In the early 1990's, the importance of establishing a DNA Data Bank of convicted sex offender samples for comparison to unsolved cases became apparent to the Virginia Division of Forensic Science to help identify potential perpetrators. Ultimately, through the expansion of the data basing law to include all convicted offenders and juveniles convicted of a crime that would be considered a felony...

Although victimology as a field is in its infancy and is undergoing definition, several theories of victimization that have implications for clinical practice have already been published. Several are specific and segmented, but one theory relates victimization to its broader cultural, social organizational-institutional, interactional and personality contexts Richard A. Ball presents a "Theory ...

Previous research has suggested that “victim” and “offender” are not mutually exclusive categories but rather represent a homogeneous pool in which offenders are victimized and victims also offend. Little is known, however, about the specifics of the victim and offender process. The current study formally addresses the following research questions: why are some individuals at higher risk for vi...

Although it has been frequently studied over the last 100 years, empirical studies of sexual homicide are lacking. The majority of the existing studies have been descriptive in nature. In this study, we consider the spatial geometry of sexual homicide and the impact of time and distance on case solvability. An analysis of sexual homicides (n = 197) from 1980 to 2004 for Los Angeles County was c...

In Finland, homicide by ligature strangulation is a rare event. The purpose of this study was to investigate recent homicide cases by ligature strangulation and to analyse offence and offender characteristics. All forensic psychiatric evaluation statements of offenders accused of ligature strangulation homicides during the 7-year period 1996--2002 (n=19) were reviewed retrospectively. Thirty-fi...

Twenty heterosexual rapists, 10 non-sex-offender patients from the same maximum security psychiatric institution, and 10 men with low socioeconomic status recruited from the local community were presented with audiotaped narrations while their penile tumescence was measured. The story categories were as follows: female victim/partner (neutral situation, consenting sex, rape, nonsexual violence,...

The fear of violence is among the most common and debilitating concerns faced by stalking victims. This review summarizes the extant literature on stalking-related violence, highlighting risk factors unique to stalking as well as those common to most offender populations. In total, 13 published studies were found, encompassing 11 unique samples and 1,155 individuals. The overall rate of violenc...

This study examined all group sexual offending cases in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2009 (n = 26) in which at least one juvenile female offender (n = 35) had been adjudicated. Information from court files showed that the majority of juvenile female group sexual offenders have (inter)personal problems and (sexual) abuse experiences. The aims of the offender groups in committing the offense ...

Despite a great deal of academic debate surrounding the term ‘restorative justice’, it would appear fair to suggest that the majority of the research in this area focuses upon the three main stakeholders involved within the process, namely the victim, the offender and the community, victim-offender mediation, and the benefits of such an approach. Nonetheless, not only can this can be seen to ne...

As part of a larger project evaluating aspects of offender profiling, an initial study was undertaken of the geographic aspects of approximately 300 sexual offences carried out by 79 stranger rapists. The objective was to focus further research on the topic into potentially useful channels, but information thought to be of immediate use to investigating officers was also produced. It was ascert...