Improving Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Research on Sexual Abuse Perpetration

Abstract

In this editorial, we describe our recommendations for how Sexual Abuse can improve justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in the scholarship that is published in these pages. This editorial grew out of a process of consultation between Editorial Board members, the first author, Michael Seto (Editor in Chief; EIC), and other stakeholders. During this process, we agreed to provide context regarding the need for JEDI-related initiatives by journal editorial boards as well as our non-binding recommendations for the journal-our aspirational list of changes that we believe would advance the science and practice of our field through elevating the research conducted by a diverse group of scientists and research conducted with diverse populations.We want to acknowledge our positionality from the outset of this endeavor. We do not speak for the Editorial Board nor for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). We are speaking for ourselves, and our identities shape our work, including the content of this editorial. Amanda Fanniff: I am a White, cisgender 1 , heterosexual, able-bodied woman raised in a middle-class suburban family who is now a tenured Associate Professor. These identities have shaped my worldview and opportunities-there were doors that were readily open for me to walk through as I advanced to college, graduate school, and through my career. There are many explanations of racism that have impacted my thinking, among the top being Dr Camara Phyllis Jones's work (e.g., Jones, 2018) and the following less-cited (in the world of psychology research) from the writer Scott Woods (2014): "Racism … is so insidious that it doesn't care if you are a white person who likes black people; it's still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don't look like you. ...It's a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to

Addressing Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Research

“…I am particularly eager to commit to measuring and analyzing information about author, editorial board, and reviewer characteristics in order to evaluate change over time. I hope that others will take the call by Fanniff and Alexander (this issue) to analyze the articles appearing in this journal to assess the impact of this initiative.…”

“…Past research, including research published in this journal, has addressed age (and developmental stage) and gender/sex (Schudson et al, 2019), but relatively few studies have focused on race and/or ethnicity, and fewer still have considered other characteristics. Fanniff and Alexander (this issue) provides examples of research questions that could be addressed (see Table 1 in Fanniff and Alexander). Guidance on how to standardize description of characteristics across existing systems would also be helpful, given the journal’s international readership and scope.…”

“…I am grateful to Fanniff and Alexander (this issue) for so cogently and powerfully articulating why Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) considerations are important for this journal. Social science is conducted by people, within existing systems, and it is increasingly clear that people and systems can be biased in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.…”

Sex offender registration and notification act with adolescents adjudicated for illegal sexual behavior: a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective

“…These labels lead to stigmatization, marginalization, fear of mistrust by others, harassment, and rejection or isolation by family and peers (11,62,70,75). In fact, recommendations have been made to eliminate the use of the "juvenile sex offender" and "sex offender" labels (76)(77)(78)(79). Essentially, these labels create a lifelong stigma which makes it difficult for AISB to successfully reintegrate back into their community.…”

That The Powerful Play Goes On

“…This includes changes in the Editorial Board membership (47% of Editorial Board members in August 2016 identified as women, with greater diversity in age, career stage, ethnicity, professional discipline, and nationality) and adoption of person first language guidelines in August 2018 (Seto, 2018; Willis & Letourneau, 2018). In particular, I want to note that several initiatives were launched in October 2022 to reflect JEDI principles, including further revisions to the submission guidelines; temporary open-access publication of authors from under-represented groups and geographies; and subsidized professional copy editing services for authors who do not have English as a first language and who have submitted manuscripts that could be accepted for publication if the writing was professionally copy-edited (Fanniff & Alexander, 2022; Seto, 2022).…”