Authors: Jennifer Sandra.,Brown Walklate

Handbook on Sexual Violence

Handbook
on

Sexual Violence

Edited by

Jennifer M. Brown

and
Sandra L. Walklate

Handbook on Sexual Violence

This book contextualises the complexity of sexual violence within its broader context – from war to the resolution of interpersonal disputes – and covers a wide span including sexual harassment, bullying, rape and murder as well as domestic violence. Written by leading academics from a variety of disciplines, contributions also include commentaries that relate the research to the work of practitioners.

Despite advances made in the investigation of sexual offences, evidence still points to a continued belief in the culpability of victims in their own victimisation and a gap between the estimated incidence of sexual violence and the conviction of perpetrators. Adopting an implicitly and explicitly critical stance to contemporary policy responses that continue to fail in addressing this problem, this book focuses on attitudes and behaviour towards sexual violence from the point of view of the individual experiencing the violence – perpetrator and victim – and situates them within a broader societal frame. It is through an understanding of social processes and psychological mechanisms that underpin sexual violence that violence can be combated and harm reduced, and at this individual level that evidence-based interventions can be designed to change policy and practice.

The Handbook is split into four sections:

Legacies: Setting the Scene
offers a critical overview of historical, legal and cultural processes which help to explain the origins of current thinking and offer steers for future developments.
Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Violence
examines contemporary thinking on sexual
violence and reviews explanatory frameworks from a number of perspectives.
Acts of Sexual Violence
reviews a number of specific types of sexual violence, elaborating the range of circumstances, victims and perpetrators with a view to addressing the general and pervasive nature of such violence, thus contradicting narrow cultural stereotyping.
Responding to Sexual Violence
overviews and evaluates current policies and practices

and offers new ideas to develop different types of interventions.

The editors’ conclusion not only draws out the key themes and ideas from contributions to the Handbook, but also considers the nature and the extent of the progress which has been made in understanding and responding to sexual violence.

This will be a key text for students and academics studying sexual violence and an essential reference tool for professionals working in the field including police officers, probation staff, lawyers and judges.

Jennifer M. Brown
is the Deputy Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the London School of Economics. She previously co-edited
Rape: challenging contemporary thinking
with Miranda Horvath and the
Handbook of Forensic Psychology
with Elizabeth Campbell.

Sandra L. Walklate
holds the Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology at the University

of Liverpool. She has written numerous books including
Criminology: the basics
,
Understanding Criminology: current theoretical debates
and
Imagining the Victim of Crime
.

Handbook on Sexual Violence

Edited by

Jennifer M. Brown and Sandra L. Walklate

First published 2012 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 Jennifer M. Brown and Sandra L. Walklate; individual chapters, the contributors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Handbook on sexual violence / edited by Jennifer M. Brown and Sandra L. Walklate.