Emma Sleath

University of Leicester | LE · Department of Criminology

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415732475/ Research Methods for Forensic Psychologists is an accessible and comprehensive textbook that introduces students to the research process in forensic psychology. Adopting a problem-based learning approach, this book offers a ‘how-to’ guide to the whole research process and empowers readers to dev...

The aim of this study was to examine expectations about victim and offender behaviours during stranger rape. These expectations were compared with the empirically derived data of actual victim and offender behaviours. Furthermore, three attitudes/beliefs were assessed in relation to these expectations: rape myth acceptance, gender role attitudes an...

A common perception is that police officers hold very negative attitudes about rape victims. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to establish whether police officers do accept stereotypical rape myths at a higher level compared to members of other populations. There were 3 comparison samples, composed of police officers, law students, and psy...

This study compared victim blaming and perpetrator blaming in a sample of police officers (N = 123), comparing the responses of police officers specially trained to deal with rape victims with those who had not received this training. Victim blaming was significantly predicted by rape myth acceptance and belief in a just world but not by gender rol...

One of four possible vignettes manipulated by (a) level of rape myth contained within them (low vs. high) and (b) type of rape (stranger vs. acquaintance) was presented to participants followed by scales measuring victim blame, perpetrator blame, belief in a just world, sex-role egalitarian beliefs, and male rape myth acceptance. Victim blaming was...

We examined the impact of Covid-19 on service delivery within specialist sexual violence services and the healing journeys of survivors of sexual violence and abuse through the experiences of 22 professionals and 221 service users in England. The pandemic posed challenges across all sectors and economies across the globe, but practices and innovati...

Individuals experiencing domestic abuse (DA) struggle to disclose victimization, but as frequent users of mental health services, this is a pivotal setting for identification and addressing DA. This systematic review of 20 studies investigates DA identification, screening, and responses within mental health settings. Three databases were searched u...

Background One million people in England and Wales experience sexual violence and abuse each year, with nearly half experiencing serious sexual offences; around 30,000 survivors access sexual assault referral centres. Objectives This research was commissioned by National Institute for Health and Care Research to evaluate access, interventions and...

Section 28, the last of the special measures under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 to be implemented, was rolled out across England and Wales between 2020 and 2022. This allows vulnerable and/or intimidated witnesses and complainants, who have first pre-recorded their evidence-in-chief through a police video-recorded interview, to...

Integrated Offender Management was introduced by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice in 2009. Since its introduction, it has been piloted, developed and implemented across probation and policing areas within England and Wales. The scheme aims to reduce reoffending through the targeting of specific cohorts of offenders within local areas. Unders...

This research was the first in the United Kingdom to examine the prevalence and nature of nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit messages, pictures, and videos and to examine whether this varies according to gender and by role (i.e., perpetrator, victim, or as dual role of perpetrator/victim). In a sample of 391 young adults (aged 18-25 years),...

This study examined the interaction between structure and agency for individuals in the first or early phase of primary desistance (1 year offending free) from intimate partner violence (IPV). Narrative accounts of perpetrators, survivors, and IPV program facilitators were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. Changes in the self and the contexts, stru...

The Integrated Offender Management (IOM) framework was introduced in England and Wales in 2009. The aims of the research outlined in this paper were to examine the impact of the introduction of an Integrated Offender Management (IOM) approach in one large police force region and the perceptions of it by offenders and staff. There were two parts to...

The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence and typologies of controlling behaviors within a general population sample. Participants (N = 427) completed the Revised Controlling Behaviors Scale and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale. Prevalence of perpetration and victimization of controlling behaviors was relatively high, although the frequ...

Recently, more attention is being paid to controlling behaviors within a continuum of intimate partner violence and abuse. However, it is unclear whether current scales are sufficiently valid to measure such behaviors. The current study assessed the factor structure and reliability of the revised Controlling Behaviors Scale (CBS-R) and the revised...

The aim of this review was to synthesize the current literature regarding revenge pornography and the non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit media. A systematic search was made of five databases using relevant search terms. From these searches, 82 articles were retained for inclusion within the systematic review. The literature spanned areas o...

Police officers are frequently perceived to hold negative attitudes about rape victims. The aim of this systematic review is to: (1) synthesise the current literature on police officers' attributions of rape victim blame, assessments of rape victim credibility, and rape myth acceptance; and, (2) examine the evidence that holding these attitudes imp...

We know that intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) includes a range of behaviours such as physical, sexual, psychological violence and control. However, controlling, coercive and threatening behaviours have not always been acknowledged as IPVA, resulting in less research attention being paid to these behaviours. Furthermore, where attention ha...

An overview of three strands of current research will be provided within this presentation. Initially, the findings from a systematic review of the current knowledge regarding revenge pornography will be presented. This will highlight key gaps in our knowledge regarding revenge pornography, thus providing scope for future research in this area. The...

Objective: A large number of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), who report their victimization to the police, subsequently either retract or disengage from the police investigation. Given that we have a very limited understanding of victim retraction/disengagement in IPV cases, this study addresses this gap by identifying the victim, perpe...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an international issue that social and criminal justice workers will encounter regularly. It has been identified that men can, and do stop using, or desist from, IPV although it is unclear how this process of change develops. This article introduces a conceptual model to outline how the process of desistance evolv...

The transition from persistence to desistance in male perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) is an understudied phenomenon. This article examines the factors that initiate and facilitate primary desistance from IPV. The narratives of 22 male perpetrators of IPV (13 desisters and 9 persisters), 7 female survivors, and 9 programme (IPV inter...

It is well established that personality pathology has been associated with the onset and continued perpetration of intimate partner violence, yet if and how this relates to the cessation of such behaviours remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine whether personality pathology differentiated 37 intimate partner violent men who had sus...

A common perception is that police officers hold very negative attitudes about rape victims. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to establish whether police officers do accept stereotypical rape myths at a higher level compared to members of other populations. There were 3 comparison samples, composed of police officers, law students, and psy...

Background The inter-generational transmission of violence (ITV) hypothesis and polyvictimisation have been studied extensively. The extant evidence suggests that individuals from violent families are at increased risk of subsequent intimate partner violence (IPV) and that a proportion of individuals experience victimisation across multiple rather...

There is a general belief that stranger stalkers present the greatest threat to the personal safety of victims, despite national victimisation surveys and applied research demonstrating that ex-partner stalkers are generally more persistent and violent. The just-world hypothesis offers a possible explanation for this apparent contradiction. The cur...

This study investigates the influence of prior relationship and severity of behavior on perceptions of stalking and responsibility with a combined sample of 1,080 members of the community from Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Participants were presented with 1 of 12 versions of a hypothetical stalking scenario and responded to...

Previous research has found that drinking establishments are often antecedent to sexual aggression outcomes. In this study, male participants were randomly selected from public houses (i.e., "pubs") and asked to imagine themselves in a hypothetical intimate encounter in which the female in the scenario stops consenting to sexual contact. Participan...

Interest in research on victim blaming has remained significant since it came to the fore in the 1970s. Victim blaming, of both male and female victims of rape, is central to this thesis in understanding the contribution to this of a number of motivational beliefs and stereotypes (i.e., rape myth acceptance, belief in a just world, and gender role...