Contributing to a growing body of research, this article examines the lived experiences of post-separation coercive control, including litigation abuse and financial abuse, among female victim-survivors involved in family law proceedings in Australia. Drawing on qualitative data provided by 14 female victim-survivors, this article explores how perpetrators exploit legal systems to perpetuate abuse and how system-level structures and processes may enable such abuse, undermining victim-survivors' economic stability, emotional well-being and safety. The findings underscore the urgent need for systemic reform to recognize and disrupt post-separation coercive control in family law proceedings, ensuring safer and more equitable outcomes for victim-survivors.

Coercive and controlling behaviour (CCB) was criminalised in England and Wales in 2015.This article, drawing on data from two victim-survivor centred research projects conducted over an eight-year period since the criminalisation of CCB, documents the continuities and discontinuities in their experiences of policing responses to CCB. It points to victim-survivor changing expectations of policing and considers the import of these changes for not only listening to their experiences but also hearing them. The challenges that evolving and dynamic lived experiences pose for policing policy and practice in relation to CCB are explored.

This book examines the relationship between gender and crime and explores both the gendered nature of crime alongside the gendered nature of criminal victimisation. Covering theory, policy and practice, this new edition has been fully revised to reflect the wider changes, development and influence of gendered thinking in these areas. It brings together a range of key issues, including: Theories and concepts in feminist criminology, Gender and victimisation, Sexual and domestic violence, Male dominance in the criminal justice system, Gendered perspectives in law and criminal justice policy. New to the third edition is increased coverage of gender and crime in international perspective, particularly within the global south, and emerging concepts of risk and security. This is essential reading for advanced courses on gender and crime, women and crime, and feminist criminology.

Drawing on the work of Avery Gordon and Susan Miller, this article considers the relevance of the notions of ghosts and journeys as a way of making sense of the ongoing policy challenges facing the violence against women field. When placed within the wider structural context of the cunning of the neo-liberal state, these concepts afford one way of rendering visible the ongoing liminality and marginalization of women's lives as they are actually lived as opposed to how they are deemed to be lived in policy responses to such violence. Understanding women's agentic responses to the ever-present, haunting consequences of living with violence, or having lived with violence, alongside the policy responses to such violence, is indeed complicated.

This article presents findings from an N8 Policing Research Partnership–funded project concerned to explore the nature and extent of (mis)identification of the victim and perpetrator in policing responses to coercive and controlling behaviour. The phenomenon of (mis)identification of victim and perpetrators in cases of intimate partner violence is not new and the purpose of this article is to consider the extent to which the presence of misidentification manifests itself in relation to the newer legal framework of coercive and controlling behaviour in England and Wales, introduced in December 2015. The work presented here, suggests that the ‘misidentification moment’ contemporarily is neither simple nor straightforward. Its findings are suggestive of the need for a more considered approach to the use of this term in the contemporary policing context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the problems and possibilities of implementing the criminalisation of coercive and controlling behaviour (CCB). It summarises key findings from three research studies conducted over a 10-year period, in partnership with three different police forces in England and Wales, since the criminalisation of CCB in December 2015. In presenting these findings collectively, it is possible to discern some of the longer-term requirements necessary for the effective implementation of CCB legislation. In so doing, the implications for jurisdictions about to embark, or considering embarking, on this implementation journey are also highlighted.

New criminal offences for coercive and controlling behaviours have been introduced over the last decade in several international jurisdictions, including in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Within this policy reform context, there has been significant debate in Australia as to whether the criminal law in each state should be reformed to include a stand-alone criminal offence which can ensure legal capture of the pattern of non-physical forms of abusive behaviours experienced within the context of a coercivel and controlling relationship. While research has drawn attention to the gendered nature of coercive control from a female victim-survivor perspective, little is known about men's experiences of coercive control. Reporting on a self-selecting sample of 28 interviews with male identifying victim-survivors of coercive control, this article analyses their views on the criminalisation of coercive control, including what the risks, benefits, and impacts of a stand-alone criminal offence might be. The majority of those interviewed supported the introduction of a stand-alone offence in principle, however, this support was nuanced. Participants' views pointed to the need for whole of system change.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of positive policing in relation to domestic abuse by opening up what is meant by this approach through an examination of what is taken for granted about it within much of the academic literature. Using data from a small-scale study involving case file analysis and interviews with police officers, the paper suggests in practice, positive policing involves a wide range of actions on the part of police officers. In exploring this data, the paper introduces the concept of 'contextual safeguarding' as a key feature of 'positive policing' in relation to domestic abuse. The paper makes the case for understanding 'positive policing' in the context of domestic abuse through the lens of 'contextual safeguarding' and that this would have beneficial consequences for wider debates on this issue.

In this conclusion, we offer an overview of the contributions to this edited collection assessing where the study of femicide has been, what it has accomplished and what remains to be done. It is evident that much remains to be done to change the number of women and girls killed by men’s violence on a yearly basis. At the same time, much progress has been made in raising awareness of this problem at the international, national and local levels as well as in collecting. This includes collecting the data needed to combat this problem and to inform the range of policies and practices required to be put in place to sustain this work. However, as the contributions to this book clearly identify without sustained and increased resources and the recognition that this is a gendered issue, barriers will remain in reducing the loss of life that ensures when women’s lives are not counted and as result do not count.

Officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV) is an underexplored phenomena in Australia and internationally. While in recent years some Australian states have adopted OIDV-specific policies, there remains little research which examines the experiences of victim-survivors of OIDV. This article addresses that gap through an examination of the experiences of 17 OIDV victim-survivors. The findings contribute new insights into how OIDV impacts risk; barriers to help-seeking; experiences of reporting OIDV to the police; the risks associated with information sharing; and perpetrator and organizational accountability. These findings underscore the importance of further shaping policy to address OIDV in Australia, while highlighting the necessity for continued research in this area internationally.

Restorative justice has been embraced in criminal justice policies and discourses in a wide range of jurisdictions as the centring of victims’ voices in policy and practice. This is often articulated as listening to the lived experience of victim-survivors. The purpose of this article is to subject such centring to critical scrutiny and consider the extent to which restorative justice can overcome the challenges of whose voice is listened to and why. This paper recognises that individual victims can and do experience restorative justice as a process of validation and that this can occur in different ways – for example, as apologies and/or forgiveness. Such processes are important for individuals. However, this paper is primarily concerned with offering some reflections on the extent to which individual experiences can and/or should serve the interests of society as a whole. This carries implications for what is understood as justice for everyone.

This chapter, in using the two main approaches found within victimology (one focusing on interaction processes, the other on structural processes) considers the extent to which a case can be made for a digital victimology. It concludes that whilst the digital world poses many challenges in relation to victimization there is much to be gained from considering the continuities between the pre-digital and the post-digital world in understanding such victimization.

As crime continues to be a high profile issue troubling politicians, the public and the media alike, the study of criminology has boomed. Providing an international and comparative introduction to the discipline, this informative book is an accessible guide to the theoretical and practical approaches to the phenomena of crime. Topics covered include: popular myths and the fear of crime crime in the workplace victims, offenders and questions of justice public policy and practice around the world the future of crime prevention. Easy to read, concise and supported by a glossary of terms and pointers to further reading, Criminology: The Basics is a perfect introduction to this important and popular subject.

Questions of human rights and the tensions that exist between such rights and the potential for their delivery within criminal justice have been well documented. Nonetheless, the claims made by and on behalf of victims in telling their stories with the advancement in human rights as an intended outcome continue to gather momentum (Meyers, Victims’ Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, New York, 2016). Following in this vein, the work of Stauffer, (Ethical Loneliness: The Injustices of Not Being Heard, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2015) addressing the injustices of not being heard has been telling. Indeed, the emergence of both cultural and narrative criminology/victimology has run parallel with the desire to centre the victim stories. This, however, is not without its problems. Not only does such centring run the risk of glossing the tensions between human rights and criminal justice practices already well established, it also runs the risk of glossing both the ethics and politics underpinning whose voice is listened to, why, when and where. In practical terms, such knowledge claims need to be reflective of time, place and voice.

As crime continues to be a high profile issue troubling politicians, the public and the media alike, the study of criminology has boomed. Providing an international and comparative introduction to the discipline, this informative book is an accessible guide to the theoretical and practical approaches to the phenomena of crime. Topics covered include: popular myths and the fear of crime crime in the workplace victims, offenders and questions of justice public policy and practice around the world the future of crime prevention. Easy to read, concise and supported by a glossary of terms and pointers to further reading, Criminology: The Basics is a perfect introduction to this important and popular subject.

As crime continues to be a high profile issue troubling politicians, the public and the media alike, the study of criminology has boomed. Providing an international and comparative introduction to the discipline, this informative book is an accessible guide to the theoretical and practical approaches to the phenomena of crime. Topics covered include: popular myths and the fear of crime crime in the workplace victims, offenders and questions of justice public policy and practice around the world the future of crime prevention. Easy to read, concise and supported by a glossary of terms and pointers to further reading, Criminology: The Basics is a perfect introduction to this important and popular subject.