Category Archives: Publications

Read about latest research published by staff from the Crime and Justice Research Centre

The International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy Editorial Board welcomes 31 new members

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Welcome to 31 new members of the International editorial board

The International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy is an open access, blind peer reviewed journal committed to democratising the production and dissemination of knowledge. It has a distinguished International Editorial Board comprised of 104 leading scholars from 25 countries. Last year the journal was ranked for the very first time by SciMago as a Q2 journal with the highest impact factor for Law and Criminology in Australia. This year it has remained a Q2 ranked journal and has the second highest impact factor of any journal published in Australia in law and criminology. This is a remarkable feat for a journal as young as this one in a global system of knowledge that privileges journals published in Europe, United Kingdom and United States. It is continuing to grow in stature and impact. Articles have been downloaded 270,000 times and abstract viewed 353,000 times since its firsts publication in 2012. The journal receives between 4-6 submissions per week from all over the world. As a consequence we have had to grow the international editorial board to meet the increased demand.

The Editors of the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy have recently undertaken a global search for scholars whose expertise would fit with the vision of the journal to join the distinguished International Editorial Board. We warmly welcome the new 31 members listed below:

Dr. Jerjes Aguirre Ochoa, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, Mexico

Associate Professor Thalia Anthony University of Technology, Sydney

Dr Lynzi Armstrong Wellington University, New Zealand

Professor Matias Bailone, Faculty of Law, University of Buenos Aries, Argentina

Professor Rosemary Barberet, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York

Dr Jarrett Blaustien, Monash University, Melbourne

Associate Professor Rebbeca Scott Bray, University of Sydney

Professor Melissa Bull, Griffith University, Brisbane

Professor Vania Ceccato, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweeden

Dr Lennon Chang, Monash University, Melbourne

Professor Bill Dixon, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Dr Asher Flynn, Monash University Melbourne

Dr Bianca Fileborn UNSW, Sydney

Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Monash University, Melbourne

Dr David Fonseca Brazil, University of Brazillia, Brazil

Assistant Professor David Goyes, Universidad Antonio Nariño, Colombia

Assistant Professor Kate Henne, University of Waterloo, Canada

Associate Professor Nicola Henry, RMIT, Melbourne

Professor Kristian Lasslett Ulster University, North Ireland

Dr Alyce McGovern, UNSW, Sydney

Professor Julia Monárrez El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Dr Leon Mossavi, Open University Singapore

Associate Professor Ross McGarry, University of Liverpool, UK

Associate Professor Darren Palmer Deakin University, Geelong

Professor Nathan Pino, Texas State University, US

Associate Professor Julia Quilter University of Wollongong

Professor Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Associate Professor Max Travers, University of Tasmania

Dr Danielle Watson, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Professor Alison Young, University of Melbourne, Melbourne

Dr Yuan Xiaoyu, University of Law and Political Science, China

Recently published: Technology facilitated coercive control: Domestic violence and the competing roles of digital media platforms

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Molly Dragiewicz, Jean Burgess, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, Michael Salter, Nicolas P. Suzor, Delanie Woodlock & Bridget Harris recently published Technology facilitated coercive control: Domestic violence and the competing roles of digital media platforms. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 609–625. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447341

This article is part of a special issue of Feminist Media Studies on Online Misogyny, edited by Debbie Ging and Eugenia Siapera. Read more

Publication: Police perceptions of prejudice: how police awareness training influences the capacity of police to assess prejudiced motivated crime

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CJRC member, Dr Toby Miles-Johnson has recently published an article in the journal Policing and Society, Volume 28, Issue 6, August 2018.  This is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online.

ABSTRACT

Prejudice motivated crime (PMC) is defined as crimes motivated by bias, prejudice or hatred towards members of particular groups, communities and individuals. To understand how police awareness training facilitates or constrains the capacity of police officers to appropriately classify and respond to PMC, data were collected from a population of Police Recruits (PRs) and Protective Service Officers (PSOs) (N = 1609) to ascertain their perceptions of PMC pre- and post-PMC awareness training. These were used in a logistic regression model to identify factors explaining whether PRs and PSOs would identify a vignette/scenario as a PMC. We found PRs and PSOs were more likely to correctly identify a PMC scenario than a control scenario, but only 61% as likely to identify an incident as PMC post-PMC awareness training after accounting for other variables. We argue that awareness training programmes need to be more aligned to the specific needs of policing in diverse societies.

The full article can be found here:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2016.1206099

 

Publication: ‘A lightbulb moment’: Using the theory of planned behaviour to explore the challenges and opportunities for early engagement of Australian men who use violence in their relationships

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CJRC member, Dr. Michael Flood has recently published an article in Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

 Forsdike, K., Tarzia, L., Flood, M., Vlais, R., and Hegarty, K. “‘A lightbulb moment’: Using the theory of planned behaviour to explore the challenges and opportunities for early engagement of Australian men who use violence in their relationships.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, (2018). DOI: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260518780778

 Abstract: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common complex social and public health problem. Interventions for IPV male perpetrators are an essential component of an early and effective response. Yet little is known about how to engage men in interventions for help-seeking. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we explored men’s perceptions of seeking help for an unhealthy relationship and how they could be supported to recognize their behavior and undertake change at an early stage. We recruited 23 men who were currently attending a men’s behavior change program in Australia to take part in focus groups. These were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. The TPB concepts of behavioral beliefs, perceived control, and subjective norms were found throughout the data. Behavioral beliefs covered four subthemes: self-awareness, self-reflection and agency, the influence of others to change, and needing the right message in the right place. Perceived control was connected to these men’s understandings of what it means to be a man. Subjective norms were rarely raised, but there was some indication that men’s perceptions of societal norms about men as violent influenced a perceived lack of agency to change behavior. Our findings highlight the complexity of, and challenges in, engaging men who may use violence before they reach crisis point and justice intervenes. Despite this, participating men could find acceptable an appropriately developed and easy-to-access intervention that enhances recognition of behaviors and provides links to supports. Health professionals or researchers developing early interventions targeting these men need to take the engagement challenges into account.

 

Publication: (Mis)Understanding the Impact of Online Fraud: Implications for Victim Assistance Schemes

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Crime and Justice Research Centre member Dr Cassandra Cross has published a new article in the journal Victims and Offenders, which argues for reform of victim assistance schemes across Australia.

(Mis)Understanding the Impact of Online Fraud: Implications for Victim Assistance Schemes

Australia provides victims of violent crime access to financial support to assist with recovery, excluding victims of nonviolent offences. The author examines the experiences of online fraud victims, and details how the impacts experienced extend beyond financial losses, to include deterioration in health and well-being, relationship breakdown, homelessness, and unemployment, and in the worst cases, suicidal ideation. Using online fraud as a case study, the author argues eligibility to access victim assistance schemes should consider harms suffered rather than the offence experienced. Consequently, the author advocates a shift in eligibility criteria of victim assistance schemes to facilitate much-needed support to online fraud victims.

The full article can be accessed here.

Book: Water, Crime and Security in the Twenty-First Centre – Too Dirty, Too Little, Too Much

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Professor Reece Walters, Director, CJRC, is one of the Series Editors and also a contributor to the recently released book series, Water, Crime and Security in the Twenty-First Century – Too Dirty, Too Little, Too Much. 

This series represents criminology’s first book-length contribution to the study of water and water-related crimes, harms and security. The chapters cover topics such as: water pollution, access to fresh water in the Global North and Global South, water and climate change, the commodification of water and privatization, water security and pacification, and activism and resistance surrounding issues of access and pollution. With examples ranging from Rio de Janeiro to Flint, Michigan to the Thames River, this original study offers a comprehensive criminological overview of the contemporary and historical relationship between water and crime.  Coinciding with the International Decade for Action, “Water for Sustainable Development,” 2018–2028, this timely volume will be of particular relevance to students and scholars of green criminology, as well as those interested in critical geography, environmental anthropology, environmental sociology, political ecology, and the study of corporate crime and state crime.

Further information can be found here – https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137529855

Recently published: Resistance and backlash to gender equality: An evidence review

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Crime and Justice Research Centre members Associate Professor Michael Flood and Associate Professor Molly Dragiewicz and Deakin University Honorary Professor Bob Pease recently published Resistance and backlash to gender equality: An evidence review Read more

Publication: The limits of (digital) constitutionalism: Exploring the privacy-security (im)balance in Australia

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Crime and Justice Research Centre members Dr Monique Mann and Dr Angela Daly, along with Justice PhD Candidate Michael Wilson, and QUT Law Associate Professor Nic Suzor recently published ‘The limits of (digital) constitutionalism: Exploring the privacy-security (im)balance in Australia’ in the International Communication Gazette.

 Abstract

This article explores the challenges of digital constitutionalism in practice through a case study examining how concepts of privacy and security have been framed and contested in Australian cyber security and telecommunications policy-making over the last decade. The Australian Government has formally committed to ‘internet freedom’ norms, including privacy, through membership of the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC). Importantly, however, this commitment is non-binding and designed primarily to guide the development of policy by legislators and the executive government. Through this analysis, we seek to understand if, and how, principles of digital constitutionalism have been incorporated at the national level. Our analysis suggests a fundamental challenge for the project of digital constitutionalism in developing and implementing principles that have practical or legally binding impact on domestic telecommunications and cyber security policy. Australia is the only major Western liberal democracy without comprehensive constitutional human rights or a legislated bill of rights at the federal level; this means that the task of ‘balancing’ what are conceived as competing rights is left only to the legislature. Our analysis shows that despite high-level commitments to privacy as per the Freedom Online Coalition, individual rights are routinely discounted against collective rights to security. We conclude by arguing that, at least in Australia, the domestic conditions limit the practical application and enforcement of digital constitutionalism’s norms.

Keywords

Cyber security, digital constitutionalism, human rights, metadata retention, online surveillance, privacy, security, securitization

You can read the full article here: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1748048518757141?journalCode=gazb#articleShareContainer

 

 

New Publication – Understanding Romance Fraud: Insights from Domestic Violence Literature

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 Cassandra Cross, Molly Dragiewicz and Kelly Richards have recently had an article published in the British Journal of Criminology. The article is the first to examine romance fraud from within the framework of psychological abuse, as established in domestic violence research.

 Abstract

Romance fraud affects thousands of victims globally, yet few scholars have studied it. The dynamics of relationships between victims and offenders are not well understood, and the effects are rarely discussed. This article adapts the concept of psychological abuse from studies of domestic violence to better understand romance fraud. Using interviews with 21 Australian romance fraud victims, we show how offenders use non-violent tactics to ensure compliance with ongoing demands for money. This article identifies similarities and differences between domestic violence and romance fraud. We argue that thinking through domestic violence and romance fraud together offers potential benefits to both bodies of research.

 The full article can be found here

 

 

Recently published: 2nd edition of the Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology

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The 2nd edition of the Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology, edited by CJRC Adjunct Professor Walter S. DeKeseredy and CJRC Associate Professor Molly Dragiewicz was published on 17 March 2018. The updated edition includes forty chapters and more than a dozen contributions by CJRC staff and adjunct professors such as:

Left realism: a new look (Walter S. DeKeseredy and Martin D. Schwartz)
Southern criminology (Kerry Carrington, Russell Hogg, and Maximo Sozzo)
Masculinities and Crime (James W. Messerschmidt and Stephen Tomsen)
Queer criminology (Carrie Buist, Emily Lenning, and Matthew Ball)
Critical Green criminology (Rob White)
Green cultural criminology (Avi Brisman and Nigel South)
Towards a Criminology of War, Violence and Militarism (Ross McGarry and Sandra Walklate)
Terrorism. The Problem with Radicalization: Overlooking the elephants in the room (Sandra Walklate and Gaybe Mythen)
Thinking critically about contemporary adult pornography and woman abuse (Walter S. DeKeseredy and Amanda Hall-Sanchez)
Antifeminism and backlash: a critical criminological imperative (Molly Dragiewicz)
A critical examination of girls’ violence and juvenile justice (Meda Chesney-Lind and Lisa Pasko)
The future of a critical rural criminology (Joseph F. Donnermeyer)
Violence and social policy (Elliott Currie)
Confronting adult pornography (Walter DeKeseredy)

An Author meets critics session will be held at the American Society of Criminology meetings in Atlanta, Georgia in November 2018.