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This project had a direct impact on practitioners and services, influencing police practice, police training, and judicial cases involving a relatively new and under-reported crime: The Online Dating Romance Scam. It also impacted on society, culture and creativity by stimulating public debate via extensive media coverage. The research established that prevalence was much higher than previously believed, and that existing ideas about typical victim profiles were incorrect. It shed light on psychological risk factors, the processes underlying the scam, and effects on victims. Documenting the emotional effects led to changes in how victims are treated by law enforcement.
This case study concerns the research of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies relating to both individual and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) victims of fraud. It highlights how the underpinning research has influenced major national policy changes, such as the formation of Action Fraud and the services they and other bodies, such as the National Fraud Authority (NFA), Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Office of Fair Trading (OFT), provide to support victims. It also demonstrates how the research has informed policy-makers of the significant impact of fraud on victims, stimulating changes in the services offered; with the Sentencing Council conducting a review of sentencing for fraud related offences.
This case study describes how research on the rights of victims of cyberstalking conducted by a CRiL researcher in collaboration with researchers from other disciplines has:
(a) informed the views of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the context of the adoption by the European Parliament of a new directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime;
(b) influenced the formulation of new prosecutorial policies by the UK Crown Prosecution Service in relation to crimes committed through social media; and
(c) made information available to law enforcement agencies within the UK involved in the repression of cybercrimes.
Through its impact on the adoption of new EU legislation and UK prosecutorial policies, and by providing relevant information to UK law enforcement officials, the research has had a positive impact on the protection of individuals — including in particular the most vulnerable - from cyberstalking, both at the national and European level.
This case study focuses on Aisha Gill's ground-breaking research on violence against women (VAW) in the UK, Iraqi Kurdistan and India as part of the Crucible Centre for Human Rights Research. Gill's research has had a direct impact on local, national and international policy-making and professional practice, in particular, in relation to `honour' based violence (HBV) and forced marriage (FM). This has underpinned her work as an academic commentator, with a strong media profile, her reports and policy briefings on VAW for UK and international public and third sector agencies, as well as an expert witness for the Crown Prosecution Service on HBV and FM cases.
Since the 1980s, there has been a wave of global activity seeking improved control of money laundering and confiscation of crime proceeds. This set of research studies, based around the work of Professor Mike Levi, constitutes core empirical analysis of the scale of financial crimes, and what can be properly said about the impacts of social and formal control measures against them. The studies have informed and helped to shape the fraud, money laundering and organised crime strategies of the UK Home Office, UK enforcement agencies, and international bodies such as the EC Justice and Home Affairs and IMF post-2008.
This research has led the field in understanding the hurts involved in acts of hate crime for victims and offenders. Much of the research has been commissioned and funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK. The research has impacted upon:
Some 77% of victims wait until they have had more than 100 incidents of unwanted behaviour before they tell anyone about it. More than 1.2 million women and 900,000 men are stalked in the UK every year (British Crime Survey.) The research investigated the characteristics of stalkers and has: (i) changed police practice in UK police forces in investigating cases of alleged stalking offences through supporting the adoption of the Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Harassment (DASH) threat assessment checklist within every police station in England and Wales; (ii) informed public policy debate and the introduction of anti-stalking legislation and raising public awareness of the nature and dangers of stalking behaviour.
Research in this Unit at NTU has:
(a) Changed the way victimisation is conceptualised, measured, and reported within official crime surveys;
(b) Transformed the methodological evaluation of the impact of security devices upon crime and repeat victimisation through the introduction of multi-level statistical modelling as opposed to bivariate cross-tabulations which constituted the state of the art prior to her work.
Professor Tseloni's research has directly informed the methodological training of crime survey analysts (including those working on the Home Office British Crime Survey), and contributed through the dissemination of Home Office guidelines to the day-to-day crime reduction practices and responses to crime of police forces in England and Wales.
A series of inter-related research projects, conducted over the last decade by Amanda Robinson, has contributed to significant changes in the services afforded to victims of domestic and sexual violence. Dr. Robinson's research has produced identifiable national and international policy impacts as organizations and governments have used findings from her work to inform their decision-making about the development, implementation and funding of services for these victims of crime. Consequently, service delivery for victims of domestic and sexual violence is becoming more holistic, efficient, and effective, both in the UK and beyond.
The research has influenced governments' policy and professional practice in the development of Restorative Justice (RJ) both nationally and internationally, through its evaluation of the effectiveness of RJ schemes in promoting rehabilitation of adult offenders while also considering the views of victims. Policy makers and practitioners have drawn on the research evidence specifically as regards the relative merits of two types of RJ intervention: `conferencing' involving a meeting of victim and offender with their supporters and with a neutral facilitator; and `indirect mediation' involving `shuttling' on the part of the mediator between victim and offender. The research has played a major part in the Ministry of Justice's commissioning of sentencing options in England and Wales, and has directly informed legislation implementing RJ (the Crime and Courts Act 2013).