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This paper aims to present and discuss the findings from a qualitative study of victim-offender mediation meetings in two non-government organisations in Hong Kong between January 2015 and February 2016. It argues that mediators in Hong Kong have a unique interpretation of the criteria for someone to be considered a “macro-community member”. Confucian relational ethics emphasises that everyone lives in a personal nexus and wrongdoings will disturb this nexus. In this specific context, therefore, mediators feel that reconciliation and reparation should be dealt with by the people in the offender’s network while the involvement of unknown macro-community members is discouraged.

The semi-structured interview was adopted for use in this study, and an interview schedule with 12 open-ended questions was prepared as a guideline for conducting the interviews.

Mediators in Hong Kong have a unique interpretation of the criteria for someone to be considered a “macro-community member” Confucian relational ethics emphasises that everyone lives in a personal nexus and wrongdoings will disturb this nexus. Reconciliation and reparation should be dealt with by the people in the network, and the involvement of macro-community members will certainly disturb this network.

This study was conducted by the author between January 2015 and February 2016 for the purpose of obtaining a doctorate. The paper has neither been published previously nor is it under review for publication in any other journal at this time.

Reports from 2016 to 2017 suggest that approximately 870 cases of non-familial child abduction (NFA) are recorded in England and Wales per year. Yet, empirical knowledge of the victims, offenders and offence characteristics is limited in comparison to other forms of child victimisation. Furthermore, much of the available knowledge is constrained by a lack of clarity around the differences between acquaintance and stranger abductors. This systematic literature review aims to develop a comprehensive overview of acquaintance and stranger child abductions, focussing on the similarities and differences in offending behaviours.

Research databases (PsycArticles, Google Scholar, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Criminal Justice Abstracts, MEDLINE and ERIC) and the Grey Literature (ETHOS and EBSCO) were screened for peer-reviewed research published between 1995 and 2021. Sixteen articles met the inclusion criteria and were critically appraised using a modified version of the Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist for Case Reports.

Six key areas within NFA offences and their characteristics were identified as offering potential for differentiating acquaintance and stranger abductors: victim–offender relationship, number of victims and offenders, motives, modus operandi, victim injury, sexual assault and mechanism of death (in fatal cases). The results of this review are discussed with consideration given to investigative implications, limitations and directions for future study.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to systematically review the current NFA literature, from which pragmatic recommendations for practice and future academic enquiry are drawn.

A robust literature exists documenting the association between child maltreatment and later life adverse outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between sexual abuse victimization and later life intimate partner violence (IPV) outcomes among male and female college students, which has been less frequently evaluated despite this wealth of evidence.

Relying on data from 4,162 male and female college students, the current study provides a multivariate analysis of the linkage between sexual abuse victimization and intimate partner victimization, perpetration, and being an IPV victim-offender.

Results reveal a statistically significant association between sexual abuse victimization and being an IPV victim, offender, or victim-offender in young adulthood. In addition, these findings are still observed once a host of risk and the demographic factors are incorporated into the model for females, but not for males.

This study highlights the importance of sexual violence and IPV prevention and intervention strategies for college-aged youth.

New ways of perpetrating relational aggression have been facilitated by the increased availability and adoption of technology for communication, resulting in growing cyberaggression rates over the past few decades. Few studies have examined whether perpetrators of cyberaggression are more likely to target friends or romantic partners (or both) and whether this differs across the gender of the perpetrator. This is the key focus of the current study.

Participants completed an online survey which assessed three types of cyberaggression (threatened to share secrets, shared secrets and posted embarrassing pictures) against friends and then also against romantic partners. The sample included 678 undergraduate university students who were in a romantic relationship at the time of the survey (72.6% female and 27.4% male, age range 18–50 years, average 21.7 and SD = 4.5).

The results of this study showed that a significantly higher proportion of males than females perpetrated cyberaggression against friends and romantic partners. In addition, a significantly higher proportion of males engaged in “general” cyberaggression (targeting both friends and romantic partners), whilst a higher proportion of females engaged in “selective” cyberaggression (targeting either friends or romantic partners).

Collectively, this study tells us that whilst there has been wide examination of cyberaggression more broadly, very few studies explore who perpetrators target (i.e. the victim–offender relationship), especially across gender of the perpetrator. The current study is original in that it asks perpetrators to report who they target and then examines gender differences in perpetration rates across victim–offender relationships.

Purpose – To develop a new model of restorative reparation that attempts to capture the dynamic role of shared identity perceptions.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on recent advances in restorative justice theory (Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather, & Platow, 2008), we explore the theoretical proposition that a greater understanding of the identity relations between victims, offenders, and the groups in which they are embedded is key to understanding a victim's underlying motives toward justice, and thus, predicting when victims will react favorably to restorative justice processes and prefer them over traditional retributive justice interventions.

Findings – We argue that a perceived shared identity between the victim and the offender determines the extent to which the victim understands the transgression as requiring a revalidation of the rules, values, or morals undermined by the offense. Moreover, we propose that these identity relations are dynamic in that they both affect and are affected by the experience of injustice. Thus, identity is also shaped by the transgression itself through, inter alia, processes associated with positive social identity maintenance. Importantly, these shifts in identity determine how injustice victims are likely to respond to constructive approaches to conflict resolution such as restorative justice.

Originality/value – We offer a series of testable hypotheses aimed at engendering future research in the domain of constructive justice restoration in groups. Moreover, this work suggests that to develop effective resolution strategies, we must consider how an injustice event shapes the relations between the affected parties over time rather than simply assuming identity relations are static.

This paper aims to use the theory of planned behavior to evaluate factors that influence openness to participating in a victim-offender conference (VOC).

Consistent with theory of planned behavior recommendations, the study uses a vignette-based design to assess participation openness as willingness to participate in a VOC if they were victims of a property crime. It evaluates the goodness of fit of a hypothesized structural model of participation openness to the data and the utility of a theory of planned behavior model as opposed to simply an outcome-driven model.

Findings from a hierarchical linear regression illustrate that a theory of planned behavior model explains a greater percentage of participation willingness than does an outcome-driven model. Analysis using structural equation modeling suggests that participation openness is largely a function of subjective norms, anticipated affect and anticipated outcomes.

Limitations spring largely from sampling method and research design. Research implications pertain to the utility of theory of planned behavior in expanding research of VOC participation openness to include not only outcomes but also relational and contextual factors.

The manuscript identifies several implications for training facilitators, talking with prospective VOC participants and advocating for restorative justice programs.

Use of the theory of planned behavior as a lens for understanding openness to VOC participation gives researchers and practitioners a wider and more nuanced understanding of why people would generally be willing to participate in a VOC if they were the victim of an offense.

Few studies have explored the correlates of police responses to the crime of stalking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlates of nine specific police actions (no action, multiple actions, took a report, talked to perpetrator, arrested perpetrator, recommended PO or RO, recommended self-protection, referred to prosecutor’s office and referred to social services) to this type of crime. This study found three of the four incident measures (victim-offender relationship, intimidation and physical injury) and three of the four victim demographic measures (age, gender and marital status) significantly predicted seven of the nine police actions.

Data for this study came from the 2006 Stalking Victimization Supplement of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The sample included stalking cases that were reported to the police and all measures were constructed using victims’ responses to survey questionnaires. Nine logistic regression models were estimated and in each model, four incident characteristic variables and four victim demographic variables were regressed on each of the nine police actions.

This study found three of the four incident characteristic measures (victim-offender relationship, intimidation, and physical injury) and three of the four victim demographic variables (age, gender and marital status) were significantly related to seven of the nine specific police actions (no action, multiple actions, arrested perpetrator, recommended PO or RO, recommended self-protection, referred to prosecutor’s office and referred to social services). None of the incident characteristic and victim demographic measures were related to two of the nine specific police actions (took a report and talked to perpetrator).

This study possesses the same shortcomings associated with the NCVS. The current study involves cross-sectional, official data that are over 10 years old. The measures employed in the current study are victims’ perceptions of how the officers acted. The study does not include information regarding how many times the victim contacted the police or the nature of the stalking episode. The study excludes other variables (suspect’s demeanor, the presence of witnesses) that may be relevant in examining subsequent police responses to stalking.

Frontline offices should be required to undertake stalking training. Further, stalking training needs to be conducted independently from domestic violence training. Mandatory stalking training for law enforcement officers will lead to a greater comprehension of existing stalking statute for the officers as well as help increase the number of offenders being identified and charged with this crime by the officers.

Police inaction to reported stalking not only dissuade victims from reporting future victimizations, it will also result in stalking being an under-reported crime. Police inaction could potentially compromise victim safety and/or offender accountability. Police inaction also undermines the legitimacy of law enforcement and attenuates the relationship between citizens and police agencies.

To date, only one study has examined the correlates of subsequent police responses to the crime of stalking. However, this study employed broad measures of police actions (formal and informal). The current study involves specific police actions (e.g. taking a report, referring the victim to social service agencies). Contrary to the prior study that found none of the incident and victim characteristics was related to two broad measures of subsequent police responses, this study found several incident and victim measures significantly predicted seven specific police actions.

This paper evaluates juvenile delinquency mediation in the West German judicial system. It describes three programs which spearheaded mediation in Germany. The evaluation concentrates on the influence of program organization and implementation on effectiveness of mediation. First, results from four studies that evaluate the oldest of these programs are reported. These studies deal with (a) the number of cases suited to mediation, (b) the actual amount of mediation, (c) the practicability of mediation as judged by program experts, and (d) the acceptance of mediation by victims and offenders. Second, a comparative analysis of all three programs is presented focusing on (a) program goals and (b) impact of implementation on the preselection of cases and the role of the mediator. An overall evaluation shows that media‐tion is an effective means of conflict management beyond petty offense; recommendations of the police proved helpful in selecting cases for mediation; the complexity of conflicts suggests a special training for mediators.

The reinvigoration of restorative justice (RJ) within criminal justice has brought with it many opportunities but also significant challenges. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current considerations when providing a quality RJ service that meet the needs of victim, offender the community and the criminal justice system.

This paper is a personal viewpoint of the author obtained from working nationally in the criminal justice arena specifically advising on RJ to police forces, police and crime commissioners and others.

Findings suggest the provision of RJ in the UK is patchy, and the provision of a quality provision even more of a challenge.

Consideration given to the need for quality not to be sacrificed in the advancement of RJ and some of the implications of this.

Offers perspectives on the application of RJ in new and rapidly growing arenas.

In order to address a notable gap in the research literature, the purpose of this paper is to examine age-related differences in juvenile homicide perpetration.

Data on 150 juvenile homicide offenders and their offences was derived from material available within the public domain, including media reports, case studies, court reports and previously published studies. Comparisons were then made between those aged 14 and under (n=63) and those aged 14-17 (n=87) across a range of offender, victim and offence-related variables.

There were no significant differences between the child (U-14) and adolescent (14-17) offender samples on any of the measured variables. The two groups had similar backgrounds, selected similar types of victims, had comparable breakdowns of different types of victim-offender relationship and had similar patterns of weapon use.

The fact that the two groups did not differ significantly has notable implications in practical and applied domains. By identifying risk factors for juvenile homicide perpetration, findings open up a range of possibilities for identification, investigation and intervention. In addition, findings might inform the development of offender treatment and rehabilitation programmes. Key limitations relate to the quality and quantity of data employed. Ways of remedying these weaknesses in future research are addressed.

This is the first study to directly compare child and adolescent perpetrators of homicide over a broad range of offender, victim and offence attributes.