Sexuality, victims and crime

Aspects of human sexuality have an ongoing link with issues of criminality. From the 18th century, there was a major transition in the regulation of sexuality in western countries from informal social control and Church mandate to the state bureaucracy and the criminal justice system. Male homosexuality and female prostitution were increasingly cast as threats to social order and became the target of intensified surveillance, policing and prosecution. From the mid-20th century, this legal regulation was challenged by more liberal views of what comprises normative sexuality. Nevertheless, the resulting decriminalising impulse has not ended the process of further criminalisation of matters related to sexual behaviour in a new set of relations between sexuality and victimisation. The re-emergence of the feminist movement from the 1960s brought sexual violence against women and children to the forefront of public awareness and generated considerable pressure on state authorities to mount an effective response. This chapter reflects on such major changes within various liberal legal systems with examples from two key areas. First, we consider the major contemporary drive to further research, highlight and respond to the victimisation of women and children in sexual assaults and the transformations in criminal justice measures that this accompanied. Second, we consider aspects of the criminalisation of violence, harassment and other attacks described as crime motivated on the grounds of sexual identity. We explain the social movement origins and debates about this, typical legal reforms and protections that have been implemented around the globe, and how the new acknowledgement of this victimisation has shifted understandings of legal citizenship for sexual minorities. We also critically reflect on the mixed achievements and limits of criminal justice attempts to address victimisation from both sexual assaults and sexuality-related hate crimes as principally male forms of offending.