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Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) involves three key behaviors: the non-consensual taking or creation of nude or sexual images; the non-consensual sharing or distribution of nude or sexual images; and threats made to distribute nude or sexual images. IBSA is becoming increasingly criminalized internationally, representing an important and rapidly developing cybercrime issue. This paper presents findings of the first national online survey of self-reported lifetime IBSA perpetration in Australia (n = 4053), with a focus on the extent, nature, and predictors of perpetration. Overall, 11.1% (n = 411) of participants self-reported having engaged in some form of IBSA perpetration during their lifetime, with men significantly more likely to report IBSA perpetration than women. With regard to the nature of perpetration, participants reported targeting men and women at similar rates, and were more likely to report perpetrating against intimate partners or ex-partners, family members and friends than strangers or acquaintances. Logistic regression analyses identified that males, lesbian, gay or bisexual participants, participants with a self-reported disability, participants who accepted sexual image-based abuse myths, participants who engaged in or experienced sexual self-image behaviors, and participants who had a nude or sexual image of themselves taken, distributed, and/or threatened to be distributed without their consent were more likely to have engaged in some form of IBSA perpetration during their lifetime.

This book considers how access to justice is affected by restrictions to legal aid budgets and increasingly prescriptive service guidelines. As common law jurisdictions, England and Wales, and Australia, share similar ideals, policies and practices, but they differ in aspects of their legal and political culture, in the nature of the communities they serve and in their approaches to providing access to justice. These jurisdictions thus provide us with different perspectives on what constitutes justice and how we might seek to overcome the burgeoning crisis in unmet legal need. The book fills an important gap in existing scholarship as the first to bring together new empirical and theoretical knowledge examining different responses to legal aid crises both in the domestic and comparative contexts, across criminal, civil and family law. It achieves this by examining the broader social, political, legal, health and welfare impacts of legal aid cuts and prescriptive service guidelines. Across both jurisdictions, this work suggests that it is the most vulnerable groups who lose out in the way that law is now done in the 21st century. This introductory chapter sets out some of the key contextual themes in the legal aid landscape, as well as providing a brief summary of each of the book chapters.

Since 2013, restrictions on the provision of legal aid and changes to social, legal and welfare services have significantly increased demand for legal services in Australia, while simultaneously increasing the extent of unmet legal need. In this climate of austerity, a robust debate over the allocation of resources is taking place with questions regarding the priorities that should be accorded to government-funded serious criminal cases, to criminal representation in the lower courts, and to serious civil and family law matters. This has raised some important questions for practitioners, recipients of legal aid, courts, academics and providers of legal aid funding and services: namely, who deserves legal aid? Should legal aid seek to provide more people with fewer services or should it spend more money assisting fewer vulnerable clients? Who are the core clients of legal aid services? And in the context of finite funding and expanding demands, on what criteria are priorities decided, and who decides those criteria? Note: These questions were the focus of a Monash University workshop organised by Dr Asher Flynn (Criminology, School of Social Sciences), Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg (Faculty of Law), Professor Jude McCulloch (Criminology, School of Social Sciences) and Associate Professor Bronwyn Naylor (Faculty of Law) in July 2014. The workshop examined the implications of recent restrictions and changes to legal aid funding and services in Victoria. The workshop was part of a larger research project funded by the Monash Warwick Alliance, which involved an initial workshop in March 2014, held at the University of Warwick campus in England, organised by Ms Natalie Byrom (Centre for Human Rights in Practice, Law), Associate Professor James Harrison (Centre for Human Rights in Practice, Law) and Professor Jackie Hodgson (Centre for Criminal Justice, Law).