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The current study examined police response, specifically identification and arrest decisions, to nonfatal strangulation occurring within the context of intimate partner violence.

Data for the present study were derived from a sample of 117 possible nonfatal strangulation case reported to a police agency located in one of the fifth largest and most diverse US cities. A series of logistic regression models were employed to examine the role of victim, suspect and case characteristics on officer formal identification of strangulation and officer arrest decisions.

Results revealed that 14% of all intimate partner violence (IPV) cases reported to the police agency involved possible nonfatal strangulation and less than half of all possible nonfatal strangulation cases were formally identified as such by officers. The odds of formal identification of strangulation by police increased when strangulation was manual and when victims reported difficulty breathing. Injury and formal identification increased the odds of arrest.

This study is the first to examine predictors of police formal identification and arrest decisions in nonfatal strangulation occurring within intimate partner violence incidents.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a coordinated effort to improve the law enforcement response to non-fatal strangulation in the context of domestic violence.

The authors compare law enforcement identification and documentation of strangulation in domestic violence cases before and after the implementation of a strangulation-specific training program in one Central Florida County.

The results indicate preliminary support for the effectiveness of training law enforcement, suggesting that the response to strangulation can be improved with comprehensive law enforcement training.

An improved response by law enforcement may have the potential to increase offender accountability of non-fatal strangulation – a potentially deadly assault.

The study is the first to evaluate strangulation-specific training efforts of law enforcement. Results point to opportunities that can be taken to improve law enforcement’s response to non-fatal strangulation in domestic violence.

Prison institutional conditions affect risk for self-harm among detainees. In particular, prison overcrowding may increase the likelihood of self-harm by creating competition for resources, space, and enhancing a “deprivation state.” The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between overcrowding and prisoner acts of self-harm.

This cross-sectional study took place at Geneva’s pre-trial prison (capacity:376) between 2006 and 2014. Outcomes were acts of self-harm that required medical attention, and self-strangulation/hanging events (combined into one group, as these are difficult to differentiate). Dichotomous predictors were overcrowding index- annual mean daily population divided by capacity ( > 200 percent vs < 200 percent), and year group (2006-2009 vs 2011-2014).

Self-harm and self-strangulations/hangings increased in 2011-2014 compared to 2006-2010 (p < 0.001). Overcrowding in excess of 200 percent was associated with self-strangulation/hangings (p < 0.001) but not with all self-harm events. In terms of pertinent demographics that would affect self-harm, there was no prison change in gender, area of origin, foreign residency, religion, or psychiatric treatment.

The present study is limited by the definition and identification of self-harm. The distinction between self-strangulation and self-hanging, and the precise classification of an intent to die is difficult to make in practice, especially with limited prison data records available. The relevant literature addresses the complexity of the association between non-suicidal and suicidal behavior. Despite this, the combined category self-strangulations/hangings gives some indication of severe self-harm events, especially since the methodology of categorization employed was consistent throughout the entire period of the study. Other limitations include the small sample size and the lack of individual patient data and prison data to help control for confounding factors. Despite these drawbacks, pertinent data (socio-demographics and number of prisoners treated for mental health and drug abuse) remained stable over the years. Thus, there are no apparent changes in the inmate population that could be linked to an increase in self-harm. High-security placements and mean prisoner stay have increased over time, with a decrease in staff to prisoner ratio – and these must be looked into further as contributors. Additionally, qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviews and focus groups could delineate the impact of overcrowding on prisoner well-being and self-harm potential.

The authors observed a significant increase in self-harm and self-strangulation/hangings over time, and overcrowding was significantly associated with self-strangulation/hangings (but not with all self-harm events). Overcrowding can impose destructive effects on the psychological and behavioral well being of inmates in prison, influencing a myriad of emotional and livelihood factors that predispose to harmful behavior.

This report should alert public health and prison authorities to this issue, and garner resources to address such an alarming rise. The findings from this short report demonstrate the need for a further examination of the mechanisms affecting self-harm among prisoners in this population, particularly the relationship between self-strangulations/hangings and overcrowding.

In 2020, the Westminster Government proposed statutory provision prohibiting the use of ‘consent to serious harm for sexual gratification’ as a defence to criminal charges of violence. This addition to the Domestic Abuse bill was made in response to the 18 month campaign by We Can’t Consent To This and a cross party group of MPs, after rising numbers of homicides of women where the perpetrators claimed the woman asked for the violence, in ‘rough sex’, ‘gone wrong’.

This research is based on new data and detailed analysis on 67 non-fatal violent assaults and 24 homicides where the accused claimed that this violence was consensual, focussing on criminal cases in England and Wales over the 10 years from 2010. Some earlier cases are included for historical context and particularly where they became influential in later Criminal Justice System (CJS) outcomes. It addresses a shortage of data on the use of ‘consent’ claims in defence to charges of fatal and non-fatal violence, using keyword searches on historic news and legal archives and submissions from victims in criminal cases to establish the extent of these claims, the nature of the assaults claimed consensual, and to assess the CJS’s response to the claims.

This research – part of the evidence from We Can’t Consent To This which was considered by Government – set out the case for new law on consent defences to violence, despite there being existing common law in England and Wales. This research finds that the so-called ‘rough sex’ defences have been successful in deflecting prosecution for violence against women for decades, identifying failings at every stage of the CJS, in fatal and non-fatal violent assaults. Notably the women injured in these criminal cases do not agree that they consented to the violence, where they are able to take part in criminal proceedings. But still the claims that they did appear to have succeeded.

This research proposes that change in attitudes and outcomes is needed at every stage of the CJS, and, with the UK Government proposing to keep the criminal law on this ‘under review’, identifying where further provision in law or in practice may be needed.

Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) is a dangerous form of domestic violence. We need to understand and address the challenges of prosecuting offences of NFS to help ensure the safety of women and children. This policy brief draws on an examination of prosecution case files involving NFS. It identifies the key challenges and makes recommendations for responding to them.

This chapter will explore the links between coercive control and ‘rough sex’. The chapter will highlight how easily sexual behaviour within a coercively controlling relationship can be presented as consensual. The chapter will explain how coercive control is typically about compelling a partner to comply with traditional gender norms and this makes consent within such a relationship particularly difficult to assess. However, it will be argued that there should be a strong legal presumption that if a relationship is marked by coercive control that sexual behaviour within it is non-consensual. The chapter will also explore in what circumstances rough sex should be regarded as lawful.

The enshrinement of R v Brown within section 71 Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was celebrated by campaign group ‘We Can’t Consent To This’ (WCCTT) as a means of combating the rough sex defence, and as a victory for women. Yet the practical limitations of this codification suggests that there is more to this claimed victory. In this chapter I suggest that the symbolic effect of the codification of Brown underpinned WCCTT’s celebration, as for the first time the legal treatment of sadomasochistic sex (‘SM sex’) became interwoven with, and inflected by, legislation seeking to target abuse. This approach, influenced by the traditions of radical feminism, represents a departure from a liberal legal method and, I argue, forecloses productive legal reform. In affirming the contemporary relevance of Brown, a case infamously mired in homophobia, the legal harm of SM sex is both improperly considered and improperly addressed. Further, by stitching together Brown and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the law fails to articulate what distinguishes SM sexual practice and abuse. This analysis does not prevent my agreeing that SM sex poses significant challenges to the operation of justice. To conclude, I propose that an approach which seeks to bolster the competence of the court via education, and that distinguishes breathplay from the otherwise monolithic treatment of SM sex (building on section 70 Domestic Abuse Act 2021) will generate better outcomes for both sexual diversity and those who experience gender-based violence.

The analysis of previous studies showed that research pertaining to the examination of the crime scene and Modus Operandi variables in intimate partner homicide (IPH) is scarce. Additionally, to our knowledge, there are no studies investigating sexual homicide perpetrated by intimate partners. This study aims to address that void. Thus, the study examined various components of the crime event and as such, it was exploratory in nature.

The study consisted of male sexual killers, who perpetrated against pubescent female victims (14 years old and over) and served a custodial sentence within Her Majesty’s Prison Service in England and Wales. Variables for the study were chosen on the basis of previous research examining IPH and sexual homicide. Descriptive analyses were used in this exploratory study.

Descriptive analyses indicated that the most prevalent aggravating circumstances in the lead up to the killing included conflict with the victim before the offence and substance use by the perpetrator around the time of the killing. Stalking was present in approximately a quarter of cases. The results of the analyses of sexual behaviours showed that in 54.9% of the sample the act of killing was purely instrumental whereas in 39.4% of the sample the underlying drive of the act of killing was closely related to the sexual aspect.

This is a unique study on a topic not yet explored.

The purpose of this article is to improve the use of evidence-based practice and research utilization in the offender profiling process. The use of offender profiling has been met with increasing resistance given its exaggerated accuracy. The “Investigative Journalist/Expert Field Micro Task Force” model, a collaborative method that incorporates offender profiling and is designed to address unresolved serial homicides, is introduced and evaluated alongside recommendations on attaining adherence.

The model was field tested in 17 instances. The measures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gauge the usefulness of their case consultations, whether their input helped catch the offender, offer new leads, move the case forward, provide new avenues or give new ideas, were used to evaluate the model.

The model established likely patterns of serial murder activity among strangulations of women in Chicago, Cleveland, and Panama and resulted in convictions of suspects in Louisiana and Kansas City. This model is valuable when used to parse modern-day offenders from those who committed unresolved homicides as the latter display different behaviors that can make investigations difficult endeavors. Results from the field tests mirror those from the literature in that profiling alone did not result in the capture of serial killers. Instead, profiling was used in conjunction with other efforts and mainly as a means to keep the investigation moving forward.

Unresolved homicides are at a point of crisis and represent a significant but largely unaddressed societal problem. The success of this model may compel law enforcement to restore faith in offender profiling.

As a result of massive doses of external constraints on business, the past two decades have seen a trend in many U.S. companies from aggressive, tough‐minded fast movers, with confident independent middle managers, to much more procedure‐bound and uncertain or slow‐acting bureaucracies. Decisions of importance must now conform to volumes of policy manuals and be ratified by increasing numbers of specialist staff people, particularly legal and accounting staff. Clearly this bureaucratic strangulation leaves much to be desired. To hamstring middle management by imposing layer on layer of caveats and internal “regulations,” and by requiring that their decisions be ratified by burgeoning hierarchies of staff specialists, serves only to slow managers' response times, destroy their initiative, and demotivate those that have any aggressiveness at all. Equally clearly, for a company's middle managers to build and maintain momentum they need to be able to act autonomously and confidently, yet at the same time there is a need for them to act in ways that are appropriate for the overall company they represent.