In recent decades, image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) has become a contemporary concern for academics, third sector organisations, law enforcement agencies, and policy makers. IBSA includes the non-consensual taking of intimate images (e.g. upskirting, during a private act), the non-consensual creation of intimate images (e.g. deepfakes), the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (e.g. sent on to another person, uploaded to the internet), the threat to share intimate images (e.g. by a current or former partner or a person unknown), and being forced to look at intimate images (e.g. cyberflashing). As a gendered phenomenon, this cyber-enabled form of abuse primarily – albeit not exclusively – targets women. Whilst interest in prevalence rates has increased among scholars, a notable gap exists in understanding victim-survivors’ experiences (or lack thereof) with the criminal justice system including barriers and facilitators to report incidents. Furthermore, it remains uncertain whether IBSA survivor’s understandings of justice align with or diverge from conventional criminal justice. By drawing on intersectional feminist theory and a constructivist paradigm, this qualitative doctoral research explores these gaps through in-depth interviews with 10 adult victim-survivors of IBSA in Scotland. Preliminary findings will be highlighted and provide novel empirical evidence and knowledge on IBSA specifically and gender-based violence more broadly. In turn, the outputs (including academic outputs, podcasts, webinars, etc.) may serve as an invaluable resource for policy and practice, particularly the justice sector, supporting the Scottish Government’s efforts to combat gender-based violence in the digital age.

Drawing on recent data collected in Greater London and Merseyside as part of an ongoing PhD thesis, carried out methodologically through a ‘critical cultural criminology’ this paper will begin by critically examining existing literature to explore how cultural spaces are constructed, considering both physical and digital dimensions and their influence on young men's lived experiences. Unique attention is given to means of ‘online’ consumption such as Drill music and social media, as well as to the manifestation of hyper-masculine and exclusionary driven territoriality in physical spaces. This context underscores the imperative need to consider the merging of physical and digital spaces in the lives of disadvantaged young men, exploring their everyday socio-cultural experiences as a medium to uncover the conditions driving issues of serious violence, exclusion, and detrimental hyper-masculine practice. Their perceptions and experiences give insight to street culture, youth violence, and social exclusion, offering valuable perspectives and experiences to contribute to an understanding of the contemporary cultural landscapes and spatial conditions that disadvantaged young men navigate. This paper will conclude with reflections on the practical nature of conducting research in this important field, considering the role of criminology in the notion of social change.

Despite there being an established literature on desistance and resettlement after prison, little is known about the post-release experiences of Deaf former prisoners. In this paper, we present findings from our research which show that upon release from prison, Deaf people often experience stigma relating to their conviction, not only in the form of exclusion by other Deaf people, but also in exclusion from services.

As a result, Deaf people often have to make decisions about their post-prison lives that are informed not only by their ‘offender’ status, but also by their Deaf identities. Consequently, it appears that while Deaf people’s experiences of resettlement are influenced by their Deafness, their relationship with their Deafness can also shift and change in unexpected ways as part of the resettlement process. In exploring this relationship, we highlight the complex entanglements between Deafness and resettlement, and the ways in which Deaf former prisoners attempt to navigate these entanglements.

Research emphasises that autistic people are no more likely to engage in crime than neurotypical people, and are more likely to be come victims. That said, in the minority of autistic individuals that do engage in crime, research suggests that sexual offending is one of the more common forms of offending behaviour. Despite this, very little research has provided in-depth insights into what leads autistic individuals to engage in sexual crime, and how those autistic individuals make sense of their pathways to sexual crime and beyond. Paying close attention to how autistic individuals use their life narratives to make sense of their lived experiences and understand themselves can elicit important insights relevant to the prevention of sexual crime for autistic people. The present study utilised an in-depth, qualitative life story approach to explore the diverse life stories of four autistic men with sexual convictions, from two UK prisons. The study aimed to capture how each individual used their life stories to construe their life experiences leading up to prison, portray and understand their sense of self, and anticipate what their future would hold. A narrative analysis of participants’ life stories illuminated both diversity and commonalities between participants’ life experiences and sense-making of those experience. The examples of diversity and commonality found in this study emphasise the importance of both recognising how autism can be an important contextual factor for some individuals who engage in sexual crime, whilst also understanding that practitioner must also be cognisant of the diversity between autistic people to be able to work responsively with them in forensic interventions.