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Within a routine activity framework, we explore walking-waiting sexual assaults – committed by strangers when victims were outdoors and did not consensually leave the scene. With data from untested sexual assault kits spanning decades in one urban jurisdiction, we found these were common (a fourth of the sample) with a distinct offending pattern. African American women were identified as the most frequent "targets" due to the use of certain public spaces that appear to lack "capable guardianship." "Motivated offenders" were often serial sexual offenders but not exclusively tied to walking-waiting sexual assaults. Findings improve our understanding of the intersection of stranger and outdoor sexual assaults. Implications and future directions discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, began DNA testing and investigating nearly 5000 previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits (SAKs) from 1993 through 2009. We examined case files from a sample of SAKs that were tested but not previously adjudicated (n = 429). More than 10% (n = 45) involved victims who reported to police that a former or current intimate partner sexually assaulted them. This article integrates the available data on the offenders, the victims, the initial investigation, and the specifics of the assaults to provide a more complete understanding of intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA). More than one-third of the IPSA offenders were serial sex offenders; that is, the offenders sexually assaulted an intimate partner and another person(s). Comparing IPSAs to all other sexual assaults, IPSAs more frequently involved bodily force, less frequently involved a weapon, and IPSA investigations were more frequently closed because (1) the victims stated they lied or the police doubted the victims and (2) the victims declined to prosecute. The most common sequencing of events was a demand for sex by the offender followed by a verbal refusal by the victim and the use of bodily force in the sexual assault. The findings, however, indicate a great deal of variation in the sequencing of events surrounding the sexual assault, with over 25% involving no physical confrontation before or after the sexual assault and no demands for sex. Unsubmitted SAK data provide a unique window into understanding the understudied and underreported issue of IPSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because Sweden is an extremely generous welfare state, while Poland continues to undergo radical social changes in its transformation to a capitalist economy, one would expect cross-national differences in occupational-career patterns, including absenteeism from work. This article examines a specific type of occupational-career interruption, long-term illness. Using panel surveys in Sweden (HUS) and Poland (POLPAN), event history analyses are employed to investigate gender differences in factors that trigger work absenteeism due to illness. In both countries, gender differences in the factors that determine whether one has an illness interruption are mainly because of women's greater responsibilities for child care and the household. In addition, change-score regression of income on career interruption due to illness is examined. In Sweden, women experience a significantly negative impact on wages for illness interruptions. In Poland, it is men who suffer long-term negative consequences on wages for illness interruptions. Cross-national variation is attributed to gender differences in labor market experiences and the legacies of gender equity policies in Sweden and Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]