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Media Distortions : Understanding the Power Behind Spam, Noise, and Other Deviant Media

By Elinor Carmi


"Forget everything you know about spam. Now, let's talk about spam. Digital Distortions is about the power behind producing deviant media categories. This book explores the politics behind categories we take for granted such as spam and noise, and what this power means for our broader understanding of media. Despite being an inseparable part of our lives, we know very little about these media categories. The book synthesizes approaches such as media theory, sound studies, feminist technoscience and software studies into a new composition to explore media power. Through the concepts of processed listening and rhythmedia, Digital Distortions draws on sound and sound's ability to cross boundaries as a conceptual framework to think and examine media power more productively. Drawing on repositories of legal, technical and archival sources, Digital Distortions amplifies three stories about media distortions. The book shows that spam received different names in different periods; it is part of a larger project to influence the way people think, understand, and engage with media. The book starts in the early 20th century with Bell Telephone's production of noise. The next story jumps several decades to the web metric standardization in the European Union and the production of spam. The final story focuses on the 2010s and the way Facebook constructs unwanted behaviours. These stories show how deviant categories re-draw boundaries between human and non-human, public and private spaces, and, importantly, social and antisocial"--

New York : Peter Lang, [2020] 270p.

It’s Everyone’s Problem: Mainstreaming Responses to Technology-Facilitated Gender Based Violence

By Nina Jankowicz, Isabella Gomez-O’Keefe, Lauren Hoffman

Technology facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is not an in­tractable problem. But it must no longer be the responsibility solely of women’s advocacy groups. Others – technology companies, governments, civil society organizations, law enforcement, businesses, schools – must step up and work in unison to combat TFGBV in order to reflect its main­streamed effects on society. 

This report, drawing on a case study around the online harassment of Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, assesses the state of research on TFGBV as well as recent global policy progress made on this issue, and offers a number of practical solutions to make women and girls safer online.

The authors argue that TFGBV must be mainstreamed to be mitigated, centering women’s experiences in broader policy debates. Technology companies, governments, civic tech organizations, law enforcement, employers, schools, and others must mainstream their work to combat TFGBV to reflect its mainstreamed effects on society. To this end, the authors recommend a number of practical solutions to the specific and pressing issues that women and girls face online today. Addressing the urgent changes described here will not only make women and girls safer and ensure their voices are heard, but also improve the safety and free expression for everyone who uses the internet, building more robust, representative democracies.

The recommendations are presented under the following themes:

  • Ensuring platform accountability and action

  • Urgently addressing deepfake image-based sexual abuse

  • Supporting victims and survivors of TFGBV

  • Deepening research and mainstreaming advocacy.

New York: Institute of Global Politics, 2024. 41p.

Positive Incentives: The Income Effect and The Optimal Regulation of Crime

By W. Bentley Macleod and Roman Rivera

Abstract: Theories of crime in economics focus on the roles of deterrence and incapacitation in reducing criminal activity. In addition to deterrence, a growing body of empirical evidence has shown that both income support and employment subsidies can play a role in crime reduction. This paper extends the Becker-Ehrlich model to a standard labor supply model that includes the notion of a consumption need (Barzel and McDonald (1973)) highlights the role of substitution vs income effects when an individual chooses to engage in crime. Second, we show that whether the production of criminal activity is a substitute or a complement with the production of legitimate activity is central to the design of optimal policy. We find that both individual responsiveness to deterrence and optimal policy vary considerably with context, which is consistent with the large variation in the effect of deterrence on crime. Hence, optimal policy is a combination of deterrence, work subsidies and direct income transfers to the individual that vary with both income and location.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024. 48p.

An Evaluation of Crime Victim Compensation in West Virginia

By Malore Dusenbery, Josh Fording, Jennifer Yahner, Jeanette Hussemann, Robbie Dembo

Victim compensation programs provide financial assistance to cover out-of-pocket expenses associated with the financial, physical, and psychological burdens of victimization. From 2022 to 2024, the Urban Institute and NORC at the University of Chicago conducted a National Study of Victim Compensation Program Trends, Challenges, and Successes, which included evaluations of four state crime victim compensation programs. This brief summarizes our evaluation of West Virginia’s victim compensation program to understand its utilization and perspectives on its ability to meet victims’ needs.We conclude that the West Virginia compensation program is connected to providers in the community and provides valuable benefits to victims in a mostly efficient, effective, and comprehensive way. Its being located in the legislature allows for independence and strong legislative support, but perhaps less connection to providers. It benefits from adequate funding and wants to ensure that continues and is not affected by external changes. Program staff and assistance providers note great improvement in awareness of the program since staffing an outreach coordinator. The number of staff and staff retention, however, continue to be a challenge for the program.Our analysis found some disparities in the data related to race and gender, which may be partially attributable to differences in the crimes experienced and reported by gender and by racial group and coverage by the state’s Medicaid system. Future research could dive deeper into these findings to better understand these patterns and the role the compensation program can play in improving access and success for diverse groups.Many of these findings and recommendations align with those emerging nationally in conversations about how to improve victim compensation programs. We are grateful that programs such as West Virginia’s remain open to evaluation and eager to understand how to continue expanding and improving their accessibility, responsiveness, and coverage to provide meaningful benefits to victims.

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2024. 21p.

The Role of Internet Consumption on the Witnessing of Online Harms

By Goh Zhang Hao, Gulizar Haciyakupoglu, Edson C. Tandoc Jr

This policy report investigates how gender, daily Internet activities, and the use of Internet-enabled devices, can impact one’s frequency of witnessing online harms. Building on a national survey conducted in Singapore in December 2022 by the Centre for Information Integrity and the Internet, this study suggests that men engage in daily Internet activities and use Internet-enabled devices more frequently than women. This partly explains why men witness more online harms than women. The policy report calls for further studies into the relationship between online harms witnessing and perpetration, along with greater attention to gender-based differences, when studying and drafting policies on online harms and emerging online threats.

Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Centre Of Excellence For National Security, 2024. 20p.

Universal Cash and Crime 

Universal Cash and Crime 

By Brett Watson, Mouhcine Guettabi, Matthew Reimer

We estimate the effects of universal cash transfers on crime from Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend, an annual lump-sum payment to all Alaska residents. We find a 14% increase in substance-abuse incidents the day after the payment and a 10% increase over the following four weeks. This is partially offset by an 8% decrease in property crime, with no changes in violent crimes. On an annual basis, however, changes in criminal activity from the payment are small. Estimated costs comprise a very small portion of the total payment, suggesting that crime-related concerns of a universal cash transfer program may be unwarranted.

.The Review of Economics and Statistics (2020) 102 (4): 678–689.

The Colorado Crime Wave: An Economic Analysis of Crime and the Need for Data Driven Solutions 

By George Brauchler, Mitch Morrissey, Chris Brown, & Alexa Eastburg

Crime has undeniably and dramatically increased over the last decade in Colorado. The pandemic-related policy restrictions and resulting economic disruptions brought further stress to society, which exacerbated problems related to crime. The result has been billions of dollars in additional costs borne by Coloradans. These costs are felt in many ways, both directly by the victims, and indirectly by the community. It is important to distill the jaw-dropping impact of crime down to numbers that everyone can grasp. The numbers show trends and enable conclusions, which in turn can be tested. Numbers remove the emotional impact and personal tragedy of crime and lead to dispassionate, practical solutions to what is, in part, an economic issue. All victims know that crime is intensely personal. Most people never fully recover from the impact of being victimized. Behind every statistic of violent crime, theft of valued possessions or any violation of one’s right to live a safe and secure life, is a person and that person’s family and friends – are each damaged by a criminal act. The primary and consistent policy trend in Colorado has been to discourage the jailing of those arrested for committing crimes and to reduce the severity of punishment for those convicted. However well intended, these recent policies must be monitored to ensure the costs from the unintended – albeit predictable consequences do not outweigh the anticipated benefits. Given the concerning trends and high costs, it is imperative that policy makers implement timely, transparent, and actionable accountability metrics, that allow them to diagnose specific system level problems and individual policy decisions across the multiple dimensions of criminal justice in Colorado. Let us move forward with the important work of understanding the impact of public policy on the lives of our community. While we’re interpreting data and delving deeper into cause-and-effect, we must also remember the thousands and thousands of victims who have suffered and deserve justice. Colorado’s crime surge increased over the last two years but started long before the pandemic - - - From 2010 through 2019, Colorado’s population-adjusted annual murder rate increased by an annual average of 8%, motor vehicle theft by 6%, and assault by 3%. Average monthly crime in 2021 per 100,000 Coloradans is 28% higher than in 2011, and 11% higher than in 2020 The monthly murder rate increased 20% in both 2019 and 2020. The 2021 total rate of crime is 14% higher than it was in 2019. This trend exceeds the 12% increase Colorado experienced between 2009 and 2012. etc........

Greenwood Village, CO, Common Sense Institute, 2021. 27p.  

Economic Booms and Recidivism

By Ozkan Eren & Emily Owens

Objectives: This paper examines the impact of local economic activity on criminal behavior. We build on existing research by relaxing the identification assumptions required for causal inference, and estimate the impact of local economic activity on recidivism.

Methods: We use the fracking boom as a source of credibly exogenous variation in the economic conditions into which incarcerated people are released. We replicate and extend existing instrumental variables analyses of fracking on how many released offenders return to state prison seperately from aggregate crime and arrests.

Results: Our instrumental variables estimates imply that a ten thousand dollar increase in the value of per capita production is associated with a 2.8% reduction in the 1-year recidivism of ex-offenders at the county level. Improved labor market conditions, specifically an increase in wages for young adults, may explain a non-negligible fraction of the reduction in recidivism associated with economic booms. In contrast, we replicate existing work finding that fracking increased aggregate measures of crime and arrests.

Conclusion: Increased economic opportunity appears to have a different impact of overall crime than on recidivism. This suggests that the relationship between economic opportunity and offending may be conditioned by local social ties. Further research examining how social connections and labor markets affect individual criminal behavior is needed.

Economic booms and recidivism. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 40, 343-372. 

An Analysis of Robbery in Oklahoma Using Incident-Based Reporting Data (SIBRS)

By Kara Miller, Monique Mogilka,

The Oklahoma Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is co-located with the state’s criminal history repository, the state’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, and the State Incident Based Reporting (SIBRS) Program. The purpose for studying robbery in Oklahoma is to increase access to and understanding of National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) enhanced data. By analyzing NIBRS compatible data, the SAC strives to demonstrate the value SIBRS data can have for local agencies and government planners, as well as its utility for problem solving and understanding larger aspects of crimes reported in Oklahoma. The SAC and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) demonstrate the value and utility of SIBRS data to encourage all local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in Oklahoma to commit to SIBRS reporting and to report quality data. Key Findings:    The number of robberies reported varied nearly every month during the year, although the overall trend was an increase in reports between January and August. The number of reported robberies then fluctuated significantly between August and November. During this time period, reported robberies: o decreased 41.0% from August to September, o Increased 95.7% from September to October, and o Decreased 42.2% from October to November. The majority of robbery victims did not know the offender, as 60.9% of Victim to Offender Relationships were classified as Not Known to Victim. 33.9% of robberies were at a residence, with 40.5% of residential robberies occurring between 21:00-03:00. 1  61.1% of arrestees were arrested “On-View”, and only 25.0% were armed.  Money was the most commonly reported property type stolen (26.3%). However, automobiles which accounted for only 3.9% of the types of property stolen, accounted for 38.8% of the total value of stolen property. 

Oklahoma City: Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, 2020? 81p.

Gender and Justice: Violence, Intimacy, and Community in Fin-de-Siécle Paris

May Contain Markup

By Eliza Earle Ferguson

Crimes of Passion: The book explores how crimes of passion,particularly those involving intimate violence, were understood and treated in fin-de-siècle Paris. These acts were often seen as love stories gone wrong and were frequently acquitted.

Gender Dynamics: It highlights the gendered nature of intimate violence, showing how men and women experienced and justified violence differently, often influenced by societal norms and economic conditions.

Community and Legal Interactions: The document discusses the role of community networks and the legal system in addressing intimate violence, revealing tensions between local knowledge and state power.

Historical Context: The book situates these issues within the broader social and cultural context of 19th-century Paris, providing a detailed analysis of how intimate violence intersected with gender, class, and urban life.

JHU Press, Mar 19, 2010, 268 pages

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman! Using Mass Media to Fight Intolerance

By Alex Armand, Paul Atwell, Joseph Gomes, Giuseppe Musillo, Yannik Schenk

This paper investigates the role of mass media in shaping racial tolerance and advancing civil rights in the post-WWII United States. We study the first attempt in the history of mass media to use a radio broadcast targeted at children to promote an inclusive American society. In 1946, amid persistent racial divisions, the popular radio series The Adventures of Superman launched Operation Intolerance, a sequence of new episodes promoting equality, rejecting racial discrimination, and exposing the KKK's bigotry. Using digitized historical data on U.S. radio stations and state-of-the-art radio propagation models, we compute geographic exposure to the broadcasts. Exploiting exogenous exposure to the broadcasts, we employ a cohort study design to analyze individual-level data from 1964 to 1980–a crucial period for civil rights activism and legislation in the United States. We find lasting impacts on those exposed as children, including increased support for civil rights, improved interracial relations, and more progressive political attitudes. These effects translate into greater alignment with the Civil Rights Movement, evidenced by increased support for protests and diminished institutional trust, and further manifested by reduced participation in the Vietnam War. Additionally, county-level panel data illustrate how areas covered by the broadcast in 1946 evolve towards less segregationist attitudes, a lower presence of the KKK, and an increase in civil rights activism and prominence in discourse.

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics, 2024.

Research Compilation on Online Antisemitism

By Institute for Strategic Dialogue

From mainstream to extreme, from far left to far right, and large platforms to fringe ecosystems, antisemitism on social media is a universal challenge. For many years and across different events, geographies, and languages, ISD has sought to understand, track, and analyze online antisemitism. This document aims to synthesize ISD’s findings, providing a summary of relevant literature as a tool for informing the work of ISD’s Coalition to Counter Online Antisemitism.

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2024. 17p.

A Year of Hate: Anti-Drag Mobilisation Efforts Targeting LGBTQ+ People in France

By The Institute for Strategic Dialogue

In the last year, a loose network of actors from Bordeaux to Toulouse to Paris targeted drag events aimed at all-ages audiences for protest, harassment, and abuse. The behaviors and dynamics observed among these actors echo and mirror those observed in other parts of the world, particularly the US. While anti-drag action in France remains marginal compared to the activity witnessed in the US, UK, and Australia, it nonetheless emerged as a phenomenon from a standing start in 2022. March 2023 saw the nation’s first in-person protest at an all-ages drag event in Paris, and two months later a far-right group protested with banners and a smoke bomb outside of a library hosting a drag queen story hour (DQSH) for children in the small village of Saint-Senoux. A seemingly unlikely group of actors is leading this charge. The French anti-gender movement, which was at the heart of the movement against equal marriage in the early 2010s, has been joined by far-right parties and politicians, extremist groups, COVID-19 skeptics, and assorted conspiracy theorists. All are seeking to cancel drag events through tactics of protest, petitions, harassment, misinformation, and intimidation. This briefing provides an in-depth analysis of five cases of anti-drug mobilization in the period December 2022 – May 2023, using a combination of ethnographic methods and social media data analysis to examine activity related to each case. The first was in Bordeaux, the second in Lamballe-Armor, the third in Toulouse, the fourth in Paris, and the fifth in Saint-Senoux. While the earlier campaigns largely manifested online with limited in-person mobilization, the two most recent events saw increased offline activity. This report aims to summarise the key narratives, tactics, and actors involved in anti-drag action in France, and how these mobilizations are tied to anti-LGBTQ+ activity in France more broadly. However, given the small number of instances of anti-drug activism in France, the conclusions of this report are indicative and tentative.

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2024. 24p.

Positive Online Interventions Playbook: Innovating Responses to a Shifting Online Extremist Landscape in New Zealand

By The  Institute for Strategic Dialogue

The rapidly evolving online extremist landscape in New Zealand means new strategies for intervention are needed. This playbook – developed in consultation with New Zealand’s rich tapestry of civil society, communities, and practitioners engaged in prevention – offers practical frameworks for projects promoting positive online interventions to tackle online extremism. Based on an analysis of the rapidly evolving landscape of online extremism, the playbook takes stock of established and emerging intervention models. It brings together domestic and international best practices and suggests potential avenues for new positive intervention approaches. Finally, it reflects on practical considerations for programming, including monitoring and evaluation, safeguarding, operational security, and ethical considerations. This playbook examines the shift from violent groups to online extremism, highlighting digital literacy, audience communication, and proactive engagement with at-risk individuals.

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2024. 37p.

Social Processes of Online Hate

 Edited by Joseph B. Walther and Ronald E. Rice

This book explores the social forces among and between online aggressors that affect the expression and perpetration of online hate. Its chapters illustrate how patterns of interactive social behavior reinforce, magnify, or modify this expression. It also considers the characteristics of social media that facilitate social interactions that promote hate and facilitate relationships among haters. Bringing together a range of international experts and covering an array of themes, including woman abuse, antisemitism, pornography, radicalization, and extreme political youth movements, this book examines the specific social factors and processes that facilitate these forms of hate and proposes new approaches for explaining them. Cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, and authoritative, this book will be of interest to sociologists, criminologists, and scholars of media, communication, and computational social science alike, as well as those engaged with hate crime, hate speech, social media, and online social networks.

London; New York: Routledge, 2025.

Cutting the Head off the Snake: Addressing the Role Technology Plays in the County Lines Model 

By Joe Caluori, Violette Gadenne, Elen Kirk, and Beth Mooney

The National Crime Agency published its first intelligence assessment of county lines in 2015.  Ever since, there has been a growing interest in county lines from the media, public policy, and the world of research. Crest Advisory has published research that has contributed to the body of evidence, among other things, on the socio-economic determinants of individual vulnerability to exploitation, shining light on ways to mitigate those risks. This project, however, takes a different approach, by honing in on the specific role played by technology in county lines. In this report, ‘technology’ is used to refer to electronic or digital devices or services predominantly those used for personal communication. By including devices and services in our definition we incorporate both physical hardware such as mobile phones or smartwatches, and software such as applications provided by social media platforms. Technology plays an ever-increasingly important role in our day-to-day lives. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the proportion of adults who use the internet daily has increased from 35 percent of the UK population in 2006 to 89 percent in 2020. The nature of this usage has also changed dramatically, with social media increasing in influence significantly over the years. In 2021 TikTok, a social media platform designed for sharing short videos, overtook Google for the first time as the most popular site worldwide.5 Just as modern technologies are now an essential aspect of modern society, technology is intrinsic to the county lines model. The mobile phone, or the ‘line’ it facilitates, enables communications between those running the lines, those distributing the drugs, and those buying and using the drugs. Current approaches to disrupting county lines rely heavily on mobile communications technology (e.g. cell site analysis, or digital forensics gained from burner phones, personal smartphones, or other digital devices). However, the role of technology as an enabler of child criminal exploitation (CCE) is both under-represented and poorly understood in published research and literature. The Government has announced an intention to “cut the head off the snake” of county 6 lines. To understand what is required to do this, it is necessary to explore the dynamics of the country lines model, as well as examine its weaknesses. There is an acute need to better understand and monitor technological evolutions within county lines and analyze their implications for CCE. Only by understanding and responding to the role of technology can the Government and law enforcement leaders produce an effective national plan to ‘cut the head off the snake’ of county lines. Recent public policy developments have put the role technology plays in enabling crime in sharp focus. Social media and online platforms have seen perhaps the most dramatic rise in interest. Even though at the time this report is being drafted, the Online Safety Bill has been put on hold, much ink has been spilled on its value, its potential impact on privacy, and what should be included in such legislation. High-profile cases, such as the events leading to the 6th January attack on the United States Capitol in 2021, have shown the potential harm that can be caused by online communication. More generally, as we become more and more dependent on tech for all aspects of our lives, it is crucial that law enforcement keeps pace with its development concerning crime

London: Crest Advisory, 2022. 37p.

The Determinants of Bicycle Theft and Robbery in the City of Bogotá, Colombia

By Pablo Ruiz, Sergio Cabrales, Andrés Medaglia, Olga Sarmiento

Bicycle theft and robbery affect the number of bicycle users because since repetitive occurrence of these crimes may stop victims from bicycling. Interest in studying these particular crimes has grown in the past few years and studies have focused on analyzing preventive measures. Criminology theories have been the base for these studies as they associate different factors of the environment and social behavior with the occurrence of criminal activities. This paper aims to analyze bicycle theft and robbery in the city of Bogotá, Colombia using a fixed effects Poisson model for panel data between 2014 and 2017. Different environmental factors such as violent crimes, public amenities, land use features, and socioeconomic attributes, were evaluated against the occurrence of these incidents within specified areas that divide the city. Results show that violent areas increase the risk of bicycles being stolen, as well as areas with a high number of bicycle racks and bus stations. Additionally, results show that there is no significant evidence that socioeconomic differences are determinants to the occurrence of these crimes. The results of this study are relevant to potential policy measures regarding bicycle theft and robbery prevention, which range from security measures in certain areas given the evident relation that violence has on these crimes, crime hot spot intervention and environmental design towards crime prevention. 

Unidas, 2018. 

Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence During the Perinatal Period: A Systematic Review

By Olivia Mercier, Sarah Yu Fu, Rachel Filler, Alexie Leclerc, Kari Sampsel, Karine Fournier, Mark Walker, Shi Wu Wen, Katherine Muldoon

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prevalent global health problem. IPV that occurs before pregnancy often continues during the perinatal period, resulting in ongoing violence and many adverse maternal, obstetrical, and neonatal outcomes.

Objectives: This scoping review is designed to broadly capture all potential interventions for perinatal IPV and describe their core components and measured outcomes.

Search Methods: We conducted a search for empirical studies describing IPV interventions in the perinatal population in June 2022. The search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts, ClinicalTrials.gov and MedRxiv. Hand-searching of references from select articles was also performed.

Selection Criteria: Included studies described an intervention for those experiencing IPV during the perinatal period, including 12 months before pregnancy, while pregnant or in the 12 months post-partum. The search encompassed January 2000 to June 2022 and only peer-reviewed studies written in either English or French were included. Included interventions focused on the survivor exposed to IPV, rather than healthcare professionals administering the intervention. Interventions designed to reduce IPV revictimization or any adverse maternal, obstetrical, or neonatal health outcomes as well as social outcomes related to IPV victimization were included.

Data Collections and Analysis: We used standard methodological procedures expected by The Campbell Collaboration.

Main Results: In total, 10,079 titles and abstracts were screened and 226 proceeded to full text screening. A total of 67 studies included perinatal IPV interventions and were included in the final sample. These studies included a total of 27,327 participants. Included studies originated from 19 countries, and the majority were randomized controlled trials (n = 43). Most studies were of moderate or low quality. Interventions included home visitation, educational modules, counseling, and cash transfer programs and occurred primarily in community obstetrician and gynecologist clinics, hospitals, or in participants' homes. Most interventions focused on reducing the revictimization of IPV (n = 38), improving survivor knowledge or acceptance of violence, knowledge of community resources, and actions to reduce violence (n = 28), and improving maternal mental health outcomes (n = 26). Few studies evaluated the effect of perinatal IPV interventions on obstetrical, neonatal, or child health outcomes.

Authors' Conclusion(s): The majority of intervention studies for perinatal IPV focus on reducing revictimization and improving mental health outcomes, very few included obstetrical, neonatal, and other physical health outcomes. Future interventions should place a larger emphasis on targeting maternal and neonatal outcomes to have the largest possible impact on the lives and families of IPV survivors and their infants.

Campbell Systematic Reviews, Volume 20, Issue 3, September 2024

Motherhood and Domestic Violence: A Longitudinal Study Using Population Wide Administrative Data  

By Sanna Bergvall, Núria Rodríguez-Planas:

Most empirical studies indicate that becoming a mother is an augmenting factor for the perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using rich population-wide hospital records data from Sweden, we conduct a stacked DiD analysis comparing the paths of women two years before and after the birth of their first child with same-age women who are several quarters older when giving birth to their first child and find that, in contrast to the consensus view, violence sharply decreases with pregnancy and motherhood. This decline has both a short-term and longer-term component, with the temporary decline in IPV covering most of the pregnancy until the child is 6 months old, mimicking a temporary decrease in hospital visits for alcohol abuse by the children's fathers. The more persistent decline is driven by women who leave the relationship after the birth of the child. Our evidence is not supportive of alternative mechanisms including suspicious hospitalizations, an overall reduction in hospital visits or selection in in seeking medical care, mothers’ added value as the main nurturer, or mothers’ drop in relative earnings within the household. Our findings suggest the need to push for public health awareness campaigns underscoring the risk of victimization associated with substance abuse and to also provide women with more support to identify and leave a violent relationship

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics - IZA, 2024

Understanding Intimate Partner Violence: Why Coercive Control Requires a Social and Systemic Entrapment Framework 

By Julia Tolmie, Rachel Smith, and Denise Wilson

How intimate partner violence (IPV) is conceptualized affects what we see when we look at situations involving IPV and what we think the solutions to the problem of IPV are—either in individual cases or in the development of broader legal and policy responses. In this article, it is suggested that while conceptualizing IPV as coercive control is an improvement over previous understandings, it does not go far enough. Coercive control must be located within a broader conceptualization of IPV as a form of social and systemic entrapment if it is not to operate in a harmful manner for victim-survivors.

Violence Against WomenVolume 30, Issue 1, January 2024, Pages 54-74