The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new measurement tool designed to capture endorsement of myths surrounding female perpetrated sexual violence against men, specifically in 'forced-to-penetrate' cases. Data were collected among a sample of 4152 UK adults aged 18-55+ (52% female). Dimensionality and construct validity of the Forced-to-Penetrate Myth Acceptance Scale (FTP-MAS) was investigated using traditional Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) techniques separately for the complete sample, males only, and females only. CFA results indicated that FTP-MAS scores are best captured by a three-factor model (1. Distorted Sex and Gender Roles; 2. Harm Minimisation; 3. Offence Denial) across all samples tested. Excellent composite reliability and differential predictive validity were observed for all three subscales. The validated 22-item FTP-MAS constitutes the first measurement tool which allows for the assessment and evaluation of public attitudes towards female perpetrators who force men to penetrate them without consent. As such, this tool enables researchers to better understand the multi-faceted nature of these myths, assess prevalence in different contexts, and can also be used as an outcome measure in research seeking to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that aim to debunk endorsement of such myths and stereotypes.

School violence and bullying, cyberbullying, and cyber-deviance have become subject matters of great concern for various disciplines, such as social work, criminology, psychology, education, medicine, public health, and nursing. In the past years, scholars in different countries have adopted the theoretical perspectives developed in their respective disciplines to separately examine issues of school violence and bullying, cyberbullying, and cyber deviance. For example, researchers in the field of social sciences tend to adopt psychosocial theories and perspectives, while public health scholars tend to adopt medical- or health-related theories. There is a call for the international and interdisciplinary perspectives to examine these topics and their potential interconnectedness. There is also an urgent need to systematic strategies, policies, and intervention to tackle school violence and bullying, cyberbullying, and cyber deviance. The purpose of this special issue is to deepen our understanding of issues related to school violence and bullying, cyberbullying, and cyber-deviance, to expand our cross-disciplinary and integrated perspectives on these topics, and to provide potential legal strategies, policy, and intervention to tackle these social problems.

Despite increases in online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) internationally, no study has examined risk factors for re-offending among females who perpetrate OCSE, resulting in limited knowledge regarding the idiosyncratic needs of this cohort. This study explored factors predictive of further police contact among 116 females known to police for OCSE offenses in Victoria, Australia. Four binary regressions were run for each of Any, Violent, and Non-Violent re-offending, with one regression each focusing on characteristics related to offending history, index offending, co-offending, and victimization. Predicted probabilities from each model were then input as predictors into a final binary regression for each recidivism type. Offending history emerged as the most robust predictor across re-offending types, even when controlling for other domains. Victimization and index offending also predicted Non-Violent re-offending, while co-offending was not predictive across any analysis. These preliminary findings have implications for the unique management needs of females who perpetrate OCSE.

The legal recognition of the gender status of transgender people in Europe (and indeed worldwide) is undoubtedly a complex and multifaceted issue, which has prompted academics and legal practitioners to raise numerous scientific questions and seek answers thereto. The gravity of this issue is heightened by the fact that the daily functioning of a transgender person in society as a person of registered (assigned at birth) sex that is incongruent with their self-perception exposes them to constant and conspicuous distress (the so-called gender dysphoria), often manifested in various forms of discrimination. The role of every European state should be to eliminate, or at least minimize, such distress and the risk of discrimination. One of the ways to attain these specified objectives may very well be the eponymous procedure of legal gender recognition for transgender people. This article was conceived with the perspective of human rights in mind. Consequently, its primary assertion is that the aim of every proceeding (be it judicial or administrative) concerning gender recognition is the realization of comprehensive protection of rights and freedoms for a transgender person. An additional aim of the present article is to attempt to facilitate the task of judges who adjudicate cases involving gender recognition, officials who process applications for changes in civil status records, and attorneys who represent transgender people in matters pertaining to changing a person's name and gender marker on identity documents.

We conducted a pre-registered meta-analysis of studies that directly compared the predictive validity of risk assessment tools to unstructured judgments of risk for violent, any, or sexual offending. A total of 31 studies, containing 169 effect sizes from 45,673 risk judgments, met inclusion criteria. Based on the results of three-level mixed-effects meta-regression models, the predictive validity of total scores on risk assessment tools was significantly higher than that of unstructured judgments for predictions of violent, any, and sexual offending. Tools continued to outperform unstructured judgments after accounting for risk of bias. This finding was also robust to variations in population, assessment context, and outcome measurement. Although this meta-analysis provides support for the use of risk assessment tools, it also highlights limitations and gaps that future research should address.

Research on bullying in Indonesia remains limited, revealing significant gaps in understanding its prevalence and underlying factors specific to the Indonesian context. This study addresses these gaps through a three-pronged approach: (a) assessing the prevalence of poly-bullying victimisation, (b) identifying factors associated with poly-bullying experiences, and (c) evaluating subjective well-being (SWB) in cases of poly-bullying by comparing it with uninvolved children. Cummins' theory of SWB homeostasis was employed to interpret the findings. The study included 10,051 children aged 10 and 12 years (50% girls) who reported experiencing poly-bullying in the past month. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and linear regression. Poly-bullying was measured across five indicators: physical, verbal, and emotional bullying by siblings and other children at school. The analysis considered five independent variables: sociodemographic factors, perceptions of family, friends, and school, and reported fights among students. The results were statistically significant (p < 0.000), though the model explained only 5.1% of the variance in poly-bullying victimisation. Poly-bullying was prevalent in both public and non-religious schools. Significant contributors included the frequency of fights among students (β = 0.129) and the belief that friends would help (β = 0.045). The study's implications for preventing poly-bullying victimisation were also discussed.

A court may move the location of the trial to another jurisdiction if the jury pool is deemed biased by the judge, a legal maneuver based on a "Change of Venue" motion (CoVm). We surveyed the frequency and the factors associated with granting the motion at the state level when the defendant was charged with murder. We reviewed court transcripts of appealed murder convictions during the 2000-2020 years from Nexis. We complied a sample of 832 CoVm and conducted a nested regression analysis. We repeated the procedure with a subset of 360 CoVm for which we could identify the race of the defendant and victim. Overall, the success rate of CoVm was 23.5% but varied widely between the states. The motion was more likely to be granted in jurisdictions with smaller populations and a policeman was the victim. It was also found that Black and Latino defendants were less successful than Whites in winning CoVm. The racial disparity in CoVm decisions is especially concerning given past findings that people of color suffer heightened negative local pretrial publicity. In light of the findings, we advocate for a more uniform state legislation.

A link between parental involvement in school and student victimization in school is often assumed, but empirical studies have shown inconsistent results. Research suggests that the quality of student-teacher relationships could potentially serve as a crucial mediating factor in the link between parental school involvement and student victimization in school. However, the proposition in question lacks sufficient empirical evidence to substantiate it. This paper examines how parental school involvement indirectly influences student victimization by peers and teachers in school mediated via the quality of student-teacher relationships. Additionally, it further investigates sex differences in the patterns of relationships among parental school involvement, quality of student-teacher relationships, and student victimization by peers and teachers in school. Data were derived from a nationally representative sample of 934 junior high school students and their parents/caregivers in Taiwan. The results revealed that parental school involvement had a nonsignificant direct association with school victimization by peers and teachers, but a significant indirect association with both types of school victimization mediated via the quality of student-teacher relationships. These findings are applicable to both boys and girls. To reduce school victimization, policies and intervention programs could consider promoting parental school involvement and the quality of student-teacher relationships.

There is a need for updated survey literature collected from correctional mental health professionals working within prison settings. Up to date research can add to the literature addressing the best practices for mental health treatment of the transgender incarcerated population in order to provide health care professionals and correctional staff with more effective, efficient, and widely understood intervention practices to facilitate the well-being and safety of this population. Guided by three research aims, 50 mental health professionals from 21 states throughout the United States were surveyed in this quantitative survey regarding their work with the transgender incarcerated population. Results are discussed in terms of implications for the type of care and coordination of care provided by correctional mental health professionals.

This study utilized a large-scale representative sample to explore the prevalence of sexting and its associated factors among adolescents in Taiwan. A total of 12,954 students in grade 5-12 countrywide were randomly selected to answer the sexting module of an online survey. 13.7% of the respondents reported having ever received sexts on cellphone, and 2.0% had sent sexts to others. The prevalence was higher among older adolescents. Gender differences were also found, in which female students were more likely to receive sexts (15.8% vs. 11.7%), while male students were at higher risk of sending sexts to others (2.9% vs. 1.1%). A series of hierarchical logistic regression were further performed to examine the associations between potential factors and receiving/sending sexts as the outcome variables. Age, gender, and time spending on texting were significantly associated with receiving and ending sexts. Online respect was found positively associated with receiving sexts but negatively associated with sending them. Privacy awareness was found not significantly associated with sexting. As the first national survey on this growing issue in Taiwan, the results of the present study highlighted the existence of sexting among local youth. Practice and policy implications were discussed.

Sexual assault affects many people of all gender identities, yet most cases do not result in conviction. This may be due to common, inaccurate misperceptions juries hold about how sexual assault is perpetrated and how victims respond to sexual assault. Research has examined misperceptions relating to cisgender victims, yet little is known about the unique misconceptions and stereotypes that may unfairly disadvantage transgender victims or whether courts are attempting to safeguard against them. This article presents a literature review of empirical research on (mock) jurors' perceptions of transgender victims and a review of judicial instructions about gender identity. We find that empirical research is extremely limited with mixed findings, but many jurisdictions allow for judicial instructions warning jurors against prejudice based on gender identity. Further research is urgently needed to identify common misperceptions jurors may have that are specific to transgender victims to inform legal safeguards and improve justice outcomes.

Gender-affirming care is treatment that recognizes and affirms the gender identity of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals. Though not all TGD people choose to surgically transition, gender-affirming surgeries (GAS) are an important part of many TGD people's transition. GAS can include a wide array of procedures aimed at aligning an individual's physical characteristics and gender identity. This review describes the most common procedures considered to be GAS, detailing important relevant considerations for each procedure. These include transfeminine procedures (i.e., breast augmentation, penile inversion vaginoplasty, orchiectomy, tracheal shave, and facial feminization); transmasculine procedures (i.e., chest masculinization, hysterectomy, phalloplasty, and metoidioplasty); and other procedures (i.e., fertility preservation and hair removal). Patient outcomes and the legal landscape for GAS are also discussed to contextualize these procedures within largest discourses surrounding gender-affirming care.

Some attorneys and legal scholars argue that medicalizing transgender plaintiffs (i.e., introducing plaintiff diagnoses and/or medical procedures) in discrimination cases will enhance favorable plaintiff outcomes. Research and theory linking biological essentialism (i.e., believing social groups reflect biologically-rooted, stable categories) to prejudice, however, suggests that medicalizing transgender plaintiffs might not help them win cases and might instead backfire and harm their case outcomes. To test these competing hypotheses, we coded all published cases involving alleged transgender discrimination (N = 124) from 1974 to 2021. Importantly, we addressed limitations of existing research that narrowly defined transgender plaintiff medicalization exclusively via diagnosis by documenting various other forms of medicalization beyond diagnosis. Contrary to legal scholars' claims and attorney intuitions, medicalization did not predict favorable outcomes for transgender plaintiffs. In fact, various forms of medicalization beyond diagnosis predicted negative plaintiff case outcomes. We discuss the implications of this research for informing scientific theory and legal practice.

The progress of transgender rights in India has seen significant strides with milestones such as the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment and the enactment of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in 2019. The NALSA judgment recognized the right of transgender individuals to self-identify their gender. This decision led to the formal recognition of a 'third gender', advancing legislative and social reforms. Prior to this, transgender individuals faced substantial hurdles, including limited access to education, employment, and healthcare due to a lack of legal recognition. Within a few years, The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act established a framework that safeguards the rights of transgender individuals and prohibits discrimination based on gender. This legislation requires the government to take measures like promoting education, providing vocational training opportunities, ensuring accessible healthcare services, and offering social security support. It also addresses the healthcare needs of transgender individuals thereby contributing to their overall well being. The Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise (SMILE) program and Garima Greh are initiatives that provide spaces and empower a marginalized transgender individuals and promoting their inclusion, justice and empowerment. This article explores the progress pertaining to transgender rights and welfare, while highlighting efforts undertaken by the Indian government.

Despite contradictory empirical evidence, some suggest that physical exercise is directly related to bullying perpetration. Moreover, the quality of social relationships between adolescents and their parents, peers, and teachers has been proposed as a crucial mediator in the relationship between physical exercise and bullying perpetration. However, few empirical studies have examined such hypotheses. This study used data obtained from the 2014-2015 China Education Panel Survey to examine the direct association between physical exercise and bullying behaviors, as well as the indirect pathways from physical exercise to bullying that are mediated by teenagers' social relationship quality. The results showed no significant direct relationship between physical exercise and bullying behaviors. However, physical exercise has indirect associations with bullying behaviors mediated through social relationship quality, with peer relationships having the strongest mediating effect. The findings indicate that social relationships could mediate the association between physical exercise and bullying behaviors. The study suggests that future prevention and intervention programs should promote adolescents' participation in physical exercise and their social interactions with parents, peers, and teachers to reduce bullying perpetration.

Research suggests that a defendant's history of experiencing childhood abuse, and its effects on their life and later decision-making, may impact public support for a defendant's sentencing, particularly mitigation. However, no existing research has examined how and why sentencing support may vary based on the time period when the abuse occurs during a defendant's childhood. This experiment, using a sample of the U.S. public (N = 400), examines how the age at which a defendant's childhood physical abuse occurs affects lay support for the goals of their sentencing. We hypothesized that participants with higher levels of social and biological trait essentialism would moderate their increased support for more punitive sentencing goals-particularly when a defendant was abused earlier, rather than later, in childhood. Results suggest that social essentialism is associated with increased support for restoration and rehabilitation toward defendants with histories of childhood physical abuse, potentially indicating that the public views the effects of child abuse as more of a social, versus biological, process which may affect support for utilitarian punishment goals.

Sexual homicides (SHs) demand nuanced research for effective prevention, treatment, risk assessment and theoretical insights. Intimate-partner sexual homicides (IPSHs), comprising approximately 20% of SHs, have received limited attention. This study compares IPSHs (n = 56) and non-intimate partner sexual homicides (NIPSHs) (n = 236) in Australia and New Zealand by investigating offender, victim, and crime-scene characteristics. While IPSH perpetrators were typically older, separated, and had prior domestic violence convictions, victims were more often non-white with histories of domestic violence and substance use. Although crime-scene locations and post-offence behaviours differed, similar crime scene behaviours were displayed across offender groups, which seemed to be routed in different underlying motives. Whereas drivers of IPSH commonly were grievance and anger, associated with offences occurring after arguments, drivers for NIPSH were more often sexual deviance and sadism. Overall, IPSH encompasses aspects of domestic violence, homicide, and sexual violence, distinguishing it from SH.

Sexual homicide (SH) research has focused on those who commit these crimes and the crimes themselves. This leaves the victim, an equally crucial piece to the puzzle, left as a sort of afterthought, despite the valuable insight that victimology provides to the crime. For the current study, victim information related to their routine activities and lifestyles was taken from an international database containing 662 solved cases of SH. Nine victim variables were used in a latent class analysis to find hidden subgroups within the victim population. Three classes were identified-low-risk, homebody, and overt risk victims-which suggests that SH victimization varies depending on the victim lifestyles and routine activities. These groups were externally validated by examining their association with different phases of the crime commission process. Some sexual homicide offenders may be more drawn to a victim because they present as vulnerable and opportunistic, while others might be methodically targeted. The theoretical relevance of this typology, along with investigative and prevention strategies, is discussed.

This special issue of Behavioral Sciences & the Law presents six articles that focus on various issues related to social media in forensic mental health evaluations. These eclectic articles provide updated information about social media's use and navigating difficult ethical concerns. Ranging from violence risk assessment to disability evaluations, the up-to-date information in this special issue allows the forensic evaluator to be more prepared when they inevitably encounter information from social media. As social media continues to grow, both in terms of overall use and the number of available platforms, forensic clinicians will need to remain cognizant of the ways these data can be appropriately utilized as collateral data.

Few studies have examined victim participation in parole processes, particularly in countries that have specific procedures for hearing victims' statements in post-conviction proceedings. This study, through in-depth interviews, explores the experiences of seven indirect victims of child sexual homicide, identifying their needs and expectations in a justice system lacking formal mechanisms for their involvement. Results emphasize the necessity for official information for families and the consequent frustration from the absence of formal participation. Parole application becomes a new challenge to the ongoing grieving process, leading to distress responses that may require specialized care. Recommendations about formal mechanisms for victim notification, participation and support during the parole process are noted to acknowledge their experience and emotional impact.

Rape followed by murder against children and adolescents is one of the most serious existing crimes. The autopsies of victims of violent crimes can provide fundamental findings for the investigative process and the pursuit of justice. This research conducts a descriptive analysis of the most important findings from the autopsies of 27 cases of children and adolescents who died in Chile between 1998 and 2021 as a result of rape followed by homicide (n = 27), as well as from the judiciary rulings of these cases to gather information related to the perpetrators. It was found that the victims of this crime are mostly girls with an average age of 10, while the perpetrators are primarily single men aged 29 on average, most of whom have not finished high school. A significant relationship was found between the location of the crime and the cause of death and signs of sexual contact, the marital status of the perpetrator and the cause of death, the age of the perpetrator and signs of sexual contact, and the relationship between victim and perpetrator and signs of sexual contact.

Bullying remains a pervasive issue in educational settings worldwide. This study examined the effect of teacher training and self-efficacy on teachers' responses to school bullying with the moderating effect of age. Drawing on data from 585 Taiwanese primary and secondary school teachers, the study revealed six distinct response patterns to bullying among Taiwanese teachers. The results underscore the critical role of self-efficacy in enabling proactive responses to bullying, highlighting that training programs that boost teachers' self-efficacy can be effective across different age groups. Furthermore, the research points to the necessity of differentiated training approaches that consider teachers' age to enhance responses of mediating involvers. This study contributes to the broader discourse on bullying prevention, emphasizing the importance of teacher training and the need for further research into the nuanced relationships between teacher characteristics, self-efficacy, and intervention strategies in diverse cultural settings.

Stalking can be defined as a pattern of fixated, repeated, and unwanted behaviours. Stalking is not an isolated incident and was associated to sexual violence. While the relationship between sexual violence and stalking is scarcely explored, no studies have tested the relationship between stalking and sexual homicide, which both involves elements of obsession. The aim of this paper was to study the relationship between stalking and sexual homicide using an exploratory case study analysis of 7 males convicted for sexual homicide. Results revealed: (1) The presence of obsession prior to the homicide; (2) The victims were ex-intimate partners or acquaintances; (3) The victims were followed several times prior to the index offence; (4) Stalking elements were not always considered by the authorities, which has led to an escalation of behaviours. This study expands our understanding between stalking and sexual violence, supporting the design of prevention and treatments.

The current changes to the treatment recommendations and the diagnostic categorization of trans* identities in the ICD-11 require a new consideration of past therapeutic methods and approaches. The depathologization of trans* lives in the ICD-11 finally enables trans* people to access psychotherapeutic services more freely, as the compulsory therapy that has thus far been required for access to transition-related treatments, as well as the so-called "diagnosis" and "treatment" of "transsexuality", have been removed. Trans* people will nevertheless be interested in qualified psychotherapeutic treatment options. Due to the decades-long discrimination and treatment in the health system that has disregarded the human rights of trans* people, a trans*-affirmative approach is necessary, one that takes into account the context of the treatment and critically reflects upon one's own position as a health professional. This affirmative and self-reflective approach provides the basis upon which therapeutic concerns and topics related to a life lived in accordance with a self-determined (gender) identity, related needs, and the fulfillment of those needs, can be discussed. The consequences of experiences of discrimination, violence and exclusion are, moreover, important elements of therapy that require a structural and social contextualization in order to address internalized trans*-negativity and to empower trans* people in their self-assertion.

The current study was conducted to confirm the characteristics in sexual homicide and to explore variables that effectively differentiate sexual homicide and nonsexual homicide. Further, newer methods that have received attention in criminology, such as the machine learning method, were used to explore the ideal algorithm for classifying sexual homicide and patterns for sexual homicide in Korea. To do this, 542 homicide cases were analyzed utilizing eight algorithms, and the classification performance of each algorithm was analyzed along with the importance of variables. The results of the analysis revealed that the Naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbors, and RF algorithms demonstrate good classification accuracy, and generally, factors such as relationships, marriage, planning, personal weapons, and overkill were identified as crucial variables that distinguish sexual homicide in Korea. In addition, the crime scene information of the crime occurring in the dark (at night) and body disposal were found to have high importance. The current study proposes ways to enhance the efficacy of crime investigation and advance the research on sexual homicides in Korea through a more scientific understanding of sexual homicide that has not been thoroughly explored domestically.

Cyberbullying is considered a major threat to adolescent anxiety. In this study, we aim to explore the simultaneous effects of cyberbullying victimization and perpetration on youth anxiety. Building on the childhood adversity model and the vulnerability-stress model, we test the model wherein cyberbullying exposure is linked with cyberostracism, which in turn is expected to be associated with an increase in anxiety. We collected data from 1115 Chinese youth aged 11-19 years based on the stratified random sampling method. Structure equation modelling was conducted in Amos 26.0 to examine the proposed theoretical model. The findings suggested that compared with cyberbullying perpetration, the experience of cyberbullying victimization led to a significantly higher risk of youth anxiety. Multiple mediation analyses revealed that the three dimensions of cyberostracism, namely cyber direct excluded, cyber indirect excluded and cyber ignored, mediated the association of cyberbullying victimization and perpetration with youth anxiety. These results indicate that cyberostracism could be a risk factor for youth anxiety, thus providing new direction regarding intervention programs to reduce anxiety symptoms in adolescents.

The primary aim of this study was to determine whether perceptions of criminal sanctioning and school punishment predict students' willingness to report different types of bullying (material, physical, sexual, verbal, relational, and cyberbullying). An online survey was conducted with secondary school students (n = 1092) as participants. Traditionally included predictors (trust toward school staff, cost of reporting bullying, gender, and school agency) were also incorporated into a multiple linear regression analysis. The perception of criminal sanctioning for a particular type of bullying was a significant predictor of the willingness to report a given type of bullying, whereas anticipation of school punishment was relevant only in the case of cyberbullying. Trust toward school staff and gender were also significant predictors of willingness to report any type of bullying. School agency helped predict the willingness to report any kind of bullying except cyberbullying. Surprisingly, the costs of reporting bullying were relevant only in the case of material bullying. These results have important implications for stakeholders and school administration in identifying unreported bullying, developing and implementing anti-bullying policies, and introducing programs aimed at improving students' legal awareness.