Introduction and Organization for Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue for the American Society of Criminology, Division of Victimology focuses on the important consideration of vulnerable victimizations. As guest editors, our primary goal in this endeavor is to showcase research centered on individuals and/or populations, that due to their status, have less power in society, are socially controlled in unique ways in the criminal–legal system, or are members of marginalized groups with specialized considerations surrounding their victimization experiences. Each of these selections in the special issue provide our discipline relevant scholarship on the overall victimization experience, and at the same time, are also centered on the victimization experiences of historically ignored and/or marginalized groups. While doing so we also seek to highlight both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in the current issue and employ a modality of theoretical lenses to examine these questions. We open the special issue exploring vulnerable victimizations within the carceral setting. First Terry’s article examines the in-depth experiences of young women in a rural prison setting, one the author notes is “a destination most view as sterile, uninviting, and revictimizing” for these criminally involved young women who were also often victimized in their communities, creating “an abuse to prison pipeline.” In the second selection, Melander and Garni examine gender-based violence among U.S. asylum seekers. The authors use ethnographic fieldwork to investigate the gendered victimization experiences of immigrant girls and women seeking asylum in the United States. Next, Jones, Worthen, Heim, Sharp, and McLeod consider a feminist life-course perspective to examine the adverse childhood experiences of criminally involved Native American women demonstrating that coercive control impacts criminally involved Native American and non-Native American women in distinctive ways. We then transition to explore vulnerable victimizations outside the carceral setting – including how gender, race/ethnicity, and LGBTQ+ individuals experience victimization. In an article by Fissel, Butler, Fisher, and Gildea, intimate partner cyber abuse is examined by prevalence rate and frequency of occurrence across different types of intimate partner relationships. The authors consider how individuals in heterosexual and non-heterosexual relationships differ in cyber victimization across gender identification and find some notable predictors within these demographic differences. Afterward, an article by Ratajczak and Teut explores Title IX policy adopting a feminist and queer perspective to discuss how the expansion of Title IX protections to transgender and gender non-conforming students can help protect them against discrimination. Next, Outlaw, Menard, Teasdale, and Bradley build upon our understanding of the increased prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) risk for sexual minorities, by analyzing the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Wave 4). The authors determine that individuals who are bisexual are substantially more at risk for IPV than their heterosexual counterparts, and routine activities and stigma-related factors are sizable predictors of this. This special issue features additional articles that investigate the unique victimization experiences of individuals who are LGBTQ+. Merken, Slakoff, Aujla, and Morton explore this topic using the experiences of IPV service providers in their work with transgender and immigrant women employing an intersectional approach. The authors provided vignettes to IPV service providers and analyzed their responses to better understand the perspective VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 2023, VOL. 18, NO. 1, 1–2 https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2022.2140463