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This study examined image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) victimisation in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (n = 6,109). Findings showed that 37.7% (n = 2,306) of respondents had at least one IBSA victimisation experience since 16 years of age. Logistic regression analyses further identified that demographic characteristics (age, sexuality, disability/assistance), attitudes towards IBSA, and experiential variables (online dating and sexual self-image behaviours, IBSA perpetration) were each predictors of IBSA victimisation. Though gender did not predict the overall extent of IBSA victimisation, the relational contexts and impacts of IBSA remained gendered in particular ways. Implications of the study are discussed with respect to conceptualising gendered violence and future research.

This paper explores the symbolic and instrumental impacts associated with labelling particular groups of young people as perpetrators of organised gang activity. Using case studies from two Australian cities, we point primarily to the constitutive and damaging nature of much media and public discourse about youth gang crime and show how young offenders’ disadvantage and disenfranchisement is rendered largely invisible or immaterial to understanding the causes and solutions to such problems. In an era of “fake news”, social media “echo chambers”, civil conflict, mass international migration / forced diasporas, as well as the reassertion of strong sovereign borders, we ask: how might one de-escalate the “monstering” of young people whose identity (and presence and place in society) is known primarily, if not exclusively, through the “noise” and visibility of their offending? Este artículo explora los efectos simbólicos e instrumentales relacionados con etiquetar grupos concretos de jóvenes como autores de actividad organizada de bandas. Utilizando estudios de caso de dos ciudades australianas, apuntamos principalmente a la naturaleza constitutiva y perniciosa de gran parte de los discursos mediáticos y públicos sobre delincuencia de bandas juveniles, y mostramos cómo la desventaja y la privación de derechos de los jóvenes delincuentes se invisibilizan o se desmaterializan a la hora de entender las causas y las soluciones a dichos problemas. En una época de noticias falsas, “ecocámaras” de las redes sociales, conflicto social, migración masiva internacional y diásporas forzosas, así como en la reasignación de fuertes fronteras soberanas, nos preguntamos cómo se puede desescalar la “monsterización” de jóvenes cuya identidad (y presencia y lugar en la sociedad) es conocida, sobre todo, si no exclusivamente, por el "ruido" y la visibilización de sus delitos. Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1212

Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images. Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We adopt a feminist phenomenological approach that permits more nuanced and holistic understandings of victim-survivors’ experiences, moving beyond medicalised, trauma-based accounts of harm. Our analysis develops five interconnected accounts of the harms experienced, that we have termed social rupture, constancy, existential threat, isolation and constrained liberty. Our findings shed new light on the nature and significance of the harms of image-based sexual abuse that emphasises the need for more comprehensive and effective responses to these abuses.

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.

Technology-Facilitated violence and abuse is a truly global problem. As the diverse perspectives and experiences featured in this book have shown, the deep entanglement between technologies, inequality, marginalization, abuse, and violence require multi-faceted and collaborative responses that exist within and beyond the law. When this chapter was written, society was (and continues to be) facing an unprecedented challenge in COVID-19 – a global pandemic. At the same time, a renewed focus on racist police and civilian violence has occurred following the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor in the United States. As we describe in this chapter, these two major moments are ongoing reminders of the profound social inequalities within our global communities, which are grounded in systemically discriminatory oppressions and their intersections. This chapter draws together some thoughts on Technology-Facilitated violence and abuse in an era of COVID-19 and antiracist protest. It explores these within the context of the book as a whole, highlighting the importance for improved understanding of, and responses to, Technology-Facilitated violence and abuse as part of a broader push for social justice.

While digital technologies have led to many important social and cultural advances worldwide, they also facilitate the perpetration of violence, abuse and harassment, known as Technology-Facilitated violence and abuse (TFVA). TFVA includes a spectrum of behaviors perpetrated online, offline, and through a range of technologies, including artificial intelligence, livestreaming, GPS tracking, and social media. This chapter provides an overview of TFVA, including a brief snapshot of existing quantitative and qualitative research relating to various forms of TFVA. It then discusses the aims and contributions of this book as a whole, before outlining five overarching themes arising from the contributions. The chapter concludes by mapping out the structure of the book.

Despite apparent political concern and action – often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns – legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual abuse in the UK have been ad hoc, piecemeal and inconsistent. In practice, victim-survivors are being consistently failed: by the law, by the police and criminal justice system, by traditional and social media, website operators, and by their employers, universities and schools. Drawing on data from the first multi-jurisdictional study of the nature and harms of, and legal/policy responses to, image-based sexual abuse, this article argues for a new joined-up approach that supports victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse to ‘reclaim control’. It argues for a comprehensive, multi-layered, multi-institutional and multi-agency response, led by a government- and industry-funded online or e-safety organisation, which not only recognises the diversity of victim-survivor experiences and the intersection of image-based sexual abuse with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination, but which also enables victim-survivors to reclaim control within and beyond the criminal justice system.Despite apparent political concern and action – often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns – legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual abuse in the UK have been ad hoc, piecemeal and inconsistent. In practice, victim-survivors are being consistently failed: by the law, by the police and criminal justice system, by traditional and social media, website operators, and by their employers, universities and schools. Drawing on data from the first multi-jurisdictional study of the nature and harms of, and legal/policy responses to, image-based sexual abuse, this article argues for a new joined-up approach that supports victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse to ‘reclaim control’. It argues for a comprehensive, multi-layered, multi-institutional and multi-agency response, led by a government- and industry-funded online or e-safety organisation, which not only recognises the diversity of victim-survivor experiences and the intersection of image-based sexual abuse with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination, but which also enables victim-survivors to reclaim control within and beyond the criminal justice system.

Advances in technology have transformed and expanded the ways in which sexual violence can be perpetrated. One new manifestation of such violence is the non-consensual creation and/or distribution of private sexual images: what we conceptualise as ‘image-based sexual abuse’. This article delineates the scope of this new concept and identifies the individual and collective harms it engenders. We argue that the individual harms of physical and mental illness, together with the loss of dignity, privacy and sexual autonomy, combine to constitute a form of cultural harm that impacts directly on individuals, as well as on society as a whole. While recognising the limits of law, we conclude by considering the options for redress and the role of law, seeking to justify the deployment of the expressive and coercive powers of criminal and civil law as a means of encouraging cultural change.

In October 2003, US citizen Christina Thomas died while scuba diving on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Following over five years of delays, her husband David Watson accepted a plea bargain to which he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of criminal negligence. Watson was initially sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment, suspended after 12 months, however this was later increased on appeal to suspension after 18 months. Using Watson as a framework for analysis, this article examines some of the limitations of an inefficient justice system, with a particular focus on the private nature of the plea bargaining process, and the potentially favourable representations and sentencing of men who kill a female intimate partner. The authors argue that the need to respond to court inefficiency and under-resourcing in the criminal courts creates pressures that can result in a desire for increased efficiency being prioritised above other justice concerns, and this allows for existing flaws within the operation of the criminal justice system to be exacerbated, and excused.

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).

In 2004, the Office of the Victorian Attorney General released the Justice Statement Part I, which outlined a ten-year plan to modernise Victoria’s criminal justice system. A key initiative emerging from this idealistic reform agenda involved a sentence indication scheme for indictable offences, on the basis that it would increase clearance rates; thus in theory, benefiting all parties. In line with the recommendations of a report compiled by the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council (VSAC) in 2007, a pilot sentence indication trial commenced in the County and Supreme Courts, with the sunset clause that it be evaluated after two years and either fully integrated into legislation or abolished (Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic) ss 208–9, s 384). In February 2010, the VSAC released its evaluative report recommending the scheme be maintained in its current form. This paper critically analyses some potential flaws in the arguments of the VSAC report, with a particular focus on the ineffectiveness of the scheme, and its potential to result in unjust outcomes. Sydney Institute of Criminology; School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydney

Review(s) of: A second chance for justice: The prosecutions of Gabe Watson for the death of Tina Thomas, by Asher Flynn and Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, ISBN 10: 1-4438-4202-8 ISBN 13: 978-1-4438-4202-0.

The polarisation between consistency, controls and the unscrutinised discretionary powers held by criminal justice agencies is a complex issue that transcends jurisdictions. In the Australian State of Victoria, this conflict is particularly evident in the prosecutor’s decision-making powers in the plea bargaining process, because these powers are not subject to scrutiny and the decisions made under them are not transparent. Furthermore, plea bargaining itself is a non-formalised and unscrutinised method of case resolution. While the use of discretion is an important component of prosecutorial work, it is the potentially individualised and idiosyncratic nature of unscrutinised discretionary decisions that results in plea bargaining and prosecutorial decision-making in Victoria giving rise to perceptions of inappropriateness and misconduct. Drawing upon the voices of Victorian and United Kingdom legal professionals, this article critically analyses the controls placed on United Kingdom prosecutors by the Attorney General’s Guidelines on the Acceptance of Pleas and the Prosecutor’s Role in the Sentencing Exercise 2009 (UK), and considers whether similar guidelines could be implemented in Victoria to redress problems surrounding the idiosyncratic nature of prosecutorial decision-making in plea bargaining. By offering a unique insight into the perspectives of those involved in plea bargaining, this article explores the benefits of implementing a transparent and scrutinised control on prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining, and considers whether this would in turn offer greater safeguards, consistency and transparency of prosecutorial decision-making in Victoria.