Wednesday 20 August 1997

Professor Stanko teaches in the Department of Law, Brunel University, United Kingdom, and is the Research Director of the ESRC Violence Programme. She is highly regarded internationally for her research and scholarship and is the 1996 recipient of the prestigious August Vollmer award of the American Society of Criminology. She visited the University of Sydney Law School from 22 July to 23 August under the University’s Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program.

Professor Stanko’s research interests include violence, particularly homophobic violence and violence against women, gender and crime, crime prevention, policing violence, victimisation and the narrative of protection. She has written and edited several books, including Judge, Lawyer, Victim, Thief; Women, Police and Male Violence; Just Boys Doing Business: Men, Masculinities and Crime; Intimate Intrusions: Women’s Experience of Male Violence; and Perspectives on Violence.

Professor Stanko spoke on the ideological strength of ‘the victim’ as a cultural icon for modern vulnerability, and the impact of the rhetoric of ‘the victim’, in particular the notion of a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ victim, on attitudes to crime prevention and the managing of resources in the criminal justice system. Conference papers are not available