Victims Network – British Society of Criminology (original) (raw)

About

Chair
Dr Hannah Bows, University of Durham
Email: hannah.bows@durham.ac.uk

The BSC Victims Network was formed in March 2014 bringing together those who have interests around victims of crime and social harm, survivors and resilience.

It has its own website: https://bscvictimsnetwork.wordpress.com/

We also have our own curated newspaper: https://paper.li/VictimsNetwork/1398965817

Please take a flyer! (click to open as pdf)

The specific aims of the BSC Victims Network are to:

• be a vehicle for initiating contact and keeping in touch with members across the discipline with a specific interest in victims of crime and social harm, survivors and resilience;
• provide a forum for debate about issues relating to victims of crime and social harm, survivors and resilience nationally and internationally;
• engage with policy-makers and practitioners in order to inform decision-making and practice within governmental and non-governmental organisations;
• facilitate and promote theory development and research into victims of crime and social harm, survivors and resilience;
• provide an arena for information exchange, critical analysis and debate across the research, policy and practice communities – nationally and internationally;
• encourage networking between academics, researchers, practitioners and students;
• advance understanding of victims of crime and social harm, survivors and resilience;
• develop a space on the BSC website to include the specialist BSC Victims Network alongside, and to complement, the existing specialist BSC Networks;
• look for opportunities to secure research or consultancy income.

Steering Group
Dr Samantha Bricknell, Principal Research Analyst, Human Trafficking and Slavery/Violence Research Programs, Australian Institute of Criminology
Dr Marian Duggan, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin University, Geelong Campus and Visiting Academic at the Centre for Criminology, Oxford University
Professor Matthew Hall, Senior Lecturer in Law and Criminal Justice, University of Sheffield
Dr Vicky Heap, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr Helen Jones, British Society of Criminology
Kirsty McGregor, Doctoral Candidate, Centre of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Manchester

Past Events

The British Society of Criminology Victims Network (BSCVN) and Women, Crime and Criminal Justice Network (WCCJN) one-day conference on perpetrators of violence against women.

9.30am-4pm, 21 October 2022. City University, London.

Keynote speakers:

• Dr Michael Flood (Queensland University of Technology (QUT) (Research)

• Jo Todd, CEO Respect (Practice)

Over the last four decades, significant attention has been paid to men’s violence against women and girls. Much of this has focused on victimisation – studying the prevalence, nature, impacts and consequences of violence against women – which has informed legislative reform and policy implementation with the aim of preventing VAWG and improving criminal justice and support outcomes for survivors. This has informed, and been informed by, feminist theory and research, and Victimology as a specific sub-discipline of Criminology.

By contrast, perpetrators of violence against women and girls have been understudied, perhaps with the exception of child sex offenders where research has been most concentrated. The evidence gaps in relation to perpetrators have recently been acknowledged by the UK Government who have commissioned research and pilot projects on perpetrators of domestic violence to inform the wider Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and forthcoming Domestic Abuse Act (2021) which acknowledges the need to focus on perpetrators both in terms of prevention and responding to violence against women. In Europe, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly has highlighted the importance of focusing on perpetrators of VAWG and called for member states to enhance knowledge to inform perpetrator programmes and prevention work. Over the last decade there has been some research on perpetrator programmes (Kelly and Westmarland, 2014) but this remains fairly limited. Moreover, emerging research on working with men and boys has attested to the importance of conducting work with men generally, as well as those already known as perpetrators (Burrell, 2018; 2019) but there remain significant gaps in this area.

2018

Research Planning and Writing Retreat Day – March 2018 This one-day event was open to anyone interested in contributing to planning and drafting a research bid; presenting ideas on authored or edited books; preparing for a special issue of a journal or setting aside time to draft a specific output.

See this blog posting about the outcomes of the day.

We engaged in a range of scholarly activities to discuss, plan, innovate and set up work streams and project plans. Additionally, we ran a parallel early-career postgraduate and PhD writing day with mentoring support provided by more senior members attending the research planning event.

2017

Violence, Culture and Victimhood Thu, 11 May 2017
This event was Storified
The North West British Society of Criminology Seminar Series 2016-17, in conjunction with University of Liverpool’s International Criminological Research Unit (ICRU) and the BSC National Victims Network.

Speakers: Brad Evans (University of Bristol), Martin Hoondeart (University of Tilburg), Pamela Davies, (Northumbria University), chaired by Sandra Walklate (University of Liverpool).

BSC Victims Network Conference 12 January 2017 ‘Victim Policy and Support: Past, Present and Future’
Speakers included Vera Baird QC Police and Crime Commissioner Northumbria, Graham Strange Victim Care and Advice Services, Cleveland, Zoe Jackson, Aurora New Dawn, Hampshire, Professor Marianne Hester, Dr Jacki Tapley, Dr Elaine Wedlock, and Professor Matthew Hall.

2016

Wednesday 16 March Paul Biddle and Dr Jamie Harding: Criminal Justice From Beginning to End: Street Triage to Miscarriages of Justice.

Wednesday 20 April Dr Matt Jones and PhD student James Pickles: Sexualities and Crime.

2014

Teaching Victimology: Innovations and Issues took place – very fittingly – on Armistice Day, Tuesday 11th November at Sheffield Hallam University where we were all observers of the Two Minute Silence. The British Society of Criminology (BSC) Networks for Learning & Teaching and Victims joined forces to host this one day event to explore and share good practice in the teaching of victimology. Following a welcome to Sheffield Hallam and the Department of Law and Criminology from Sital Dhillon, Dr Helen Jones, Chair of the Learning and Teaching Network, gave a very upbeat introduction urging us all to abide by her own three core simple but effective values: Ask, Be tenacious and Be kind! The day comprised a variety of sessions including: ‘Innovations’ where members of the criminology team from Sheffield Hallam discussed the teaching approaches that secured success in the 2014 BSC

Excellence in Teaching Criminology Award, ‘Teaching Victimology andProfessional Practice’ where Anne Robinson discussed ‘Probation Views on Victims and Victimisation’ and Liz Smart explored how to turn threats into opportunities in the provocatively titled paper ‘How swingeing legal aid cuts threatened the basic right of victim’s to seek legal redress and risked breaching their fundamental human rights’.

Victimology: Research, Policy and Activism

Editors: Tapley, Jacki, Davies, Pamela

This book explores what victimology, as both an academic discipline and an activist movement, has achieved since its initial conception in the 1940s, from a variety of experts’ perspectives. Focussing on nine, dynamic and contemporary case studies covering topics like violence against women and girls, bereaved family activism, and environmental victims and climate change activists, each chapter critically examines how different crime victims have been politicised and explores the impact of victim-centred reforms upon criminal justice professional cultures. See more here