close readings. Our analysis found that the MSIC consistently acted as a reprieve from harassment and violence from police and members of the public, conflict in drug deals, and general social exclusion.

Law, Justice, and Indigenous Intergenerational Trauma—A Genealogy

Aboriginal Australians experience trauma that is linked to continuing colonising practices in the present, and which are also reproduced throughout the more than 230 years of colonisation. Intergeneration trauma intersects with the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the welfare and justice systems. This paper examines evidence of the relations between trauma and colonialising practices imposed on Indigenous peoples, as past and present conditions leading to intergenerational trauma. Historical and present-day conditions affecting Aboriginal children and families are shown to set in place the conditions producing trauma over time.

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.

Navigating the Family Law Provisions: Migrant Women’s Voices

This article considers the voices of migrant women engaging with Home Affairs to guarantee permanent residency (PR) in Australia after experiencing domestic violence. Data collected from longitudinal interviews with 20 participants were considered, with two participants’ stories analysed in detail. The research indicates how the legal immigration system is set up in a way that does not listen to women and disadvantages them. Particular issues pointed out include extended timelines, lack of concern for cultural differences and inconsistencies in the process, and how they affect women undermining the goal of the law, which is to protect migrants from sponsors’ violence.

Soraia da Rosa Mendes (2020) Processo Penal Feminista (Feminist Criminal Law Procedures) Sao Paulo, Atlas

Ana Borges Jelinic reviews Soraia da Rosa Mendes (2020) Processo Penal Feminista (Feminist Criminal Law Procedures) The Portuguese version is also included

Better Prevention of Femicide: Evidence from Brazil

This article presents the results of a death review study of 34 cases of femicide in the Federal District, Brazil, between 2016 and 2017. The aim of the study is to analyse how primary, secondary and tertiary prevention policies could have enhanced the prevention of these particular femicides. The study uses a mixed-method research design to analyse the judicial and health files of victims and perpetrators, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with surviving relatives. The findings highlight the need for an intersectional approach to gender, race, class and migration status in prevention policies; better risk assessment and management; enhanced women’s reporting of domestic violence earlier; and better integration of the justice system with psychosocial services. The increase of violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic strengthens the need for an integrated approach to the prevention of lethal gender violence. This paper provides an original contribution to better comprehend the profile of femicide victims and perpetrators with a view on how to improve prevention policies in Brazil.

Notes on Gender, Race and Punishment From a Decolonial Perspective to a Southern Criminology Agenda

The purpose of this article is to investigate how decolonial studies can contribute to an agenda of southern criminology and in particular, but not exclusively, to our research on gender and gender violence. To do so, the path chosen was to first present the common lines between these ways of theorising. Then, the entanglements of race and capitalism and of race and gender in the decolonial perspective are presented. With this done, it is possible to think about how decoloniality and punishment are related and to, from then on, think of a decolonial agenda for criminology that involves taking the colonial hypothesis seriously and always thinking and seeking to listen, read and research the ways of resistance from those dehumanised by the criminal justice system.

Exploring Women’s Experience of Gender-Based Violence and Other Threats to Safety on Public Transport in Bangladesh

Equal access to safe transport is increasingly conceptualised as a fundamental right for women, with demonstrated impact on health outcomes, social and economic mobility, and societal participation. This study analysed qualitative and quantitative data to examine travel patterns and experiences among 200 women (aged between 18-64 years) using paid transport for work or educational purposes in Bangladesh. Results showed that the women faced multiple threats to their safety, including gender-based violence, harassment and crime, and traffic and non-traffic injury and that the use of paid transport was associated with high levels of anxiety and fear. Despite these circumstances, the women were captive travellers, forced to make transport choices based on price, availability, and ease of travel rather than safety. Unable to choose safe transports, the women attempted to mitigate risks by changing their travel pattern and behaviour, and by restricted their travel frequency. These findings are discussed within the context of women’s rights and mobility justice.

Policing and Preventing Gender Violence in the Global South

This special issue is the product of a workshop on innovations in policing and preventing gender violence in the Global South, hosted by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Centre for Justice 3-4 December 2019. The event was attended by scholars from Brazil, Pacific Island communities, Bangladesh, Argentina, and several Australian jurisdictions. Hence the articles in this special issue reflect the diverse nationalities present at the event. A central aim of the workshop realised in this special issue is the stimulation of innovation in understanding the policing and prevention of gender violence through novel international collaborations and cross-fertilization. It reverses the assumptions that underpin the epistemic injustice of the social sciences, that innovations generally flow only from the Global North to the Global South. This special issue shows that it can be the other way round.