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Legislative Responses to Sexual Violence
Author(s) -
JANUS ERIC S.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2003.tb07310.x
Subject(s) - legislature , sexual violence , poison control , injury prevention , human factors and ergonomics , suicide prevention , criminology , psychology , medical emergency , political science , medicine , law
A bstract : In the past three decades, the legislative response to sexual violence has undergone two sets of reforms. The feminist reforms, beginning in the 1970s, sought to modify legal forms and practices to reflect new theories of the nature of sexual violence. The ‘regulatory’ reforms of the 1990s were atheoretical, and adopted a ‘preventive’ strategy to close perceived gaps in the system of social control. This article examines the second wave of reform, with special emphasis on Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) laws. It summarizes the current legal controversies generated by these laws, and suggests that the underlying assumptions and forms adopted by the 1990s reforms may undercut some of the advances achieved by the feminist reforms in understanding and addressing sexual violence.