Christine Alder

The Convicted Rapist - A Sexual Or A Violent Offender

The issue addressed in this article concerns the characteristics of “official rapists,” that is, males who have been processed by the criminal justice system. Presently available research findings are inadequate for developing a definitive portrait of the rapist since the study populations most often consist of rapists only. In the research for this article, incarcerated rapists were compared with other sex offenders, and with other serious property and violent offenders. A sample of 965 males was drawn from a national survey of inmates in correctional facilities. While a few differences were found (most notably rapists were more likely to be black than other offenders), in general, rapists were most often similar to both serious property and violent offenders. Rapists differed most often from other sex offenders. However, both rapists and other sex offenders were less likely to have previously served time than other serious offenders.

Victims of Violence: The Case of Homeless Youth

Especially in the media, young homeless people are frequently presented as posing a violent threat to other members of the public. However, the economic circumstances, living situation and age of homeless youth are consistent with factors identified in victim research with vulnerability to violent crime. The present research explored the nature and extent of violent victimisation of homeless young people after they had left home. Intensive interviews were conducted with 51 homeless youth who were under the age of 18. Almost two-thirds of these young people had been physically assaulted and half had been sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months. The perpetrators of this violence were predominantly male. There were major differences in the nature of the violent experiences of the young men and the young women in terms of the relationship to the perpetrator, the location of the assault and the motivation. The demand for sex was a factor throughout the experiences of the young women.

Crime in the World of Art

In these pages we shall address an under-researched aspect of white-collar crime—namely, illegal activity in the art world, specifically problems arising with art theft, fraud in the art market, and the illicit traffic in cultural heritage material. The art world is, of course, exceptionally diverse, consisting of paintings, sculptures, works in glass, works on paper, photography, works in fabric, and many other art forms. It is, as well, widespread in a geographical sense with material for collectors and collections coming from all parts of the globe. There are, further, many layers to the art market in terms of cost, with some objects at the low end being little more than trinkets, ranging upward to the rarefied heights of the art auction rooms where some items are sold for millions of pounds or dollars. It should come as no surprise that it is this expensive end of the market that attracts the interest of those willing to seek illicit avenues to wealth, although as we shall see the pathways such illegal activity can take are multiple and diverse.