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133
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Introduction
Edna Erez is Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on victims in criminal justice processes, violence against women in a variety of social and political contexts, the use of electronic monitoring in preventing repeat partner violence, terrorism and transnational crimes, and social policy on these issues. Her publication record includes over 120 articles in scholarly journals, book chapters, edited books, and research reports.
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January 2007 - present
Publications
Publications (133)
Feminist criminologists have helped to criminalize domestic violence in the United States and elsewhere. With this significant accomplishment, scholars also have critiqued the intended and unintended consequences of such reliance on the state for women's safety. One such critique reveals the intersectionality of social inequalities, social identiti...
The article examines how court professionals interact with and manage victims in the wake of victim participatory reforms instituted within an adversarial legal model. Analysis is based on an examination of interviews with legal and allied professionals (n = 36) and victims-turned-activists (n = 7) from four jurisdictions in a US state about their...
This chapter traces the changing role of victims in an adversarial criminal justice system. Adopting a historical perspective, the authors examine the impact of victim-centred reforms aimed at improving victim participation in a criminal process not designed to accommodate them. The chapter considers why these reforms have not fully realised their...
Mixed couples face more marital conflict than endogamous couples. Drawing on intersectional theory and narrative victimology, this study examines women's accounts of abuse in mixed heterosexual Arab/Palestinian-Israeli Jewish intimate partnerships amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The narratives of 25 women formerly in an abusive relationship...
Whether crime victims should present victim impact statements (VISs) at sentencing remains a subject of controversy in criminal justice literature. But relatively little is known about the content of VISs and how victims use them. This Article provides a content analysis of the 168 VISs presented in a Michigan court sentencing of Larry Nassar, who...
This research note investigates the reasons for the silence, disbelief, and denial of the sexual atrocities perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 attack. It employs as a framework Christie’s “ideal victim” conceptualization as adapted by van Wijk to explain the silence of international organizations and female-led civil society groups, about th...
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/comparing-violent-extremism-and-terrorism-other-forms-targeted-violence?utm_source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nijjournal
Mixed couples face more marital conflict than endogamous couples. Drawing on intersectional theory and narrative victimology, this study examines women’s accounts of abuse in mixed heterosexual Arab/Palestinian–Israeli Jewish intimate partnerships amid the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The narratives of 25 women formerly in an abusive relationship...
The Juvenile Military Court (JMC), established in 2009 in the West Bank, handles offenses perpetrated by Palestinian minors, consisting mostly of security-related violations. With the establishment of the JMC, and a subsequent three-stage legal reform in handling juvenile offenders, Palestinian minor suspects and defendants have been accorded vario...
Mismatches are incongruencies between programmatic policies and working practices that engender counter-productive dynamics or outcomes relative to aspirations. The present article addresses electronic monitoring programs for domestic violence/intimate partner violence, examining how mismatches may emerge during their implementation or later. Elect...
72 long form essays
Criminology in the 21st century has gone global. It has increasingly been drawn to thinking and research that addresses criminological matters in international, transnational, and comparative registers. Issues at the intersection of criminology/criminal justice and social forces, economic policies, political conflict, national s...
Mixed couples face more marital conflict than endogamous couples. Drawing on intersectional
theory and narrative victimology, this study examines women’s accounts of abuse in mixed
heterosexual Arab/Palestinian–Israeli Jewish intimate partnerships amid the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict. The narratives of 25 women formerly in an abusive relationship...
Drawing on a decade of research on terrorism in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, we show how subjective “rational choices” motivate some women to engage in terrorist activism. Focusing on the motives of young women who engage in terrorism is consistent with feminist theory’s insistence on women’s agency—even at the extremes. In addition to the wel...
Transnational Crimes among SomaliAmericans: Convergences of Radicalization
and Trafficking
This entry reviews the history of women's participation in terrorism, their motivation to participate, and the roles women play in terrorist organizations and operations. It reviews the reasons terrorist organizations employ women and the strategic and tactical advantages that women bring to terrorist missions. The multifaceted nexus between gender...
Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of victim-focused positions inside and outside the criminal justice system, yet little is known about the occupational characteristics and organizational context of this field in the United States. In this article, we draw on 42 semi-structured interviews with victim workers from a variety of settings a...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/09/06/domestic-violence/?utm_term=.3d5e2400fd62
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/09/06/domestic-violence/?utm_term=.3d5e2400fd62
The article presents the political, economic, and sociocultural factors that make Turkey an attractive destination for foreign sex workers, and reviews trends in official statistics of arrested traffickers, rescued victims, and deportation of migrant illegal sex workers. In-depth interviews of 20 law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations st...
Despite little evidence of an immigration-crime nexus, many American jurisdictions have adopted a punitive approach to undocumented immigrants and an increasingly restrictive and exclusive system of immigration control. The extensive deployment of criminal justice measures to address the immigration " problem " led to the growth of a crimmigration...
Adopting and expanding Black’s conception of terrorism as self-help, this study
examines how Palestinian youth become involved in security violations. Based on an
analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 10 Palestinian youth incarcerated in
Israeli prisons, their experiences are described, including the aftermath of arrest and
imprisonment. T...
In contrast to works on victim advocacy in specific organizational contexts, this article introduces the term “victim work” to capture the vast array of victim-related roles and tasks that have proliferated in recent decades. Data are derived from in-depth interviews with 30 “victim workers” in public and private agencies in two Midwestern states....
Tools that facilitate the electronic monitoring of criminal justice populations are becoming widespread and multifaceted as they are adapted for a range of purposes and offender categories. In the past two decades, justice agencies across the United States have incorporated global positioning systems (GPS) to enforce no-contact orders in cases invo...
New Terrorism is increasingly deploying women in the field as combatants. Female suicide bombers have proven to be highly effective, precisely because of the persistence of gender stereotypes in target societies. Women terrorists convey a powerful message of political seriousness, heighten the sense of intimidation and threat, and attract greater m...
Academic discussion about surveillance tends to emphasize its proliferation,
ubiquity, and impact on society, while neglecting to consider the continued relevance of
traditional approaches to human supervision, an oversight insofar as surveillance is
organized through practices embedded in justice system-based casework. Drawing
from a multi-site st...
This article addresses the challenges posed by state intervention in a multicultural society characterized by intense political conflict, juxtaposing the voices of batterers, victims, community members, and the officials who are involved in policing domestic violence (DV) in the Arab community in Israel. A meta-analysis of interview-based data exce...
I am a woman from Rwanda.
I did not learn to write my ideas in books.
I lived in the spoken world.
But I met an author and he will tell my story.
Yolande Mukagasana
INTRODUCTION
Over the last decades, with landmark international crimes such as the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, war crimes in Liberia, the former Yugoslavia, Sderot, Israel and Gaza,...
A recent article by Julian Roberts and Marie Manikis argues that the concept of “ancillary harm” explains why victim impact statements are useful at sentencing. Drawing on a recent decision from the Quebec Court of Appeals, they contend that impact statements help a judge assess foreseeable harm caused to a victim’s family member and others – “anci...
This article compares the background, motivation, pathways and prison experiences of Arab/Palestinian women who were imprisoned
for conventional crimes with those who were incarcerated for security-related or terrorism offences. In-depth interviews of
the two groups were conducted in the Israeli prisons in which they served their sentences. Prison...
Drawing on intersectionality theory, the article presents pathways of Arab/Palestinian in Israel to crime and imprisonment.The data base comprises of in-depth interviews of three groups: Arab/Palestinian women incarcerated in Israeli prisons for conventional offenses, law enforcement and corrections personnel, and Arab/Palestinian community leaders...
The article reviews the domestic and global social/cultural, economic and legal circumstances that create fertile grounds for human trafficking for commercial sex exploitation. It considers women’s and girls’ vulnerabilities that play a pivotal role in their sexual exploitation, and the intricate adverse conditions and obstacles encountered in the...
Purpose – This chapter outlines the challenges faced by immigrant women who are victimized by domestic violence.
Methodology – Based on interviews conducted with female immigrants to the United States (N=137) who have sought help for domestic violence, and legal advocates and service providers who work with them (N=20).
Findings – This chapter iden...
We examined the convergent and discriminant validity of the MMPI–2 Restructured Clinical (RC) scales in predicting relevant historical variables, treatment success, and recidivism in offenders enrolled in a batterers' intervention program. We used a sample studied previously by Petroskey, Ben-Porath, and Erez (2002)2.
Ben-Porath , Y. S. . The role...
Suicide bombings require motivated individuals, organizations that foster and channel this motivation, and a cultural milieu that lauds the perpetrator as a hero or martyr. Anat Berko, International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, Hertzliya, Israel, and Edna Erez, Kent State University, Ohio, interviewed seven Palestinian security prisoners...
Prior literature on women's participation in terrorism has paradoxically interpreted this involvement as a sign of women's newfound empowerment, and as an indication of ongoing gender oppression. The study examines the hypothesis that Palestinian women's involvement in terrorism indicates women's liberation. The data are derived from in-depth inter...
The development of bilateral electronic monitoring (BEM) exemplifies how shifts in the "culture of control" (Garland, 2001), including a focus on domestic violence (DV) victims' emotional welfare and integration into proceedings, can alter abused partners' everyday lives. As a protective strategy, BEM provides DV victims with an alternative to relo...
Abstract: The study presents Palestinian women’s involvement in terrorism and
the way in which their security violations are processed by the Israeli justice
system. The study is based on in-depth interviews of three groups involved in
Palestinian terrorism or responses to it: first, Palestinian women who were
arrested for security offenses; second...
This study examines perceptions of fairness and attitudes of offenders toward random assignment as compared to other selection methods used in evaluation research for allocating benefits or assigning inmates to programs. Three hundred and forty-eight inmates in three federal institutions were randomly selected and presented questionnaires which sur...
This article examines the structure of probation decision making on the perceived “need” level of probationers and the pursuant prescription of “treatment.” Although male and female probationers did not direr in their cumulative “need” level, significant differences by sex were found in the factors used by the probation officers to arrive at their...
Applying criminological/victimological concepts and theories, the study addresses the social processes involved in Palestinians' suicide terrorism and describes Palestinians' pathways to suicide bombing. The data are derived from in-depth interviews of 7 male and female Palestinians serving prison sentences in Israel for attempted suicide bombing....
This article discusses the electronic monitoring of domestic violence cases as a form of diversion. The data derive from a two and a half year study of two "bilateral" electronic monitoring programs geared towards domestic violence offenders, mostly defendants, and their former or current intimate partners. Analysis consists of an examination of ho...
The articles in the present issue of "International Review of Victimology" provide broad coverage of the problem of, and response to, sex trafficking, with special concentration on trafficking involving persons who originate from the former Soviet Republics and Eastern and Southeastern Europe and migrate into Western Europe and beyond. Only one art...
The criminal justice system has been using electronic monitoring for about 20 years, typically as a form of house arrest, an alternative sanction, or in the context of pretrial release. The authors examine the use of EM for victim protection in domestic violence cases.
The role of the victim in the sentencing process continues to generate controversy among scholars and practitioners across many jurisdictions. In this article we address some of the persistent objections to allowing victim input into sentencing. By placing the debate on victim input within its historical context, we suggest that the movement to pro...
This study addresses the abuse experiences of immigrant women married or engaged to U.S. servicemen and the response of military social service and legal systems. In-depth interviews of 10 immigrant women who were intimate partners of service members were conducted, emerging themes were identified in the data, and the intersectionality of immigrati...
Battered immigrant women face tremendous barriers to using the U.S. criminal justice system to respond to the violence in their lives. These include various social, economic, cultural, and legal restrictions as well as hardships, which deter immigrant women from seeking relief. For those women who overcome these barriers and do access the system, t...
The article presents available research on the experiences of immigrant women who have encountered intimate violence, and examines the common and unique features of abuse suffered by immigrant women relative to nonimmigrant women. It first addresses the social meaning of an appropriate female behavior in immigrant communities. It highlights the dyn...
The article addresses the role of victim's voice in community policing of violence against women. Using Israel as a case study, with its minority Arab and majority Jewish communities, we show the paradoxes of adhering to community policing tenets in a highly collectivist community, and when divergence and conflict rather than congruence and consens...
It is only recently that domestic violence has been considered a violation of the law. Although men have battered, abused and mistreated their wives or intimate partners for a long time, historically, wife or partner abuse has been viewed as a "normal" part of marriage or intimate relationships. Only towards the end of the twentieth century, in the...
This article presents the perspectives of battered women, whose partners have been court-ordered to participate in a batterer intervention program, on the program's effects on their partners, themselves, and their families. Through in-depth interviews, 33 women described their experiences, expectations, and feelings before, during, and after their...
Drawing upon research on women in crime and justice, this study examines patterns of female crime and processing of female
offenders in Israel over five decades. The data indicate that crime patterns of Israeli women and the criminal justice response
to their transgressions show remarkable stability and are similar to those discerned in other Weste...
The dramatic growth in the women's prison population has contributed to making the particular needs of incarcerated women a prominent issue among practitioners, academicians, and human rights advocates. The October 1998 Amnesty International findings of abuse of women prisoners and of inadequate medical care for them in Michigan, Illinois, Californ...
This article explores the way in which immigration status interacts with domestic violence/woman battering in the lives of immigrant women in multicultural societies such as the USA, Australia, Germany and Israel. It reviews the reasons immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to battering, and discusses the reasons they stay with the batterers,...
In the last two decades, most states in the United States have passed laws to protect battered women and to enhance their access to the criminal justice system. Preliminary examinations suggest that the reforms have had a limited success on abused women's use of the law. This study examines the ways in which prosecuting and defense attorneys percei...
Recent legal reforms requiring vicitm input into sentencing decisions have been controversial. Among the numerous arguments against the reform are claims that victim input will have detrimental effects on sentencing outcomes and processes. The present study used qualitative strategies to study the perspectives of legal professionals and their exper...
Despite the high hopes of victims' rights advocates, and contrary to the warnings about negative consequences, the evidence demonstrates that victim impact statements (VISs) have had little influence on criminal proceedings and court outcomes. This study, based on interviews with judges, prosecutors, and defense counsels charged with the implementa...
Research on the use of victim impact statements at the sentencing stage shows that they have therapeutic advantages for victims, and that they enhance the quality of sentencing decisions. Contrary to the fears of some legal professionals, victim impact statements affect proportionality of sentencing rather than harshness. In the light of the resear...
This article reports on a study of the service providers'' perspective on what battered women face when entering the criminal justice system. Victim non-co-operation with the system can manifest itself in various ways and at several points in the process. The article begins with a review of the available literature on the criminal justice system''s...
Experts have argued that there are significant barriers to recent immigrants' use of the criminal justice system. This exploratory study, using convenience samples, is among the first to look empirically at the experiences of recent immigrant victims with the criminal justice system in the United States. Contrary to expectations, we found that immi...
This research brief summarizes a study that investigated whether the diverse cultural makeup of many communities requires the criminal justice system to modify its approach, particularly in handling immigrants. The study examined whether immigrant victims have more difficulty than other victims in dealing with the police and courts because of diffe...
This article reports on a study of the service providers' perspective on what battered women face when entering the criminal justice system. Victim non-cooperation with the system can manifest itself in various ways and at several points in the process. The article begins with a review of the available literature on the criminal justice system's re...
Drawing upon feminist research on women in crime and justice, this study examines patterns of female crime in Israel over four decades and the criminal justice response to female offenders over two decades. The data show that crime patterns of Israeli women and the criminal justice response to their transgressions show remarkable resemblance to tho...
