Silent no more: Sexual violence in conflict as a challenge to the worldwide church

The Tearfund report Silent No More (2011) challenges the worldwide church to respond to sexual violence in conflicts. This article argues that a church response should have pastoral, biblical and theological dimensions. Starting with the Silent No More report it examines the prevalence of sexual violence in conflict and the silence of the churches on this subject. Building on feminist readings of sexual violence in biblical narratives it then explores sexual violence referenced in the death of Saul (I Samuel 31) alongside news reports of the death of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. It also suggests that sexual violence is a key to understanding the scandal of the cross and the death of Jesus of Nazareth. It concludes that if biblical scholars and theologians give more attention to sexual violence within the bible they can offer positive help towards a more constructive response to sexual violence by the churches

The Shifting Imaginaries of Corporate Crime

This article begins by setting out an analysis of the process of conventionalizing corporate crime that arises from the symbiotic relationship between states and corporations. Noting briefly the empirical characteristics of four broad categories of corporate crime and harm, the article then turns to explore the role of the state in its production and reproduction. We then problematize the role of the state in the reproduction of corporate crime at the level of the global economy, through the “crimes of globalization” and “ecocide,” warning of the tendency in the research literature to oversimplify the role of states and of international organizations. The article finishes by arguing that, as critical academics, it is our role to ensure that corporate crime is never normalized and fully conventionalized in advanced capitalist societies

Home as a Site of State-Corporate Violence: Grenfell Tower, Aetiologies and Aftermaths

Focusing on the aftermaths and consequences of the Grenfell Tower fire, this article reveals the factors which combined to produce a fire that could have such devastating effects. Further, it delineates the discrete ways in which distinct types of harms – physical, emotional and psychological, cultural and relational, and financial and economic – continue to be produced by a combination of State and corporate acts and omissions. Some of these harms are readily apparent, others are opaque and obscured. It concludes by showing how failures to mitigate these factors constitute one manifestation of the more general phenomenon of ‘social murder’

Mediating punitiveness: understanding public attitudes towards work-related fatality cases

This paper concerns an empirical investigation into public attitudes towards work-related fatality cases, where organizational offenders cause the death of workers or members of the public. This issue is particularly relevant following the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 into UK law. Here, as elsewhere, the use of criminal law against companies reflects governmental concerns over public confidence in the law’s ability to regulate risk. The empirical findings demonstrate that high levels of public concern over these cases do not translate into punitive attitudes. Such cases are viewed rationally and constructively, and lead to instrumental rather than purely expressive enforcement preferences

'Prove me the bam!': victimization and agency in the lives of young women who commit violent offences

This article reviews the evidence regarding young women’s involvement in violent crime and, drawing on recent research carried out in HMPYOI Cornton Vale in Scotland, provides an overview of the characteristics, needs and deeds of young women sentenced to imprisonment for violent offending. Through the use of direct quotations, the article suggests that young women’s anger and aggression is often related to their experiences of family violence and abuse, and the acquisition of a negative worldview in which other people are considered as being 'out to get you' or ready to 'put one over on you'. The young women survived in these circumstances, not by adopting discourses that cast them as exploited victims, but by drawing on (sub)cultural norms and values which promote pre-emptive violence and the defence of respect. The implications of these findings for those who work with such young women are also discussed