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This paper reports findings from a recent study of adult protection case conferences, focusing on how the victim's views may be represented or heard.

In 2018, the National Human Trafficking hotline received 275 cases of human trafficking in Pennsylvania, a higher than average portion of the 10,949 human trafficking cases received for the USA. Whether human trafficking victims receive services or enter the criminal justice system as prostitution offenders depends on how police identify them, as police officers are usually the first to interact with human trafficking victims. Thus, understanding how police identify human trafficking is important. The purpose of the study is to explore Pennsylvania police perceptions of human trafficking.

Scenarios were presented in a survey to 489 Pennsylvania police officers.

Police training improved officer identification of human trafficking (vs prostitution) involving older victims. Officers with more tenure were less likely to identify older victims of human trafficking than officers with less tenure. However, older officers were better able to successfully identify older (i.e. age 25 years) victims of human trafficking, but officer age had no effect on identifying younger (i.e. age 15 years) victims of human trafficking. The implications are discussed in the study.

The study contributes to the literature by testing (1) whether training affects police ability to identify human trafficking victims in a scenario, controlling for other factors and (2) whether victim age affects officer identification of human trafficking victims. More officers correctly identified younger victims of human trafficking when force was explicitly stated, but more officers misidentified younger victims when force was not explicitly stated and older victims when force was explicitly stated.

The disclosure of private images with the intent of causing distress is often described as “revenge pornography”. In the UK, this newly legislated crime has received a high level of media attention following several high profile cases, however, there is a paucity of research in this area. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In total, 168 adults (UK general public) completed an online survey using a vignette approach. Views of the influence of perpetrator-victim relationship length and reason for termination were considered alongside perception of an offence, the necessity of police intervention, what extent revenge pornography creates psychological harm in victims, and victim blaming.

Perpetrator-victim relationship length and reason for relationship breakdown did not influence perceptions of victim blame. Participants believed that the situation described in the vignettes was likely to be an offence, and that police intervention is somewhat necessary. Participants believed that the scenario was “very likely” to create fear, and “moderately likely” to create psychological/mental harm in victims. In line with the literature relating to stalking and sexual assault, men blamed the victim significantly more than women. Furthermore, women rated police intervention as significantly more necessary than men.

The public are recognising that revenge pornography is an offence, with consequences being fear and psychological harm, showing an awareness of the impact on victims. However, there are sex differences in the perceptions of revenge pornography and victim blaming, and this could be addressed by raising awareness of this crime. This research, which highlights that the public are aware of some of the harm caused, may encourage victims in coming forward to report such a crime.

There is a paucity of research into revenge pornography, and this study is one of the first in this area.

The police have been given the responsibility of the first response to domestic violence. Their performance in this role has been inconsistent and often inadequate. While many departments have the capacity to improve their response, the police acting alone are often poorly staffed and ill equipped to provide purposeful, proactive change. This study examines the efficacy of a domestic violence coordinated response team pilot project. In an effort to improve the police response and to reduce repeat incidents among intimate partners, this project teamed uniformed police officers and victim advocates as first responders/follow‐up investigators, and augmented them with personnel from probation, parole and corrections services. The pilot project concentrated exclusively on violence between intimate partners. Over 18,000 domestic violence calls for service were reviewed. Evaluators identified and extracted over 4,000 bona fide intimate partner domestic violence cases. The study found the specialized domestic violence unit performed significantly better than the control district. Higher arrest, prosecution and conviction rates resulted from cases initiated by the specialized unit. Factors impacting performance of the unit are explored and observations made concerning evaluation difficulties and strategies.

Half of British university students experience assault and harassment behaviours; few report them. Bystander intervention training has been recommended as a means of reducing these behaviours, but there is little evidence about their potential effectiveness in UK contexts. The purpose of this paper is to understand UK students’ attitudes towards reporting and intervening in sexual assault, harassment and hate crimes.

A mixed methods cross-sectional survey (n=201; 75.6 per cent women) was conducted in one British university. Open text data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Students considered harassment and assault unacceptable, and were confident to intervene in and likely to report incidents. However, fear of backlash was a barrier to intervening and reporting, and they felt that victims should decide whether to report incidents. Students perceived perpetrators as being ignorant about what constitutes consent, harassment and assault. They identified a need for university community education about this and how to report incidents and support peers.

This cross-sectional survey was conducted at one UK University. The data might not reflect other students’ attitudes, and may be subject to response bias. University community bystander training should be acceptable, report and support systems might be utilised by students. This may have potential to reduce prevalence and increase reporting.

University community bystander training should be acceptable, report and support systems might be utilised by students. This may have potential to reduce prevalence and increase reporting.

This is the first study to investigate UK student attitudes to prosocial bystander behaviours.

There have been very few attempts in the economics literature to empirically study the link between criminal and corrupt behaviour due to lack of data sets on simultaneous information on both types of illegitimate activities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The present study uses a large cross-country data set containing individual responses to questions on crime and corruption along with information on the respondents' characteristics. These micro-level data are supplemented by country-level macro and institutional indicators. A methodological contribution of this study is the estimation of an ordered probit model based on outcomes defined as combinations of crime and bribe victimisation.

The authors find that: a crime victim is more likely to face bribe demands, males are more likely victims of corruption while females are of serious crime, older individuals and those living in the smaller towns are less exposed to crime and corruption, increasing levels of income and education increase the likelihood of crime and bribe victimisation to be reported and a stronger legal system and a happier society reduce both crime and corruption. However, the authors find no evidence of a strong and uniformly negative impact of either crime or corruption on a country's growth rate.

This paper is, to the authors' knowledge, the first in the literature to explore the nexus between crime and corruption, their magnitudes, determinants and their effects on growth rates.

Workplace bullying generates various emotions, including shame in the target; these emotions can induce employee silence. However, the role of shame in the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence, and the individual differences in how victims experience shame and silence, has not yet been explored. The present study aims to fill this gap in the literature, using the effect of shame as a mediator and core self-evaluation (CSE) as a moderator.

Two thousand faculty members working in different colleges in India were invited to participate in the online survey. The participants were invited to fill in the questionnaire only if they had experienced shame by bullying during the preceding two weeks. Three hundred and twenty faculty members responded to the survey.

The results showed that shame mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and diffident silence. In addition, CSE moderates the relationship between shame and diffident silence but not the relationship between workplace bullying and shame. That is, diffident silence induced by shame was noted to be weaker for employees with high CSE. Importantly, the study could not find any individual difference in experiencing shame by bullying.

Improved CSE can effectively influence diffident silence through shame, helping the management to recognize workplace bullying.

It is a unique attempt to address diffident silence among Indian academicians, and study the role of targets’ shame and CSE while adopting silence on workplace bullying.

The purpose of this paper is to examine attitudes towards prisoner-to-prisoner bullying, further considering the association between attitudes and characteristics of the prison environment thought to promote prisoner bullying.

Questionnaires were administered to 423 adult male prisoners and 195 correctional officers from three prisons in Canada. Participants completed the Prison Bullying Scale and the Prison Environmental Scale.

Convergence in attitudes between prisoners and officers were noted although staff were more likely to consider bullies to be skilled, whereas prisoners were more likely than officers to feel that victims of bullying should be supported. Associations between attitudes supportive of bullying and environmental characteristics likely to promote prison bullying were found primarily among prisoners; the strongest predictors of such attitudes were poor relationships (e.g. prisoner to officer; prisoner-to-prisoner).

The study highlights the importance of the social aspect of the prison environment. It further provides an outline of two measures that could have utility in evaluating interventions designed to reduce prisoner-to-prisoner bullying.

Interventions into prisoner-to-prisoner bullying should attend to the wider environment and not focus solely on individual pathology approaches. A “whole prison” approach to intervention should be adopted, with recognition that officers and prisoners are part of the community. A focus on the perceived relationships between all those in this community requires consideration, with a community centred approach recommended for intervention. A concentrated effort is needed on evaluating and publishing interventions into prisoner-to-prisoner bullying.

The study is the first to examine attitudes in a combined sample of prisoners and officers and focuses on the role of the wider prison environment. It also utilises a sample from three prisons as opposed to focusing on a single establishment.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the potential and limits of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) in supporting adults with social care needs who also experience domestic violence.

The paper reports on a scoping review as part of a wider research project entitled: to identify and assess the effectiveness of social care's contribution to the development of MARAC and the protection of adults facing domestic violence.

An understanding of the workings of MARAC could support social care practice with high-risk victims of domestic violence. However, the conception of risk assessment and management central to the process also poses ethical dilemmas for practitioners.

Social care is ideally placed to support, in an holistic manner, a group of vulnerable service-users with complex needs. However, the current climate of austerity could jeopardise this work.

There is little in the professional and academic press on the MARAC process and particularly in relation to adults and older people. This paper alerts the practice community to the process, its historical development and characteristics and implications for practice.

It is recommended that universities implement bystander interventions to disrupt the interpersonal violence and abuse that students experience in this context. Yet, there are few evaluations of bystander interventions in the UK. Building on an existing evaluation carried out on a bystander intervention at a university in 2017/18, the purpose of this research was to evaluate the intervention.

Using a one-way repeated measures design, analysis of variance was used to analyse pre- and post-intervention data gathered from 121 students, during 2018/19.

As the aims of the session were met, it can be inferred individuals who participate in the bystander intervention have the potential to disrupt interpersonal violence and abuse.

The small sample size and design of the survey limited the research. Further evaluations of bystander interventions are needed in the UK that utilises large samples and a validated survey.

This paper notes the importance of engaging many students in a cohort to participate on a bystander intervention.

This study adds to the paucity of evaluations of bystander interventions in the UK. Knowing that the intervention has the potential to disrupt interpersonal violence and abuse builds the momentum for other similarly designed interventions to be implemented in universities in the UK.