International Journal for Crime and Justice (Queensland University of Technology)
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Female Honor Killing: The Role of Age and Marital Status
Full text linkGiven that most studies on femicide were conducted in Western societies, there is still a need to study the phenomenon among diverse sociocultural contexts, particularly in traditional communities within non-Western contexts. This study focuses on identifying possible risk factors for female honor killing (FHK). A total of 102 cases involving the main Arab subgroups in Israel—Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs—were analyzed from an 11-year period. Study findings note intriguing diversity in femicide risk factors. Commonly considered risk factors previously noted in Western societies’ studies, such as prior domestic violence and being in an intimate relationship, were not significant in FHK cases. Instead, being unmarried and older than 30 were found to be associated with increased risks of FHK. These findings suggest a need for further exploration of sociocultural diversity in femicide risk factors
Can Police Officers be Trained to “Listen Better”? A Meta-Relational Analysis of Listening in US Police Training and Practices
No full textThis article examines police reforms through a meta-relational framework: one that resists resolution and foregrounds the tensions, contradictions, and partial truths that shape institutional life. Focusing on active listening in U.S. police training, particularly the Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) program, it shifts the question from whether such reforms “work” to how listening becomes a site where care, control, legitimacy, and resistance intersect. Drawing on the ICAT curriculum, ethnographic fieldwork at a North Carolina police academy, and interviews with trainees, the article argues that listening is not merely a communicative skill, but a relational technology shaped by institutional logics. Within this frame, reformist and abolitionist perspectives are treated not as opposing endpoints but as partial, coexisting lenses that illuminate different dimensions of the same policing terrain: reform highlights the openings that listening trainings may create, while abolition underscores their structural limits. Through three vignettes: the case of Sandra Bland, a role-play training scenario, and video-recorded police–civilian encounters, the article traces how police listening can both reproduce institutional power (“the trap”) and generate moments of relational reconfiguration (“the emergent”). It concludes by arguing that police listening must account for the relational, historical, and institutional conditions of listening itself.Este artículo explora la integración de la escucha activa en la formación policial, haciendo hincapié en su potencial para salvar la brecha entre la teoría de la desescalada y las realidades de la práctica policial. Centrándose en el programa ICAT (Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics) como estudio de caso, el artículo examina cómo la escucha, como práctica encarnada y cultural, da forma a las interacciones entre agentes y civiles. Mediante el trabajo de campo realizado en la Academia de Policía de Asheville y las aportaciones teóricas de estudiosos como Ahmed, Ratcliffe y Stoever, el análisis revela cómo la escucha reconfigura la dinámica de poder equilibrando el control con la empatía. Sin embargo, los resultados indican que, si bien la escucha activa promueve un compromiso más compasivo, las limitaciones sistémicas -en particular, la priorización de la dominación visual y la conformidad- limitan su potencial transformador. Este artículo aboga por un cambio de paradigma en la cultura policial, instando a la adopción de prácticas de escucha más profundas y encarnadas para promover la justicia social y la confianza en la policía de proximidad.
Cet article explore l'intégration de l'écoute active dans la formation des policiers, en soulignant son potentiel pour combler le fossé entre la théorie de la désescalade et les réalités de la pratique policière. En se concentrant sur le programme Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) comme étude de cas, l'article examine comment l'écoute, en tant que pratique incarnée et culturelle, façonne les interactions entre les officiers et les civils. Grâce au travail de terrain effectué à l'Académie de police d'Asheville et aux contributions théoriques de chercheurs tels qu'Ahmed, Ratcliffe et Stoever, l'analyse révèle comment l'écoute reconfigure la dynamique du pouvoir au sein de la police en équilibrant le contrôle et l'empathie. Cependant, les résultats indiquent que si l'écoute active favorise un engagement plus compatissant, les contraintes systémiques - en particulier la priorité donnée à la domination visuelle - limitent son potentiel de transformation. Cet article plaide en faveur d'un changement de paradigme au sein de la culture policière, en encourageant l'adoption de pratiques d'écoute plus profondes et incarnées afin de faire progresser la justice sociale et la confiance dans la police.
 
Overcoming Ignorance-Making in Acknowledging and Responding to Harm in Custodial Settings: The Use of Open Disclosure
No full textAlthough preventable harm in custodial settings has been widely documented, progress towards implementing the reforms that are often identified in reviews and inquiries into the quality of care afforded has been slow. It has even been suggested that government departments routinely engage in the practice of ignorance-making — the intentional use of strategies to deny the ongoing experience of harm, to deflect attention away from the statutory body, and/or to minimise responsibility. One means of countering such practice is open disclosure; a process that involves acknowledging and apologising for harm, and engaging directly with affected individuals and families. In this article we examine the occurrence of preventable harm in custodial settings, employing a case study from Australia’s Northern Territory to contrast criminal justice responses with the more transparent approaches that have been adopted in healthcare. We put forward recommendations to improve harm recognition, embed meaningful apology, and strengthen systemic accountability in custodial settings in Australia
Justice for the Invisible, Unspeakable and Inevitable: An Abolition Feminism Analysis of Sexual Violence and the International Criminal Court
Full text linkThe unparalleled visibility of the atrocities at the close of the 20th century propelled sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) to the forefront of humanitarian and scholarly rhetoric. This increased visibility paradoxically concealed the needs of victim-survivors within a faceless mass in need of saving and demonised those responsible through racialised narratives. The International Criminal Court (ICC) was instituted to address these failures, yet since its inception it has secured only two successful convictions for SGBV. Given the pervasivity of sexual violence during conflict, this raises questions of the compatibility of normative judicial mechanisms with justice in the aftermath of war. This paper uses the ICC as a thematic case study and examines court reports and transcripts from The Prosecutor v Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo (2016–2018) and The Prosecutor v Dominic Ongwen (2021–2024), applying abolition feminism and transformative justice to disentangle and elucidate the violence innate to the ICC. It provides transformative justice as a meaningful alternative
Exploring the Impacts of Everyday Policing on Police Officers' Psychological, Emotional, and Physical Wellbeing in Fiji
Full text linkPolice work is often fraught with challenging and traumatic experiences, which can be managed well by some officers, while others may be significantly affected and require assistance. Even those who typically cope well may be adversely affected by a specific incident. Incorporating cultural considerations in the Fijian context, this study examines the impacts of everyday policing on officers’ psychological, emotional, and physical wellbeing. An online survey was used to obtain 101 police officers’ perceptions of challenging and stressful incidents, the impacts of such incidents on their wellbeing, and coping strategies used to deal with such incidents. The findings provide examples not only of everyday stressors, but also the traumatic incidents faced by police officers, which generate a range of negative impacts on their wellbeing. The article contributes to Pacific criminology and provides useful insights, with implications for policy and practice, to support and enhance the wellbeing of police officers.
“A Kiss Delivered as a Punch”: Coercively Controlling Tactics in Australian Women’s Same-Gender Intimate Relationships
Full text linkIn 2007, Evan Stark consolidated decades of feminist scholarship and advocacy on intimate partner violence (IPV) into a framework he coined “coercive control” (Stark 2007). Stark’s model was initially heteronormative. He later contended that heteropatriarchy may condition abuse in women’s intimate relationships with other women, but more research was needed to clearly understand how coercive control manifests beyond heterosexuality (Stark and Hester 2019). In this paper, we utilise the voices of 18 Australian same-gender attracted women who experienced IPV in intimate relationships with other women. The participants’ narratives, revealed through this qualitative method, provide insights into perpetrator tactics of coercive control in these relationships. Situating these stratagems within Stark’s framework, we gain a deeper understanding of this, often invisible, manifestation of coercive control. This study is essential and timely because, since Stark (2007) published his book, several countries have criminalised coercive control and some states in Australia have recently followed suit.
Temporal Imaginations: Mnemonic Frames Against Extractivism in Guatemala
Full text linkWhat is the role of collective memory in motivating social movements in post-peace Guatemala? Focusing on Indigenous resistance against extractivism, an 18-month (2021-2023) participant-observation project on grassroots campaigns with Defensoria Q’eqch’ and AEPDI documented the Maya-Q’eqchi’ front against the Fenix nickel mining project. Fifteen in-depth interviews with men and women in sites of struggle across El Estor, Izabal and 30 recorded testimonies of survivors of the Guatemalan genocide reveal activists draw on resistance narratives to counter the legacies of settler colonialism. Indigenous activists are mobilizing unified fronts against the state and capital in post-conflict societies, and the mechanism of collective memory plays a crucial role in encouraging political action through the deployment of “temporal imaginations,” which are self-reflecting and retrospective frames that position social movements in history and time. Temporal imaginations provide a way to articulate past injustices and present grievances, cement loyalties, establish goals, and evaluate new challenges
Marijke Caroline Van Buggenhout (2024) Paper Borders. Children and Young People Inside the Belgian Asylum Procedure. A Multi-Voiced and Performative Study. Brussels: VUB Press.
Full text linkValeria Ferraris reviews Paper Borders. Children and Young People Inside the Belgian Asylum Procedure. A Multi-Voiced and Performative Study by Marijke Caroline Van Buggenhout
Social Movements as Triggers of Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma and Memory in Chile
Full text linkThis article explores the role of social movements in transmitting collective memory and trauma produced by the dictatorship across generations in Chile. It argues that, beyond civil society organisations focused on human rights, broader social movements, such as student, feminist, and anti-neoliberal protests, play a crucial role in uncovering and processing the trauma of past state violence. Using qualitative research and combining insights from social movement studies, social psychology, and psychoanalysis, we show how these movements produce spaces and situations where conscious and unconscious trauma originating in state political violence is unveiled, transmitted to the next generation, and in some cases, re-elaborated. The article also highlights the gendered dimension of memory, mainly through the experiences of women survivors of sexual political violence, who fought for official recognition of these crimes as distinct from torture. Social movements facilitate the articulation of these silenced histories, fostering intergenerational dialogue. Ultimately, the study underscores how Chilean society remains shaped by dictatorship-era violence, with social movements playing a vital role in confronting historical silences and shaping collective memory
Restoring Sexual Dignity: Sexual Violence, Human Dignity and Transitional Justice in Colombia
Full text linkThis article explores the role of human dignity in shaping policies and advocacy efforts, particularly in recognizing and addressing the harm caused by sexual violence against victims of Colombia’s armed conflict. It focuses on women who have experienced sexual and reproductive violence, using the concept of sexual dignity to examine the mechanisms employed in Colombia’s transitional justice process. The analysis draws on interviews, reports from the Truth Commission, the Historical Memory Group, laws and reports by victims’ organizations, applying a binary model of “dignity takings” and “dignity restoration”. The article proposes that policies for addressing the needs of victims of sexual violence should consider the multiple forms of dignity takings and dignity restoration experienced by victims. The article proposes a model with four binaries: body violation/body autonomy; lack of control over the future/control over the future; denial of the past/authorship of one’s narrative; and shame/honour. It also addresses other forms of dignification, such as spiritual healing and community-building