Liz Kelly

London Metropolitan University · Advanced Institute for Research

A strong focus in recent policy and media coverage has been the increase in reporting of rape coupled with an associated fall in the charge rate, often attributed to victim withdrawal. Drawing on an analysis of 741 police case files as part of Operation Soteria we question each of these positions. We argue that changes to the Home Office Counting R...

The issue of timeliness in rape and other serious sexual offence investigations has been raised in a number of inspections and reviews, and there are policy imperatives to decrease delays, but there has been little exploration of police data to understand what contributes to them and enable practical recommendations or options. This paper explores...

The issue of timeliness in rape and other serious sexual offence investigations has been raised in a number of inspections and reviews, and there are policy imperatives to decrease delays, but there has been little exploration of police data to understand what contributes to them and enable practical recommendations or options. This paper explores...

Feminist research and activism has along history of engaging with the range and extent of men’s intrusive practices on women in public, taking as itsstarting point public space as aplace where gender relations are contested. Here, the impact of men’s practices on women and girls is understood not only in terms of their safety, but also their freedo...

Responses to violence encounter complex intersections of power relations, rights, culture and ethics. This book offers perspectives from a four-country study of interventions on domestic violence, trafficking for sexual exploitation, physical child abuse and neglect. Voices of professionals as well as of women and young people who have experienced...

Over the past ten years the theoretical framework of ‘coercive control’ has been increasingly applied, critiqued and now underpins a criminal offence. While many argue that it more accurately reflects experiences of victimisation, there has been little exploration of coercive control through the accounts of perpetrators. Through two phased intervie...

As our research was part of a programme on “cultural encounters” the concept of culture has been central to our work, explored through both the histories of, and variations in, in- tervention cultures across our four countries but crucially through refecting on the expe- riences of women and children from minoritised communities. The CEINAV project...

This paper explores practical and ethical dilemmas for professionals when securing the protection of children in the complex non-clinical setting of individual families. It is based on a cross-country study on cultural encounters in interventions against child physical abuse and neglect in four countries (England/Wales, Germany, Portugal, and Slove...

This paper is a Literature review about Sexual Harassment and Bystander's Project, conducted in the beginning of the Project "Developing bystander responses to sexual harassment among young people", JUST/2015/RDAP/AJ/SEXV/8562.

We report on the development of, and findings from, two scales measuring coercive control and space for action over a period of 3 years in a sample of 100 women who had accessed domestic violence services. We present statistical evidence to show a significant correlation between coercive control and space for action. However, dealing with violence...

Increasing recognition of the private spheres of family, sexuality and interpersonal relationships as sites for violence has led to transformations in law and policy at national and international levels. To enter these arenas is to encounter complex intersections of power relations with respect to gender, generation, race/ethnicity, nationality and...

For most of the twentieth century domestic violence was dismissed as a private, personal issue; it is now recognised globally as a significant social issue faced by up to one in three women in their lifetimes (WHO 2013). It acts as a barrier to women realising their rights and achieving their full potential and it intersects with other forms of ine...

This article critically explores accounts of how men attending domestic violence perpetrator programs (DVPP) used the “time out” strategy. Findings are drawn from 71 semi-structured interviews with 44 men attending DVPPs and 27 female partners or ex-partners of men in DVPPs. We describe three ways in which the technique was used: first, as intended...

In this paper we draw on data from in-depth interviews with men who have used violence and abuse within intimate partner relationships to provide a new lens through which to view the conceptual debates on naming, defining and understanding 'domestic violence', as well as the policy and practice implications that flow from them. We argue that the re...

How sexual consent should be discussed with young people is the subject of current policy debates and contestations in the UK. While the current Westminster government violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy (Home Office, 2011) and subsequent action plans recognise the importance of addressing consent, with no statutory relationships and s...

There is limited literature which explores the ethical dilemmas of researching women’s involvement in the sex industry, and an even thinner discussion of how these might be accentuated when researching trafficking for sexual exploitation. Whilst methodological robustness of studies on prostitution and trafficking is hotly debated in terms of philos...

Background There are high prevalence rates of violent and abusive experience in both the childhoods and adult lives of mental health service users. Histories of childhood sexual and physical abuse amongst women service users are particularly well documented. The ‘Responding effectively to violence and abuse’ (REVA) study, on which this presentati...

The research This work is part of an independent study commissioned and funded by England’s Department of Health to examine effective responses to the long-term mental health consequences of violence and abuse (http://www.natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/responding-effectively-to-long-term-consequences-of-violence-and-abuse-(reva)/). Methods...

Research governance, including research ethics committees and data protection legislation, is invested in protecting the individual rights of participants in social care and health research. Increasingly funders expect evidence of outcomes that engage with 'service users', making research critical in supporting social interventions to compete for s...

Key findings How were DVPOs implemented and delivered across the three pilot sites? • A total of 509 potential DVPOs were initially pursued by police officers (of which 507 went for superintendent authorisation), 487 DVPNs were authorised, and 414 full DVPOs actually issued by courts during the 15 month pilot period across the three police forces....

In 2011/12, a 15 month pilot took place in three police force areas (Greater Manchester, West Mercia and Wiltshire) to test a new civil provision, Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs). DVPOs were designed to provide immediate protection for victim-survivors following a domestic violence incident in circumstances where, in the view of the pol...

Briefing Note as part of Project Mirabal (see www.dur.ac.uk/criva/projectmirabal)

Many domestic violence perpetrator programmes have incorporated the issue of children's safety and the harmful parenting of domestically violent fathers within their programme content. However, little attention has been paid to the services offered to, and possible outcomes for, the children of men on such programmes. This paper draws on a survey o...

In the UK the number of people who came from a minority ethnic group grew by 53 per cent between 1991 and 2001, from 3.0 million in 1991 to 4.6 million in 2001. Whilst much has been written about the impact of these demographic changes in relation to policy issues, black and minority women and children remain under-researched. Recent publications h...

The Duluth Model is one of the most widely known approaches but was designed, not as a perpetrator programme per se, but as a broader systemic response to domestic violence in the city of Duluth, Minnesota, USA. When this ‘co-ordinated community response’ (CCR) was implemented, its success generated a backlog of men who had been arrested but not im...

Ever since domestic violence gained prominence on the social policy agenda, the focus of interventions has been on victims. A range of studies on social work/social welfare note the invisibility and/or lack of interventions aimed at domestic violence perpetrators. The exception has been perpetrator programmes (known in the USA as batterer intervent...

Much of the existing knowledge base of multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) comes from studies undertaken more than 20 years ago, and thus fails to integrate contemporary perspectives on sexual violence. The current study used Grounded Theory methodology to construct a holistic model of MPR from 15 victim accounts. The model of multiple perpetrator rape...

Purpose – The “Rotis not Riots” group is an online discussion forum formed during the August 2011 riots in England to facilitate feminist dialogue aimed at making sense of these unprecedented events. Design/methodology/approach – The founders use roti (a type of unleavened bread) as a symbol to focus attention on the importance of sharing differen...

This article reports on two separate research projects that use mapping techniques, specifically Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to assess the spatial characteristics of access to specialized support services for women who have experienced domestic/sexual violence, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), and sexual exploitation. In the fir...

The issue of false allegations in rape cases cannot be understood without reference to the ways in which rape law and its interpretation has historically problematized "the words of a woman" when what they were speaking about was sexual violation. Whilst the letter of the law has been reformed in many countries, legacies remain sedimented into inst...

Some consistency in existing typologies of rape has been found, which have extended from lone to multiple perpetrator offenses. The current study sought to explore the facets of multiple-perpetrator rape (MPR) in a sample representative of one geographical area. Seventy-five victim statements of MPR reported to an urban police force in the United K...

Whether domestic violence perpetrator programmes ‘work’ is contested by researchers, policy makers and practitioners. Some evaluations have concluded they do reduce violence, whereas others claim they do not and may even make things worse. Much of the disagreement is related to three issues: variations in methodological and analytical approaches; d...

This research review was commissioned as part of the Stern Review of responses by public bodies to rape.The terms of reference included a series of 31 questions about the extent to which there was research evidence on key policy issues, including evidence of the effectiveness of recent legislative and practice changes in England and Wales.The time...

In 1977 a poll of opinions on rape was commissioned by the Daily Mail, partly in response to a rape case which was widely reported in the press at the time because of a particularly lenient sentence.1 The poll asked respondents about which offence types they saw as most serious, whether they thought these offences had increased, whether they person...

The article examines recent debates surrounding public sociology in the context of a UK based Department of Applied Social Sciences. Three areas of work within the department form the focus of the article: violence against women and children; community-based oral history projects and health ethics teaching. The article draws on Micheal Burawoy’s ty...

Multiple perpetrator rape presents a significant problem nationally and internationally. However, previous research is limited and findings are often contradictory. The details of 101 rape allegations recorded in a six-month period in a large police force in England were analysed. Findings are presented about case classification, victim and perpetr...

Human trafficking is an old, but increasingly complex, phenomenon. In an age of globalization and transnationalism, demand for cheap labour and services fuels a trade deeply rooted in different cultural and historical contexts. Human traffickers share those roots with their respective diasporas the world over. This paper examines the case for an em...

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What has Feminism Got to do With It?References

This template sets out the spine around which governments at all levels and public bodies can develop strategies to end violence against women.

This document reports on a rapid evidence assessment (REA) of the evidence of harm to adults relating to exposure to extreme pornographic materials<br /

This document reports on a rapid evidence assessment (REA) of the evidence of harm to adults relating to exposure to extreme pornographic materials.<br /

The campaign by feminists to gender the international human rights agenda predates the emergence of mainstreaming as a methodology. This ‘activist mainstreaming' provides an interesting case study since it operates at the transnational level with actors primarily from civil society. This article explores how the issue of violence against women prov...

Intense and unresolved debates on prostitution are played out in discussions of trafficking in interesting and contradictory ways. Should women and girls be designated ‘victims’ or ‘migrant sex workers’? And what are the implications in practice of each position for those detected in foreign countries? Other questions such as the globalisation of t...

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the Home Office (nor do they reflect Government policy).

Feminist Review (2003) 73, 139–144. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400086

At a time when there is increasing interest amongst child care professionals in how to respond to children living with domestic violence, this paper derives from a study of a specialist context for such work: child work in women's refuges. The qualitative aspect of the research, which is reported on here, consisted of in-depth visits to eight refug...

Domestic violence frequently has serious impacts on children. This article draws on the findings of a recent study within the ESRC Children 5-16: Growing into the 21st Century Research Programme which examined children's understandings and coping strategies in regards to domestic violence. Far from being passive victims of the violence, children an...

this report are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Home Office (nor do they reflect Government policy)." ISBN 1-84082-466-2 Copies of this publication can be made available in formats accessible to the visually impaired on request. (ii) Foreword This paper presents the findings of research carried out to assess the extent of traffick...

This article is taken from a report entitled: Rhetorics and Realities: Sexual Exploitation of Children in Europe, of a study funded by the European Commission under the STOP Programme. It begins by re-visiting the knowledge base of child pornography and addresses a range of issues including: children's access to pornography; law enforcement and Eur...

Britain was in the forefront of developing awareness of, and new responses to, violence against women in the early 1970s. Whilst many examples can still be found of creative and innovative work, these remain the outcome of the vision and determination of women across a range of sectors, rather than commitment from policy-makers or government. Durin...

This paper is an overview of the work and perspective of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at the University of North London between 1987 and 1997. It has involved much summarizing and selection, and inevitably means some areas have been neglected, others emphasised. Rather than offer a bland outline of the work we have done, we have chosen to...

This response takes issue with John Paley's paper ‘Satanist Abuse and Alien Abduction’ (this issue) in a number of areas: his definition of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA); the parallels he draws between SRA and alien abduction; his assertions that there is no evidence of SRA and that accounts of SRA can be viewed as urban legends; and his ‘temporal lob...

in this chapter, the term domestic violence is used in reference to the violence men direct at current and former female partners / most women and girls who have experienced sexual violence first tell someone they trust in their social network, and most who have been victimized marshal as much, possibly more, support over the long term from informa...

In this chapter we examine recent debates about the meaning of sexual victimization. These struggles have implications for feminist praxis; for theory, research and practice. We explore several locations from which challenges to previous feminist re-definitions emerge; specifically, recent popularist publications which use, in a pejorative tone, th...

Explores the social construction of gender in childhood. Topics addressed include a general introduction looking at what gender inequality means, how this has and has not been addressed in social and psychological theory and research, the ways children are responded to through notions of gender, and what taking gender seriously means in relation to...

Two possible connections between disability and abuse are explored: that disability can be the outcome of abuse, and that children with disabilities are differentially vulnerable to abuse. Evidence supporting both propositions is presented and assessed. Major problems in research and research methods are highlighted: the differing definitions of di...

Twin brothers aged 12 attended a special needs boarding school which had provision for children with emotional disturbances and other disabilities. While they were at home during the holidays, their mother overheard a conversation between them which led her to suspect abuse. She asked them several questions and decided to contact the police. An inv...

A frequens remark wome make about experiences of phisical and sexual abuse is that 'nothing really happened'. We explore the meaning of this of events that did indeed happen is both reflected in, and reinforced by the criminal justice system. The implications of inclusion and exclussion in definitions of sexual violence are explored, especially in...

explores the themes of naming, defining, and redefining sexual violence, using data from an in-depth study of how women experience and cope with sexual violence after examination of current definition of sexual violence, the feminist perspective underlying the methodology and analysis is presented after detailed discussion of the factors affect...