Lessons on sin and forgiveness : a crisis in the Roman Catholic Church

One of the greatest challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church (the Church) across the world continues to be found in addressing complaints of child sexual abuse (csa) by clergy. The list of Catholic clergy in Australia who have been criminally processed for sexual offences against children is disturbingly long. As disturbing as this list is, more disturbing are the accounts of clergy who have not been criminally prosecuted, but protected within the cloister of the Church. It is increasingly recognised that the significant difficulty with child sexual abuse in Catholic Churches, in particular, has not been the presence of perpetrators but the response of Church leadership to allegations of csa by clergy. Those who have faced criminal charges have often done so due to the resilience of victim/survivors and not because of the support of Church structures or culture. The Church has been slow to come to terms with the realities of the perpetration of csa by its clergy and even slower to recognise the need to prioritise victims in any effective, just response. The church has been slowest of all recognising that there are significant cultural and discursive challenges to confront in addressing the management of csa by clergy. There is, however, progressive recognition of the role that discursive constructs of forgiveness have played in perpetuating the crises and ultimately in perpetuating abuse. The institutional praxis of forgiveness can be demonstrated not only in the Church, but in lessons learned from use of forgiveness as an institutional response to mass violations of human rights. This paper explores the juncture between criminality, church culture and forgiveness in responding to csa by clergy.

Heteronormativity, homonormativity, and violence

The existence of intimate partner violence within non heterosexual and/or noncisgendered relationships is gaining greater recognition. There are a handful of community organisations that offer services and assistance to victims and perpetrators of this violence (particularly gay men and lesbians), and the body of research literature in this area is slowly growing. While some critiques warn of the dangers of applying the theoretical and conceptual tools developed to understand relationship violence among heterosexuals directly to queer relationships, the inclusion of queer relationships in these discourses has for the most part been celebrated as a positive step forward, addressing the historical invisibility of sexual minorities in these areas. Nevertheless, the debate about how best to understand and represent the experience of violence in these communities continues, with the focus being to determine whether it is better to expand the tools used to understand heterosexual intimate partner violence to include queer communities, or whether new tools are necessary in order to understand their experiences...

"They did not believe me" : Adult survivors' perspectives of child sexual abuse by personnel in Christian Institutions

Executive Summary Child sexual abuse (CSA) in Christian Institutions continues to be of serious concern in public, criminal justice and institutional discourse. This study was conducted in conjunction with Project Kidsafe Foundation and sought the perspectives of Australian survivors of CSA by Personnel in Christian Institutions (PICIs). In total, 81 individual survivors responded to an online survey which asked them a range of questions about their current and childhood life circumstance; the nature, extent and location of abuse; grooming strategies utilised by perpetrators; their experiences of disclosure; and outcomes of official reporting to both criminal justice agencies and also official processes Christian institutions. Survey participants were given the option to further participate in a qualitative interview with the principal researcher. These interviews are not considered within this report. In summary, survey data examined here indicate that: • Instances of abuse included a range of offences from touching outside of clothing to serious penetrative offences. • The onset of abuse occurred at a young age: between 6 and 10 years for most female participants, and 11 and 13 years for male participants. • In the majority of cases the abuse ceased because of actions by survivors, not by adults within families or the Christian institution. • Participants waited significant time before disclosing their abuse, with many waiting 20 years or more. • Where survivors disclosed to family members or PICIs, they were often met with disbelief and unhelpful responses aimed at minimising the harm. • Where an official report was made, it was most often made to police. In these cases 53% resulted in an official investigations. • The primary reasons for reporting were to protect others from the perpetrator and make the Christian institution accountable to an external agency. • Where reports to Christian institutions were made, most survivors were dissatisfied with outcomes, and a smaller majority was extremely dissatisfied. This report reflects the long-held understanding that responding to CSA is a complex and difficult task. If effective and meaningful responses are not made, however, trauma to the survivor is most often compounded and recovery delayed. This report demonstrates the need for further independent analysis and oversight of responses made to CSA by both criminal justice, religious and social institutions. Meaningful change will only be accessible, however, if family, community and institutional environments are safe places for survivors to disclose their experiences of abuse and begin to seek ways of healing. There is much to be learnt from survivors that have already made this journey.

Prosecution of maritime terrorists : the role of national courts in ensuring accountability

Maritime security has emerged as a critical legal and political issue in the contemporary world. Terrorism in the maritime domain is a major maritime security issue. Ten out of the 44 major terrorist groups of the world, as identified in the US Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism, have maritime terrorism capabilities. Prosecution of maritime terrorists is a politically and legally difficult issue, which may create conflicts of jurisdiction. Prosecution of alleged maritime terrorists is carried out by national courts. There is no international judicial institution for the prosecution of maritime terrorists. International law has therefore anticipated a vital role for national courts in this respect. The international legal framework for combating maritime terrorism has been elaborately examined in existing literature therefore this paper will only highlight the issues regarding the prosecution of maritime terrorists. This paper argues that despite having comprehensive intentional legal framework for the prosecution of maritime terrorists there is still some scopes for conflicts of jurisdiction particularly where two or more States are interested to prosecute the same offender. This existing legal problem has been further aggravated in the post September 11 era. Due to the political and security implications, States may show reluctance in ensuring the international law safeguards of alleged perpetrators in the arrest, detention and prosecution process. Nevertheless, international law has established a comprehensive system for the prosecution of maritime terrorists where national courts is the main forum of ensuring the international law safeguards of alleged perpetrators as well as ensuring the effective prosecution of maritime terrorists thereby playing an instrumental role in establishing a rule based system for combating maritime terrorism. Using two case studies, this paper shows that the role of national courts has become more important in the present era because there may be some situations where no State is interested to initiate proceedings in international forums for vindicating rights of an alleged offender even if there is a clear evidence of violation of international human rights law in the arrest, detention and prosecution process. This paper presents that despite some bottlenecks national courts are actively playing this critical role. Overall, this paper highlights the instrumental role of national courts in the international legal order.

Girls and violence : the case for a feminist theory of female violence

Rises recorded for girls’ violence in countries like Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States have been hotly contested. One view is these rising rates of violence are an artefact of new forms of policy, policing, criminalisation and social control over young women. Another view is that young women may indeed have become more violent as they have increasingly participated in youth subcultural activities involving gangs and drugs, and cyber‐cultural activities that incite and reward girls’ violence. Any comprehensive explanation will need to address how a complex interplay of cultural, social, behavioural, and policy responses contribute to these rises. This article argues that there is no singular cause, explanation or theory that accounts for the rises in adolescent female violence, and that many of the simple explanations circulating in popular culture are driven by an anti‐feminist ideology. By concentrating on females as victims of violence and very rarely as perpetrators, feminist criminology has for the most part ducked the thorny issue of female violence, leaving a discursive space for anti‐feminist sentiment to reign. The article concludes by arguing the case for developing a feminist theory of female violence.

Misperceptions about child sex offenders

Sexual offending against children is a highly emotive issue. It is nonetheless important that public policy initiatives to prevent and/or respond to child sexual abuse are based on the available evidence about child sex offenders. This paper addresses five common misperceptions about the perpetrators of sexual offences against children. Specifically, the issues addressed include whether all child sex offenders are ‘paedophiles’, who sexually abuse children, whether most child sex offenders were victims of sexual abuse themselves, rates of recidivism among child sex offenders and the number of children sex offenders typically abuse before they are detected by police. The evidence outlined in this paper highlights that there are few black and white answers to these questions. Perpetrators of sexual crimes against children are not, contrary to widespread opinion, a homogenous group. Rather, there are a number of varied offending profiles that characterise child sex offenders. Gaining an understanding of the nuances of this offender population is critical if children are to be protected from sexual abuse.

The influence of perpetrator and victim intoxication on perceivers' ratings of a sexual perpetrator's own awareness of wrongdoing for his sexually aggressive behaviour

Rape-perception studies have examined the influence of alcohol intoxication on perpetrator blame attributions: However, no studies have examined how intoxication affects perceptions of a sexual perpetrator’s awareness of the wrongfulness of his behaviour despite its relevance to the conceptualisation of responsibility and blame. This experiment investigated the impact of perpetrator and victim intoxication on perceptions of a perpetrator’s own awareness of wrongdoing for acquaintance rape. Undergraduate students (N = 314) read one of four rape-scenarios in which intoxication was manipulated and rated the perpetrator’s awareness of the consequences and wrongfulness of his sexual aggression. Findings supported the hypothesis that participants would assign less awareness of wrongdoing to an intoxicated, compared to sober, perpetrator. Further, males ascribed more awareness of wrongdoing to the perpetrator of an intoxicated, compared to sober, victim. Findings indicate that intoxicated sexual perpetrators are seen as not fully aware of the nature and consequences of their crime.

Fraud and its PREY : conceptualising social engineering tactics and its impact on financial literacy outcomes

Financial literacy may not be as effective as previously thought in protecting against fraud victimisation. It does not inoculate investors from persuasion or social engineering tactics used by offenders to secure investment in fraudulent schemes. In fact, recent research indicates that overconfidence in investment knowledge may make individuals more susceptible to fraud. Using boiler room fraud as a case study, this article introduces the PREY (Profiled, Relational, Exploitable and Yielding) model to capture the psychological tactics used by fraud perpetrators to influence the thoughts and decision-making processes of individuals. The PREY model operationalizes the tenets of social engineering and demonstrates how such tactics could be re-engineered to increase the effectiveness of fraud prevention within the financial literacy context.

The Responsibility to Protect and International Law

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a major new international principle, adopted unanimously in 2005 by Heads of State and Government. Whilst it is broadly acknowledged that the principle has an important and intimate relationship with international law, especially the law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights and armed conflict, there has yet to be a volume dedicated to this question. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law fills that gap by bringing together leading scholars from North America, Europe and Australia to examine R2P’s legal content. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law focuses on questions relating to R2P’s legal quality, its relationship with sovereignty, and the question of whether the norm establishes legal obligations. It also aims to introduce readers to different legal perspectives, including feminism, and pressing practical questions such as how the law might be used to prevent genocide and mass atrocities, and punish the perpetrators.

Exploring the factor structure of a new self- and other-oriented alcohol expectancy scale relating to sexual coercion and vulnerability

Introduction and Aim: Sexual assaults commonly involve alcohol use by the perpetrator, victim, or both. Beliefs about alcohol’s effects may impact on people’s perceptions of and responses to men and women who have had such experiences while intoxicated from alcohol. This study aimed to develop an alcohol expectancy scale that captures young adults’ beliefs about alcohol’s role in sexual aggression and victimisation. Design and Methods: Based on pilot focus groups, an initial pool of 135 alcohol expectancy items was developed, checked for readability and face validity, and administered via a cross-sectional survey to 201 male and female university students (18-25 years). Items were specified in terms of three target drinkers: self, men, and women. In addition, a social desirability measure was included. Results: Principal Axis Factoring revealed a 4-factor solution for the targets men and women and a 5-factor solution for the target self with 72 items retained. Factors related to sexual coercion, sexual vulnerability, confidence, self-centredness, and negative cognitive and behavioural effects. Social desirability issues were evident for the target self, but not for the targets men and women. Discussion and Conclusions: Young adults link alcohol’s effects with sexual vulnerabilities via perceived risky cognitions and behaviours. Due to social desirability, these expectancies may be difficult to explicate for the self but may be accessible instead via other-oriented assessment. The Sexual Coercion and Vulnerability Alcohol Expectancy Scale has potential as a tool to elucidate the established tendency for observers to excuse intoxicated sexual perpetrators while blaming intoxicated victims.

Introduction

"The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a major new international principle, adopted unanimously in 2005 by Heads of State and Government. Whilst it is broadly acknowledged that the principle has an important and intimate relationship with international law, especially the law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights and armed conflict, there has yet to be a volume dedicated to this question. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law fills that gap by bringing together leading scholars from North America, Europe and Australia to examine R2P’s legal content. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law focuses on questions relating to R2P’s legal quality, its relationship with sovereignty, and the question of whether the norm establishes legal obligations. It also aims to introduce readers to different legal perspectives, including feminism, and pressing practical questions such as how the law might be used to prevent genocide and mass atrocities, and punish the perpetrators."--publisher website

A qualitative exploration of young Australian adults’ understanding of and explanations for alcohol-involved rape

Little is known about the beliefs that underlie the biased attributions that typically characterise people’s perceptions of intoxicated sexual perpetrators and their victims. Guided by consensual qualitative research, we explored young Australian adults’ (18-25 years; N = 15) attributions for an alcohol-involved rape based on focus groups and interviews. Prominent themes indicated that participants rarely labelled the assault as rape and, instead, adhered to miscommunication explanations. Participants emphasised the developmental value of the victimisation experience although recognising its harmful consequences. Both perpetrator and victim were held strongly responsible based on perceived opportunities to prevent the assault but implicit justifications were, nevertheless, evident. As such, explicit and implicit attributions were contradictory, with the latter reflecting the attributional double standard previously observed in quantitative rape-perception research. Findings underscore the need to challenge pervasive rape myths and equip young adults with knowledge on how to respond supportively to the commonly stigmatised victims of rape.

Adolescent peer aggression and its association with mental health and substance use in an Australian cohort

Prospective longitudinal birth cohort data was used to examine the association between peer aggression at 14 years and mental health and substance use at 17 years. A sample of 1590 participants from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) study were divided into mutually exclusive categories (victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and uninvolved). Involvement in any type of peer aggression as a victim (10.1%), perpetrator (21.4%), or a victim-perpetrator (8.7%) was reported by 40.2% of participants. After adjusting for confounding factors, those who were a victim of peer aggression had increased odds of later depression and internalising symptoms whilst perpetrators of peer aggression were found to be at increased risk of depression and harmful alcohol use. Victim-perpetrators of peer aggression were more likely to have externalising behaviours at 17 years. These results show an independent temporal relationship between peer aggression and later mental health and substance use problems in adolescence.

Scoping workplace aggression in nursing : findings from an Australian study

Aim This paper reports a study of workplace aggression among nurses in Tasmania, Australia. Background There is international concern about a perceived rise in occupational violence as a major worldwide public health problem, with associated financial costs. There is reason to suspect that aggression towards nurses is increasing. For example, increased illicit drug use puts nurses at the sharp end in managing patients admitted with drug-related problems. Such people are often resistant to healthcare intervention, and often have associated disorders, including mental illness. Despite this increased awareness, comprehensive data on occupational violence in nursing are not available. Method A specially designed questionnaire was sent to all nurses registered with the Nursing Board of Tasmania (n ¼ 6326) in November/December 2002, with 2407 usable questionnaires returned. The response rate was 38%. Findings A majority of respondents (63Æ5%) had experienced some form of aggression (verbal or physical abuse) in the four working weeks immediately prior to the survey. Patients/clients or their visitors were identified as the main perpetrators, followed by medical and nursing colleagues. Abuse influenced nurses’ distress, their desire to stay in nursing, their productivity and the potential to make errors, yet they were reluctant to make their complaints ‘official’. As well as reporting high levels of verbal and physical abuse, nurses were distressed because they could not provide the appropriate care to meet patients’ needs. Few working environments were free of aggression. Conclusion Future research should try to determine the specific factors, including staff characteristics and environment, associated with the high levels of aggression reported in ‘hot spots’ where, on the basis of the present results, many staff experience high levels of verbal and physical abuse. Unless managers take steps to improve the situation, attrition from the profession for this reason will continue.

Impact of adolescent peer aggression on later educational and employment outcomes in an Australian cohort

This study used prospective birth cohort data to analyse the relationship between peer aggression at 14 years of age and educational and employment outcomes at 17 years (N = 1091) and 20 years (N = 1003). Participants from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) study were divided into mutually exclusive categories of peer aggression. Involvement in peer aggression was reported by 40.2% (10.1% victims; 21.4% perpetrators; 8.7% victim–perpetrators) of participants. Participants involved in any form of peer aggression were less likely to complete secondary school. Perpetrators and victim–perpetrators of peer aggression were more likely to be in the ‘No Education, Employment or Training’ group at 20 years of age. This association was explained by non-completion of secondary school. These findings demonstrate a robust association between involvement in peer aggression and non-completion of secondary school, which in turn was associated with an increased risk of poor educational and employment outcomes in early adulthood.