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This study seeks to examine whether blame and fault assigned to victims and perpetrators in a hypothetical sexual violence case are distinct conceptually, and whether they are affected by gender of participant, perpetrator and victim.

Participants read an incident of either female or male rape, perpetrated by either a female or a male, and assigned attributions of blame and fault to both victims and perpetrators. Participants also completed Burt's Rape Myth Acceptance Scale.

Findings showed that none of the independent variables had any effect on victim attributions of blame and fault, only affecting blame and fault assigned to perpetrators. Perpetrators of male victim rape were assigned more blame than perpetrators of female victim rape. In terms of fault: male participants reduced the amount of fault that they attributed to female perpetrators relative to male perpetrators; and female participants increased the amount of fault that they attributed to female perpetrators relative to male perpetrators. In addition, greater endorsement of traditional sex‐role attitudes and rape myths was associated with higher rape victim blame.

Findings are discussed in relation to social norms, social categorisation theory and differential focus of specific rape victim vs rape victims in general.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether indicating victims of sexual attacks actively resisted their attacker or froze during their assault affected perceptions of victim blame, perpetrator blame and seriousness of the crime. We also tested whether victim and perpetrator gender or participants’ rape myth endorsement moderated the outcomes.

This study was a cross-sectional, vignette survey study with a 2 × 2 between-participants experimental design. Participants read a mock police report describing an alleged rape with a female or male victim who either resisted or froze, while perpetrator gender was adjusted heteronormatively.

Freezing and male victims were blamed more than resisting and female victims. Perpetrators were blamed more when the victim resisted, but male and female perpetrators were blamed equally. Seriousness of the crime was higher for male perpetrators and when the victim resisted. Female, but not male, rape myth acceptance moderated the relationship between victim behaviour and outcome variables.

This study highlights the influence of expectations about victim behaviour on perceptions of rape victims and the pervasive influence of rape myths when evaluating female rape victims. The data is drawn from the German border region of the Netherlands, which is an especially valuable population given the evolving legal definitions of rape in both countries.

Research on women who sexually abuse children is relatively scarce and tends to rely on small or unrepresentative convenience samples. The purpose of the current descriptive study is to examine characteristics female perpetrators of child sexual abuse using a large and contemporary dataset.

This study analyzes data collected by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, which is a census of all child protective services investigations or assessments conducted in all 50 states, as well as in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico from October 1, 2018, to September 30, 2019.

Only substantiated cases of sexual abuse were analyzed (n = 51,442 cases). Overall, 7.6% of the perpetrators were female, though the percentage of female perpetrators varied dramatically across states from less than 1% to over 36%. Female perpetrators tended to have younger victims than did male perpetrators. For children aged 2 or less, female perpetrators constituted approximately 20% of the abusers. Female perpetrators were more likely to victimize male and female children, whereas male perpetrators predominantly had female victims. More female perpetrators had a prior finding of maltreatment than did male perpetrators (32.3% vs 23.5%).

These findings add to the limited research base on female perpetrators of child sexual abuse and highlight avenues for further research into the differences between male and female sexual abusers.

This study is a replication of previous research but also provides additional novel findings.

The purpose of this study is to compare perceptions of male cisgender and male transgender stalking perpetrators. There present study compared participants’ perceptions of whether behaviour constituted stalking, posed a threat, had a risk of violence and required police intervention when the perpetrator was transgender or cisgender. The present study also sought to replicate the prior-relationship misconception in stalking literature and to investigate whether perceptions of transgender perpetrators changed based on the age and gender of the perceiver.

Participants read vignettes outlining the relationship between victim and perpetrator as well as a description of the stalking behaviours. Participants then reported their perceptions of the four dependent variables on Likert-type scales.

The prior-relationship misconception was replicated. There were no significant differences in perceptions of transgender and cisgender perpetrators across the four dependent variables. There were also no significant differences in perceptions based on the gender of the perceiver. Contrary to expectations, older participants perceived transgender perpetrators as less threatening than younger participants.

The prior-relationship misconception is robust to gender identity of the perpetrator. The participants in the present study seemed to make judgements based on stalking behaviour and not the gender identity of the perpetrator. Future research should replicate this study with more severe stalking behaviours and with greater variation in gender identity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare perceptions of cisgender and transgender males in the context of stalking perpetration. There is also consideration of how the demographics of the perceiver could impact these perceptions. This study also contributes to research on the prior-relationship misconception by demonstrating that the misconception is robust to gender identification of the perpetrator.

This paper aims to propose the application of the Crime Triangle of Routine Activity Theory to fraud events as a complement to the universally accepted Fraud Triangle.

The application of the Crime Triangle is illustrated using scenarios of asset misappropriations by type of perpetrator: external perpetrator, employee, management and the board and its governing bodies.

The Crime Triangle complements the Fraud Triangle’s perpetrator-centric focus by examining the environment where fraud occurs and the relevant parties that play their role in preventing fraud or not playing their role, and thus, allowing the occurrence of fraud. Applying both triangles to a fraud event provides a comprehensive view of the fraud event.

The scenarios are limited to asset misappropriations with one perpetrator. Future research can apply both triangles to different types of fraud and cases where perpetrators collude to commit fraud.

This paper maps the Crime Triangle to the Fraud Triangle to provide forensic accounting practitioners and researchers with a comprehensive perspective of a fraud event. This comprehensive perspective of fraud is the starting point to designing fraud risk management strategies that address both the perpetrator and the environment where the fraud event occurs.

This paper is the first to propose the application of the established Crime Triangle environmental criminology theory as a complement to the Fraud Triangle to obtain a comprehensive perspective of a fraud event.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of power imbalance to explain workplace and demographic characteristics associated with bullying by different perpetrators in the healthcare sector.

All 69,927 members of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victoria) were invited to participate in an online survey in 2014; 4,891 responses were received (7 per cent response rate). Participants were asked about their exposure to workplace bullying (WPB) by different perpetrators. The questionnaire addressed demographic characteristics and perceptions of workplace characteristics (workplace type, leading indicators of occupational health and safety (OHS), prioritisation of OHS, supervisor support for safety and bureaucracy). Analysis involved descriptive statistics and regression analyses.

The study found that the exposure of nurses and health workers to bullying is relatively high (with 42 per cent of respondents experiencing WPB in the past 12 months) and there are multiple perpetrators of bullying. The research revealed several demographic predictors associated with the different types of perpetrators. Downward and horizontal bullying were the most prevalent forms. Workplace characteristics were more important predictors of bullying by different perpetrators than were demographic characteristics.

There are limitations to the study due to a low response rate and the cross-sectional survey.

Practical implications of this study emphasise the importance of focussed human resource strategies to prevent bullying.

The key contribution of this research is to draw from theoretical explanations of power to inform understanding of the differences between perpetrators of bullying. The study highlights the workplace characteristics that influence bullying.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of why sex harassment persists in organizations for prolonged periods – often as an open secret.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 people in diverse organizations experiencing persistent sex harassment. Data were analyzed using standard qualitative methods.

The overarching finding was that perpetrators were embedded in networks of complicity that were central to explaining the persistence of sex harassment in organizations. By using power and manipulating information, perpetrators built networks that protected them from sanction and enabled their behavior to continue unchecked. Networks of complicity metastasized and caused lasting harm to victims, other employees and the organization as a whole.

The authors used broad, open-ended questions and guided introspection to guard against the tendency to ask for information to confirm their assumptions, and the authors analyzed the data independently to mitigate subjectivity and establish reliability.

To stop persistent sex harassment, not only must perpetrators be removed, but formal and informal ties among network of complicity members must also be weakened or broken, and victims must be integrated into networks of support. Bystanders must be trained and activated to take positive action, and power must be diffused through egalitarian leadership.

Understanding the power of networks in enabling perpetrators to persist in their destructive behavior is another step in countering sex harassment.

Social network theory has rarely been used to understand sex harassment or why it persists.

This paper aims to examine whether being shown a testimony alleging that the perpetrator of a crime was influenced by an accomplice has an impact on the severity of the sentence given to this accomplice.

A total of 119 participants read the summary of a case of armed robbery. Two experimental conditions were adopted: the presence of a testimony suggesting the accomplice’s influence on the perpetrator in committing the crime (versus no testimony). The participants were then asked what sentence they would give the accomplice and what sentence they would have given the perpetrator of the crime, who had in fact already been sentenced. The participants rated items relating to the explanation for the crime (perception that the perpetrator had been manipulated by the presumed accomplice) and to the presumed accomplice’s intent to commit the crime.

The participants showed themselves to be harsher towards the presumed accomplice when they were shown the testimony about his influence, which reduced the disparity with the sentence they would have given to the perpetrator of the crime. Analyses of mediation show that the participants shown the testimony (as opposed to those who were not) were more likely to say that the presumed accomplice manipulated the perpetrator of the crime, leading them to be more likely to attribute to the accomplice the intent to commit the crime and to be harsher towards him.

The results of this research are discussed with a focus on naïve interpretations of influence in the very specific context of legal adjudication.

The purpose of this paper is to examine alleged perpetrators' reactions to being accused of discrimination.

The paper examines how the mode of confrontation as well as the perpetrator's status relate to the alleged perpetrator's state of anger and the likelihood of providing a justification to the victim. To test the hypotheses, the authors conducted an experimental design using an organizational scenario.

The mode of confrontation predicts the likelihood of providing a justification to the victim. The paper also found that both anger and the likelihood of providing a justification for a charge of discrimination are higher when the mode of confrontation is indirect and the alleged perpetrator is the supervisor.

An organizational scenario limits the realism of the study such that results may not generalize to actual organizational settings (Stone, Hosoda, Lukaszewski and Phillips). In addition, the response rate was low. Nevertheless, a full understanding of issues related to reactions to alleged discrimination will depend upon research conducted in a variety of settings under a variety of conditions.

It is unlikely that direct confrontations will be instrumental in correcting misperceptions of discriminatory behavior. Organizations need to provide training on how to manage confrontation episodes as an opportunity to mitigate perceived mistreatment.

Which mode of confrontation is best? Indirect confrontation is associated with a higher likelihood of the alleged perpetrator providing a justification for a charge of discrimination, particularly when the alleged perpetrator is the supervisor. However, anger is also higher when supervisors are confronted indirectly about allegations of discrimination.

This paper aims to convict the offender of real concurrence offenses of the most severe offense and applying the most severe penalty will result in no distinction between the perpetrator who conducted more than one act and the one who conducted only one act. This approach deviates from the purpose of criminal law. The real concurrence of offenses means several offenses, the perpetrator’s dangerousness and culpability are much higher than the perpetrator who commits just one crime, so combined punishments for several offenses should be applied to the real concurrence of offenses.

If the depositors are acquaintances or relatives and friends, the relationship can be explained by “personality trust.” If the depositors are strangers, but they have complied with their duties of care, the deposit relationship can be explained by “system trust.”

The real concurrence of offenses means several offenses, the perpetrator’s dangerousness and culpability are much higher than the perpetrator who commits just one crime, so combined punishments for several offenses should be applied to the real concurrence of offenses.

The principle of choosing the most severe punishment applied to the real concurrence of offense should be abolished. As the perpetrator separately conducts two acts at different times, these acts infringe on different legal interests. Although these acts exist closely, the authors cannot deny that these acts constitute more than one offense.