The present study tested the prediction that male offenders are judged more harsly than female offenders for involving in a violent crime. Three-hundred and fifty-four adult students (163 men, 190 women, 1 unspecified gender) evaluated a hypothetical crimescenario describing a violent conflict between two parties, as part of a 2 (Informants Gender: Male/Female) x 3 (Offender Gender Triad: Male/Female/Neutral) x 3 (Victim Gender Triad: Male/Female/Neutral) between-subjects design. In situations involving male offenders, compared to female offenders, the informants judged the male offenders more harshly which exposed a double standard, as we expected. Informants also believed that it was more likely that a male offender was a recidivist.

Thesis title: Significance of Victimology for the Prevention of Crime The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the significance of victimology for the prevention of crime and to provide a summary of the basic victimological recommendations victims should remember in case they get into threatening situations. The thesis consist of seven chapters including an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction describes the concept of the thesis and defines objectives, which the thesis should aim at. The following chapter is dedicated to victimology that comprises a scientific study focused on victims of crime: its short development, as well as its basic terms which are crucial for handling the issue. Attention is also paid to the definition of a victim and aggrieved person in Czech law and offers comparsion of those concepts. The basic typologies of the victims are also mentioned. The third chapter provides a comprehensive interpretation of the prevention of crime, first defined in general. The second section of this chapter focuses on the different types of prevention and their interaction and context. The fourth chapter deals in more detail with victimological prevention, which is crucial for the purposes of my research. After an initial explanation of the term, is given an overview of the different...

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The scholarly field on rebel use of sexual violence in armed conflict is divided. While some scholars argue that it principally occurs as a conscious strategy, a weapon of war, others argue that it is primarily a consequence of asymmetrical gender power relations. In this paper it is argued that access to and use of natural resources as means of finance enable rebel actors to commit sexual violence against civilians. As they extract resources from external sources, their accountability to civilians decreases and the use of sexual violence is made more economically viable. To test this, a quantitative analysis of around one hundred rebel actor conflict-episodes was conducted. The results suggest a positive correlation between natural resource financing and sexual violence.

L’étude du harcèlement systématique entre pairs à l’école (school bullying) est-il éclairé par l’approfondissement de la relation aux normes qu’entretiennent les jeunes acteurs ? Quels sont les éléments clé aidant l’identification et la compréhension du phénomène ?A partir d’une redéfinition du bullying insistant sur les apports croisés de chaque protagoniste sur la scène des dynamiques indésirables, le travail propose une étude située du problème. Chaque acte et chaque initiative de type bullying sont ainsi analysés dans le cadre de la situation spécifique qu’ils dessinent et dont ils relèvent à la fois. Pour cela, l’attention est portée sur les attributions de sens et sur la perception réciproque d’adhésions normatives mises en avant par les élèves concernés. Quatre classes scolaires italiennes sont analysées dans leurs dynamiques relationnelles et conflictuelles ; du point de vue de leur organisation, de l’ordre et de la discipline ; en termes d’investissements axiologiques opérés par les jeunes et leur entourage et encouragés par les enseignants. / School bullying: does the study of peer harassment in schools delve deeper into the relationships of young people with rules and values? What are the key factors that can help to better identify and understand the phenomenon ? The work starts from a re-definition of school bullying based on the cross contribution of each character acting in the educational scene where the undesirable dynamics take place to propose a local analysis of the problem. Each school bullying initiative is analysed in the context of the specific situation that it create and from which it raises. Attention is also brought to the attribution of meanings as well as to the reciprocal perception of the compliance with the rules by students. Four Italian classrooms are examined taking into account the dynamics of their relationships and conflicts; their organization, rules and discipline; the axiological investments made by young people and promoted by their teachers.

The issue of victims of sexual offences and their protection through criminal law Abstract The theme of this diploma thesis refers to the issue of victims of sexual offences and their protection through criminal law. This thesis aims to theoretically analyse this issue, describe the specifics of the victimisation process, and focus on protecting victims of sexual offences through criminal law. The author also asks in the introduction why these victims are victimised by so many. It also evaluates the legislation in selected areas and suggests possible changes in the legislation. The thesis itself is divided into six chapters, each of which deals with different aspects of this theme. The first chapter deals with the current legislation on selected crimes of rape, sexual abuse and sexual coercion. The author also discusses the degree of their latency, which is relatively high in crimes against human dignity in the sexual field. The second chapter defines the various concepts related to the issue of victims of sexual offences. These are terms such as victim, particularly vulnerable victim or false victim. Furthermore, the so-called victimity and victimogenic situation and factors are defined here. The conclusion of this chapter is devoted to the description of the relationship between the perpetrator of a...

Crime is a complex social problem which has a diverse range of socioeconomic and legal consequences. Its effects upon victims are equally wide-ranging. In the cases of both violent and non-violent crimes, the effects and consequences for victims can assume any of a great many different forms. Dinisman and Moroz (2017) confirm that the effects can be deleterious in respects such as the physical health, emotional well-being, financial security, and prospects for employment or higher education. In addition, the intensity of the effects upon victims is influenced by many different factors. Evidence suggests that the nature of crimes which are committed and their seriousness do not in themselves account solely for differences in the severity of the effects which victims experience (Dinisman & Moroz, 2017). In the past, many organisations, including government departments, have been concerned mainly with rendering services to victims of child abuse and domestic violence, often at the expense of victims of serious crimes such as murder, rape, car hijacking, armed robbery and assault. A qualitative study was conducted, in order to obtain an understanding from both providers of victim empowerment services and victims of violent crimes of the services which are provided to victims. A significant amount of data was collected in the form of suggestions from both groups of participants for improving the effectiveness of existing VE services and diversifying them to make the rendering of services a more holistic endeavour than it is at present. The study was conducted in the provinces of Mpumalanga, Gauteng, the Western Cape, and the Northern Cape and the data was collected from semi-structured face-to face interviews and focus group discussions. The findings revealed that there were no standardised guidelines for rendering VE services to victims of different categories of crimes and the suggestions of the participants underscored the need for the development of appropriate referral protocols as a component of the guidelines for practice which were to be developed from the findings of the study. Some of the victims who participated in the study maintained that although some of their basic needs were being met in the shelters in which they were housed, in some instances counselling and therapeutic services were not available. Victims who were accommodated in shelters with their children expressed concerns with respect to a lack of educational programmes and facilities for the children. Many also expressed the belief that programmes which enabled them to develop skills to become financially self-sufficient upon leaving shelters were crucial to both their rehabilitation and empowerment. From the findings of this study, it was evident that guidelines for practice needed to be developed in accordance with the types of crimes which are committed against victims. From a careful analysis of the suggestions and recommendations of the participants, the researcher developed guidelines for practice for designing and implementing victim empowerment programmes in accordance with the objectives of providers of VE services and the needs of victims. The guidelines take the form of information pertaining to relevant programmes and services, appropriate referral protocols, and monitoring and evaluation framework templates to enable providers of VE services to assess their performance in relation to whether their services fulfil their mandates and whether the victims to whom they are rendered consider them to be sufficiently effective and appropriate. The guidelines are also intended to reduce inappropriate variations in the rendering of VE services and to stipulate standardised practices. The guidelines were circulated to members of the Victim Empowerment Management Forum who are also providers of VE services, for their comments and suggestions, which have subsequently been incorporated into the final draft of the guidelines for practice. / Social Work / D. Phil. (Social Work)

Obesity has become a global pandemic that not only affects adults, but also children and adolescents. It has been found that obesity among children and adolescents has emotional, social, physical and psychological ramifications, one of which is bullying. Very little has been written on the effects obesity in early adolescence has on bullying behaviour in a South African context. For this reason the researcher deemed it necessary to study the perceptions of youths in early adolescence with regard to obesity and bullying. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 early adolescents from the Brooklyn policing precinct in the east of Pretoria. The data were assessed through content and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Thus the researcher tried to capture the essence of each individual interview. Several themes emerged from the data analysis, of which the most noteworthy were what youths in early adolescence perceive as bullying; the influence of bullying on behaviour; a general overview of perpetrators and victims of bullying; and the correlation between an early adolescent’s body shape and victimisation. The findings give insight into how obese young adolescents are perceived and treated by their peers. Furthermore, the findings elucidate what early adolescents perceive as bullying and possible reasons for such behaviour. By identifying the perceptions held by early adolescents, programmes can be implemented to address these stereotypes, thus decreasing the potential victimisation of overweight/obese youths in early adolescence. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Die Komplexität des Sicherheitsempfindens bringt es mit sich, dass nicht wenige Theorien vorhanden sind, mit denen versucht wird, das Zustandekommen von Kriminalitätsfurcht bzw. Sicherheitsempfinden zu erklären. Die Theorie der generellen Ängste, der sozialen Desorganisation, der sozialen Problemperspektive bezeichnen einige Pfade dieser Entwicklung. Die erste und scheinbar selbstevidente Theorie war jene der Viktimisierung. Es schien auf der Hand zu liegen, dass Viktimsierungserfahrungen die Kriminalitätsfurcht steigern.

<p>This dissertation is a collection of three papers. Each paper constitutes a chapter. Each chapter empirically examines an aspect of bias-motivated behavior in the United States. </p> <p>The first chapter studies the impact of penalty enhancement statutes by state legislatures on the incidence of hate crimes in the United States. Penalty enhancements may deter crime, however, the passing of such laws may also increase awareness among law enforcement officials and increase arrests. Using administrative data on hate crimes and a difference-in-differences method that leverages state-level variation in the introduction of legislation, this paper does not find a significant effect of the state enactment of penalty enhancement statutes on hate-crime incidence rates. </p> <p>The second chapter examines whether election timing and election outcomes affect the incidence of crimes motivated by hate and intolerance. Using administrative data and a difference-in-differences design that compares election with non-election years, I show that hate crimes increase by an average of 28 percent in the three weeks around a US presidential election. This effect is larger in recent presidential elections and when there is no incumbent candidate. Second, using a similar design and cross-state variation in the timing of gubernatorial elections, I find no evidence that these state-level elections affect hate-crime incidence. Third, using regression-discontinuity designs based on vote counts, I find that the number of hate crimes is not affected by presidential or gubernatorial election outcomes. </p> <p>The third chapter studies the impact of presidential and gubernatorial election timing on the level of toxicity present on social media platforms such as Twitter. Together with Sameer Borwankar, I empirically determine the extent to which the toxicity of Twitter content changes during election times as compared to non-election times. We randomly sample Twitter users and collect all tweets made by this sample around election time. We use a difference-in-differences identification leveraging election and non-election years. We further focus on toxic content that is motivated by political polarization and examine various bias-motivation categories that come up in this content as well as the variation in the intensity of toxicity between national and local election times.  </p> <p><br></p>