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Despite representing a relatively small portion of the population, those who experience repeat victimization make up a significant share of all sexual and violent crimes, implying that perpetrators target them repeatedly. Indeed, research reveals specific traits (e.g. submissiveness) and behaviors (e.g. gait) related to past victimization or vulnerability. The purpose of this study is to explore the link between personality traits, self-assessed vulnerability and nonverbal cues.

In all, 40 undergraduate Canadian women were videotaped while recording a dating profile. Self-report measures of assertiveness, personality traits and vulnerability ratings for future sexual or violent victimization were obtained following the video-recording. The videotape was coded for nonverbal behaviors that have been related to assertiveness or submissiveness.

Self-perceived sexual vulnerability correlated with reduced assertiveness and dominance and increased emotionality (e.g. fear and anxiety). Additionally, nonverbal behaviors differed based on personality traits: self-touch was linked to lower assertiveness, dominance and extraversion and higher submissiveness, emotionality and warm-agreeableness.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to consider the relationships between personality, self-perceived vulnerability and nonverbal behaviors among college-aged women. Potential implications, including enhancing autonomy and self-efficacy, are discussed.

Limited research exists on the perceptions of police within specific ethnic minority groups. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of Korean and Korean American residents in the Metro Atlanta area regarding their perceptions of cooperation with the police, particularly in relation to hate crimes, along with their perceptions of police legitimacy and other relevant factors. By focusing on this specific population, the study aims to shed light on their unique perspectives and contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics between ethnic minorities and law enforcement.

The authors’ sample comprised 128 Korean residents who were asked about their demographics, victimization experiences, self-rated English proficiency and police legitimacy. Multiple linear regression analyses were employed to investigate the impact of police legitimacy, victimization experiences and English-speaking skills on the participants' level of cooperation with the police.

Police legitimacy and self-rated levels of English proficiency emerged as the most significant factors in predicting the level of cooperation among residents with the police. Furthermore, individuals who have experienced crime victimization in the past were more willing to cooperate with the police compared to those who have not. Additionally, men showed a higher tendency to cooperate with the police compared to women participants.

The findings of this study suggest important implications for the policies and strategies aimed at enhancing the relationship between the Korean American community and the police. These implications include the need for improved language support for non-English speaking community members and the importance of building trust and fostering mutual understanding to cultivate positive police-community relations. By implementing measures based on these findings, it is recommended to promote a more inclusive and effective approach to policing within the Korean American population.

The paper aims to provide a critical review of how variations in the conceptualization and contextualization of hate crime across US cities might impact how their individual law enforcement agencies collect hate crime data. Media reports and political discourses present hate crime as a prevalent problem in the USA. However, this representation of hate crime in the public sphere is not reflected in the relatively low national numbers of hate crimes published annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Drawing primarily on the national hate crime data for the period 2008–2018, this author conducted a secondary research study of the concept, context, extent and law enforcement collection of hate crime data in five cities in the USA.

This paper is a product of some of the findings of the study, which include the definition of hate crime at the federal, state and city levels and the contextualization of hate crimes at these levels. The findings show inconsistencies in how the five cities and associated law enforcement agencies conceptualize hate crime and in how they collect and report hate crime data at local and national levels.

Through its analysis of how five US cities and the associated law enforcement agencies interpret and respond to hate crime data collection, with recommendations of best practices for hate crime data collection by law enforcement agencies, the paper contributes to the academic and nonacademic debate on hate crime.

This paper aims to provide an overview of South African perspectives on preventing, monitoring and combating hate victimisation, towards informing international understandings.

Using a general review approach, this paper provides a historical examination of measures proposed by the South African Government and civil society since 1994, to prevent, monitor and combat hate crime, hate speech and intentional unfair discrimination.

Regardless of a constitutional commitment to social inclusion, diversity and minority rights, significant progress remains lacking after almost three decades of related advocacy, lobbying and limited government intervention. Findings of the South African Hate Crimes Working Group (HCWG) longitudinal Monitoring Project emphasise the need for decisive legal responses to hate victimisation.

A Bill, recognising hate crime and hate speech as distinct criminal offences, has been in development for almost 15 years and will soon serve before Parliament. Enactment of this legislation will be ground-breaking in Africa.

This paper contributes to the field of hate studies by providing an overview of the journey towards current conceptual understandings of hate in (South) Africa. It sets the stage for evaluating the potential of the redesigned HCWG monitoring tool, which holds promise for early identification and intervention in hate hotspots and targeted sectors. This instrument can establish trends not only in South Africa but also across the African continent.

The purpose is to understand how farmers in rural American communities perceive crime, safety and policing.

An online survey, adapted from a version used in Victoria, Australia (Harkness, 2017), was modified and administered through social media and farming organizations throughout three US states. The survey covers topics relating to crime and victimization, feelings of safety or fear in rural areas, policing practices and trust in police in their areas and any crime prevention practices that respondents use.

With nearly 1,200 respondents and four scales investigated, results indicate that those respondents with more favorable views of law enforcement and the criminal justice system had the highest fear of crime, those who had been prior victims of crime had a higher fear of crime than those who did not, those with higher community involvement had higher fear of crime, and those from Nebraska compared to Colorado had higher fear of crime.

A better understanding of the agricultural community’s perceptions of crime, safety and policing will aid law enforcement in community policing efforts and in farm crime investigation and prevention. Limitations of the study, including the distribution method will be discussed.

Farm- and agriculture-related crimes have serious financial and emotional consequences for producers and local economies. Stereotypes about rural areas being “safe with no crime” are still prevalent. Rural American farmers’ perceptions of crime, safety and police are largely absent from the literature and are important for improving farm crime prevention.

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.

This study explores the applicability of Anderson's (1999) code of the street framework to an Asian context by examining the relationship between residents' perceptions of police ineffectiveness, nationality, and street codes in foreigner-concentrated areas in South Korea.

The authors used survey data from 1,865 residents of diverse nationalities living in 20 foreigner-concentrated areas in South Korea. Mixed-effects ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and moderation analysis were used to examine (1) the association between residents' perceptions of police ineffectiveness and their street codes and (2) how this association varies across nationality groups.

The study findings overall indicated that higher resident perceptions of police as ineffective tended to correspond with greater levels of street codes. However, the interaction analysis results found that this relationship was conditioned by nationality. Specifically, perceptions of police ineffectiveness were associated with greater levels of street codes among foreign residents, particularly Korean-Chinese residents, whereas this was not the case among Korean residents.

The relationship between perceptions of the police and street codes described by Anderson (1999) has primarily been examined in the context of the U.S. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to explore the link between residents' perceptions of the police and street codes by different nationality groups within an Asian setting.

Social psychology has focused on an individual’s reaction to emergencies and witnessing a crime, which has developed theories of bystander intervention and bystander apathy. The purpose of this study is to explore why people choose to intervene when they are a bystander to intimate partner violence (IPV) and the psychological processes that underpin this. Decision-making was explored drawing on literature from the whistleblowing field.

Through a mixed methods epistemology, this study explored factors that explained intervening behaviour concerning IPV. In total, 212 participants who had known someone who was a victim of IPV were recruited from the general population.

A logistic regression model indicated that conscientiousness and fairness were found to predict intervening behaviour. Being a child witness was found to predict non-intervening behaviour. Qualitative analysis revealed three types of bystander apathy: those who lacked capability as they were children; those who were indifferent and did not see it as their place to intervene; and those who wanted to intervene but did not as they were frightened of exacerbating the situation.

IPV has significant physical and psychological effects on victims. However, the choice to intervene is complex, and bystander intervention in this study was also associated in some cases with not only a continuation of the IPV behaviour towards the victim but also aggression and physical violence towards the bystander (whistleblower retaliation). Based on the findings of this study, recommendations are made for how to support bystanders and victims of IPV.

This study involved participants with real-life experience of being a bystander to IPV. The mixed methodology provided an insight into the psychological processes, which underpin bystander experiences of IPV and maps onto the literature in relation to whistleblowing.

The study aims to investigate how pregnant and nursing mothers’ stories have been neglected in writing about gender, security and spaces.

The study chronicles Agogo Traditional Area’s pregnant and nursing mothers’ resistance and survival in this conflicted environment. The author used photo voices in a participatory photography design to give conflict-area women a voice. Interviews and observations supported this. Pregnant and nursing mothers were sampled using the purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The data analysis considered narrative analysis, photographic and inductive approaches.

The findings highlighted how these mothers in vicious settings experienced healthcare access and problems, societal issues including gender dynamics, food insecurity, and emotional and psychological well-being.

The findings in this study expand the socio-cultural narratives of pregnant and nursing mothers in violent spaces.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychological consequences of human trafficking and to reveal the importance of appropriate post-trafficking psychological interventions. Specifically, this study provides a detailed analysis of human trafficking categories, as well as the characteristics of victims and traffickers’ motives. More recent data in the literature show that trauma-coerced attachments and complex post-traumatic stress disorder are also observed among trafficking survivors.

Each of the mentioned mental disorders is presented separately, and results are discussed throughout this study. Consequently, psychological interventions are proposed in accordance with the human trafficking category, survivors’ characteristics and needs and with the relevant personal risk factors determined among victims.

Sex trafficking can have a severe effect on a victim’s mental health, and mental health disorders are substantially higher in human trafficking victims compared to non-trafficked victims or general psychiatric population. Limitations, implications and future recommendations are discussed.

A limited number of past studies evaluated the mental health consequences and identified that survivors have a higher prevalence of anxiety disorders, depression disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.