Informing legal change

From “Ghettoization” to a Field of Its Own: A Comprehensive Review of Street Harassment Research

“…Research shows that there are barriers to reporting and disclosure of street harassment to the police and criminal justice system. Although there are jurisdictions where some forms of street harassment are legislated against or covered under hate crime provisions (Mason-Bish & Duggan, 2020), many people who experience street harassment are reluctant to report to police as is the case for other forms of gender-based violence (Fileborn & Vera-Gray, 2017; Mullany & Trickett, 2018). In one Australian study, 16.1% of participants indicated that they had ever reported street harassment to the police (Fileborn, 2019).…”

“…Several studies have considered how victims would like street harassment to be responded to. The research points to a diversity of desired responses and needs, including transformative change addressing the root causes of harassment, public education and awareness raising, bystander intervention, changes to environmental design, and criminal justice responses (Dhillon & Bakaya, 2014; Fileborn & Vera-Gray, 2017; Mullany & Trickett, 2018; Stop Street Harassment, 2014; Vizvary, 2020). On this last point, participants in Fileborn and Vera-Gray’s (2017) work were more ambivalent.…”

“…On this last point, participants in Fileborn and Vera-Gray’s (2017) work were more ambivalent. While they often valued the symbolic function of legislation, concern was expressed regarding the challenges in responding to harassment using a criminal justice response, the perceived triviality of individual incidents, and the potential to contribute toward the overpolicing of marginalized groups (see also Mullany & Trickett, 2018; Nielsen, 2000). Nielsen’s (2000, p. 1070) leading work on “legal consciousness” and the regulation of offensive public speech found that participants did not support the legal regulation of such speech, “except in its most extreme forms.” Collectively, these findings indicate that the role of the criminal justice responses to street harassment is heavily contested at best, while there is limited to no evidence on the effectiveness or impacts of such responses where they have been introduced.…”

“…While, as Fileborn’s (2021b) work illustrates, street harassment has only rarely been addressed through formal government policy and practice responses, this situation is changing particularly in relation to the development of legislation regulating harassment. As noted, there has been no work identified to date that systematically evaluates the impact of legislative responses where they have been introduced, with the exception of Mullany and Trickett (2018). Rather, the literature reviewed continues to focus on the development of legislative frameworks for street harassment.…”

Introducing Landscapes of Hate

“…In March 2021, the UK government, in response to the murder of Sarah Everard in London, stated that police forces should record violence motivated by a person's sex or gender (BBC, 2021f ). 2 The identification of violence against women as a hate crime, equivalent to 'race' or disability, has been viewed by many as a necessary extension of laws to protect women from violence, and also, as an evaluation of the Nottinghamshire Police misogyny crime pilot concluded, to start 'shifting attitudes' (BBC News, 2018; Mullany and Trickett, 2018). However, the evaluation found a still significant level of verbal and physical harassment, and violence, at the end of the pilot period in which misogynist hate crime could be reported, suggesting the potential limited impacts of such a policy on attitudinal change.…”