Prosecuting agencies frequently dismiss domestic violence cases due to lack of adequate evidence and limited victim participation in the case. Evidence-based prosecution asserts high quality evidence ...can enhance prosecutorial decision-making and reduce the reliance on victims. Video-recorded victim statements offer a potential improvement to evidence quality by capturing additional visual and factual information for prosecutors to determine applicable charges. This qualitative study examines data from six prosecution agencies in a southwestern state to understand how they use video-recorded victim statements to inform their decision-making. Findings provide preliminary evidence on the strength of video-recorded statements in offering more information on the victim, crime, and scene; strengthening negotiations with defense counsel; enhancing case strategies; and improving victim engagement. Implications for continued research and practice are discussed.
Federal law in the United States mandates that institutions of higher education address sexual assault within their communities. Colleges and universities have increasingly hired full-time ...professionals to manage response efforts, including campus-based victim advocates. Campus-based advocates provide emotional support, help students access and understand report options, and ensure students receive appropriate accommodations. Very little is known about the experience or perceptions of campus-based victim advocates. In this study, 208 professional campus-based advocates from across the United States completed an anonymous online survey focused on their perceptions of campus response to sexual assault. Multiple regression analysis was applied to investigate how psychosocial factors (burnout, secondary trauma, and compassion satisfaction) and organizational factors (perceptions of leadership, organizational support, and community relational health) were associated with advocate perceptions of institutional response to sexual assault. Findings indicate that while advocates experience burnout and secondary trauma, and have lower than average compassion satisfaction scores, these psychosocial outcomes do not influence their perception of response efforts. However, all the organizational factors significantly contribute to how advocates view response. The more positively advocates viewed leadership, campus support, and relational health, the more positive they viewed the response efforts on campus. In order to improve response efforts, administrators should engage in meaningful training on sexual assault, include campus advocates in high-level discussions of campus sexual assault and ensure appropriate resources are provided to advocacy services.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a crime that is afflicted by a current or previous romantic relationship partner. One in four women has experienced IPV at least once in their lifetime, with ...physical and psychological consequences. IPV cases tend to go largely unnoticed and under-reported, with low rates of intervention by bystanders. This cross-sectional correlational study investigated whether a combination of attribution theory and the bystander effect could predict the willingness of strangers to intervene in IPV. There were two models tested. The first model examined attitudes towards the victim, while the second one examined attitudes towards the perpetrator. The relationship between perceived responsibility and willingness to intervene was hypothesized to be mediated by sympathy and anger, with the number of bystanders as a moderator to mediating pathways (sympathy towards victim and anger towards perpetrator). A convenience sample of 278 Australian residents aged 18-years and older was presented in a vignette depicting an IPV incident occurring in public. Participants completed measures about the vignette in an online questionnaire. Model testing was conducted using MPlus; confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit of the measurement models. After controlling potential covariates, moderated mediation models of victim and perpetrator were analyzed. Attribution theory was a significant predictor in willingness to intervene (f² = .23, p < .001), but the bystander effect was not. Both attitudes towards victim and perpetrator accounted for unique variance in willingness to intervene in IPV, highlighting the importance of examining both. Findings indicate that psychoeducation campaigns aimed at reducing victim-blaming and promoting intervening behavior could be an effective means of preventing IPV.
Pediatric healthcare professionals (HCPs) may experience events that lead to psychological distress or second victim experiences (SVEs). This project evaluates the impact of a newly implemented peer ...support program on SVEs and perceptions of supportive resources among pediatric HCPs.
A second victim (SV) peer support program was implemented in the pediatric inpatient and intensive care units in September 2019. Multidisciplinary HCPs in these units were invited to participate in an anonymous survey that included the Second Victim Experience and Support Tool before and one-year after implementation. The survey assessed HCPs' SVEs, desired support, and perceptions of the peer support program.
52.0% (194/373) completed the pre-implementation survey, and 43.9% (177/403) completed the post-implementation survey. At both timepoints, participants reported SV-related psychosocial distress, physical distress, or low professional self-efficacy; the most desired support was ‘a respected peer to discuss the details of what happened’. Following implementation of the peer support program, HCPs were significantly more likely to have heard of the term ‘second victim’ (51.8 vs. 74.0%; p < 0.001) and to have felt like there were adequate resources to support SVs (35.8% vs. 89.1%; p < 0.001). In the post-implementation survey, most respondents indicated a likelihood to use the program for themselves (65.7%) or colleagues (84.6%) after involvement in future traumatic clinical events.
Implementation of a peer support program significantly influenced awareness and perceptions of support available for SV-related distress.
Peer support programs should be implemented to help HCPs navigate SVEs and decrease SV-related turnover intentions.
•Second victim peer support programs aim to offload emotional labor and normalize the second victim experience•There is a need to evaluate the impact of second victim peer support programs•The Second Victim Experience and Support Tool evaluated the impact of a peer support program on second victim experiences•Peer support programs may foster increased awareness of ‘second victim’ experiences and a decrease in turnover intentions
A Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation Shnabel, Nurit; Nadler, Arie
Journal of personality and social psychology,
01/2008, Letnik:
94, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The authors propose that conflict threatens different psychological resources of victims and perpetrators and that these threats contribute to the maintenance of conflict (
A. Nadler, 2002
;
A. ...Nadler & I. Liviatan, 2004
;
A. Nadler & N. Shnabel, in press
). On the basis of this general proposition, the authors developed a needs-based model of reconciliation that posits that being a victim is associated with a threat to one's status and power, whereas being a perpetrator threatens one's image as moral and socially acceptable. To counter these threats, victims must restore their sense of power, whereas perpetrators must restore their public moral image. A social exchange interaction in which these threats are removed should enhance the parties' willingness to reconcile. The results of 4 studies on interpersonal reconciliation support these hypotheses. Applied and theoretical implications of this model are discussed.
This qualitative study examined the multiple perspectives of participants' experiences of a Victim Offender Mediation (VOM) program operating in a Midwestern city. Thirty-four face-to-face interviews ...were conducted with 37 participants, including juvenile offenders and their parents, adult crime victims, mediators, and referral sources. The findings indicate disparities exist between the juvenile offenders and their victims in their perceptions of the genuineness of the apology delivered. The nature of apology is explored and its meaning in the restorative justice context is set out. This study provides a snapshot of the process and practice of restorative justice work. In particular, this study highlights the complicated nature of communication between and among VOM participants. Recommendations are made to improve victim-sensitive restorative justice practices through the composition and delivery of the apology.
Pyramid schemes, including their various forms such as chain letters and illegal forms of multi-level marketing, harm people that are often far from ideal victims. While many lose cash and suffer ...emotional, health, and other harms; victims also facilitate pyramids by actively recruiting new victims and turning them into more recruiters ad nauseam. Research in this area is, however, small. This paper seeks to add to this small body of research by constructing a typology of actors in pyramid schemes being inspired by concepts of ideal victim and non-ideal victim and building upon the characteristics of pyramid schemes. It provides a unique insight into a complex network of relationships featured by pyramid schemes and contentious areas between victims and perpetrators of economically motivated crimes and wrongs. The paper presents policy implications and argues more research is needed on this group and their needs as they are often neglected by the criminal justice systems.
Literature on anti-bullying programs shows a growing consensus about promoting victims and bystanders’ self-efficacy against bullying, but provides no theoretical model nor measurement scale to ...assess the extent of achieving this aim. The current research aims to address these theoretical and empirical gaps by proposing the Dublin Anti-Bullying Self-Efficacy Models and Scales, using a convenience sample of 14-year-old students in Ireland (N = 1,100). After establishing both content and face validity, four separate scales were tested to measure anti-bullying self-efficacy beliefs among offline victims (20-item), online victims (20-item), offline bystanders (20-item), and online bystanders (20-item). Thereafter, four separate exploratory factor analyses of the scale items were followed by reflective measurement analyses of their internal consistency and construct (convergent and discriminant) validity. Results indicated sufficient psychometric properties of each scale measuring five dimensions of anti-bullying self-efficacy: recognition, emergency comprehension, responsibility, knowledge, and intervention. Further research is needed to test the proposed model and scale for assessing effectiveness of an anti-bullying program in promoting self-efficacy beliefs.
Child sexual assault cases have one of the highest attrition rates throughout the justice system, with jurors' perceptions of the credibility of the child playing a critical role in the judicial ...process and resulting outcomes. One of the most prominent influences on credibility is gender, specifically victim and perceiver gender. This article reports the findings of a systematic search of the literature exploring the impact of these factors on perceptions of victim credibility. Results suggest that overall females tend to rate victim credibility higher than do males; however, this gender effect is minimized when the alleged perpetrator is not the biological parent of the victim. There is little support for a victim gender effect, such that potential jurors' ratings of victim credibility does not appear to be influenced by the gender of the victim. The review highlights the lack of consistent and comprehensive measurement of credibility. Legal implications are discussed.
