Episodes

  • As we close out the season, we invite our listeners to submit any questions they may have for the season 2 finale! Send us any questions you may have at [email protected]
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • This episode of Beyond Fear is truly groundbreaking. We welcomed four esteemed guests - Nadiah Mohajir, MPH, Dr. Maryyum Mehmood, Dr. Guila Benchimol, and the Rev. Dr. Danielle Tumminio Hansen - to lead a discussion about sexual harm that occurs across different religions including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. You may remember that we spoke to Dr. Karen Terry in Season 1 about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. That episode focused on the institutional response to the abuse that was eventually uncovered and what the data showed about those that experienced abuse and those that perpetrated it.
    In this episode, we dig deeper and discuss how abuse across these different religious spaces is and is not being addressed. Our guests talk about the scope of the sexual harm occurring, their thoughts as to why sexual harm occurs in religious spaces, the role that lay members of their faiths play in sexual harm, and how this type of harm impacts survivors.
    Recording this episode was fascinating and we could have continued talking for another hour or two. We know that you will find it just as informative and interesting as we did! 
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Missing episodes?

    Click here to refresh the feed.

  • Welcome to Episode 10 Beyond Fear listeners! We realized that it has been a while since we caught you up on the work that we have been doing outside of the podcast. In this episode, we interview each other about the projects that have been keeping us busy. 
    Alissa shares her journey of co-founding Ampersands Restorative Justice – an organization dedicated to restoring the world from sexual harm. Among other things, Ampersands facilitates restorative processes for cases of sexual harm and trains other folks to facilitate these cases. Alissa shares what it has been like to see her dream become a reality.
    Alexa speaks about a project that is close to her heart as well. In 2020, she and Dr. Nicole Fox found out about the Survivors Memorial located in Minneapolis, MN. It is the first ever memorial dedicated to honoring survivors of sexual harm. Alexa describes what she and Dr. Fox discovered after speaking to the people that were involved in all aspects of making the memorial a reality. She also discusses the next step in their research on the Survivors Memorial which is designed to uncover how it functions in the community as a site of healing, education, prevention, and more. 
    We hope you enjoy catching-up with us! Don’t forget that we are planning a final episode dedicated to answering your questions. So, send us questions you have about us, our work, or the topics that we have covered to [email protected]

    Additional Readings and Resources:

    Ampersands Restorative Justice
    Restorative Justice in Cases of Sexual Harm (2022) by Alexa Sardina & Alissa R. Ackerman published in CUNY Law Review
    The Survivors Memorial 
    Memorial for Survivors of Sexual Violence Vandalized (May 16, 2022) – KARE 11 News
    America’s First Memorial Honoring Survivors of Sexual Violence (2022) by Alexa Sardina & Nicole Fox – Journal of Interpersonal Violence
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Throughout this podcast, we have discussed the ways in which sexual harm impacts survivors psychologically, emotionally, and physically. A less talked about consequence stems from abuse that occurs within the context of institutional environments that are expected to be safe. 
    In this episode we speak to Dr. Caroline Heldman an expert on the consequences of sexual harm that takes place within institutional environments. Institutional betrayal refers to the harm that an institution does to those who depend on it. As you will hear, this betrayal can be explicit policies or when an institution fails to respond to sexual harm. This is often seen in the context of college campuses, the military, and religions organizations. 

    Additional Readings and Resources:

    Faculty Against Rape
    The Hunting Ground
    End Rape on Campus
    The New Campus Anti-Rape Movement: Internet Activism and Social Justice – Caroline Heldman, Alissa R. Ackerman, and Ian Breckenridge-Jackson
    Blowing the Whistle on Campus Rape – Caroline Heldman, PhD and Danielle Dirks
    Institutional Betrayal and Institutional Courage – Dr. Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD

    Guest Bio:
    Caroline Heldman, PhD is Chair of the Critical Theory & Social Justice Department and Chair of Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She is also Executive Director of The Representation Project and a political commentator for Spectrum and CNN International. Her research specializes in media, the presidency, and systems of power.
    Dr. Heldman has published six books on gender justice and politics and her work has been featured in numerous documentaries, including Miss Representation, The Mask You Live In, The Hunting Ground, Informant, Equal Means Equal, Liberated, Nevertheless, and The Great American Lie.
     Dr. Heldman splits her time between Los Angeles and New Orleans where she co-founded the New Orleans Women’s Shelter and the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum. She also co-founded End Rape on Campus (EROC), Faculty Against Rape (FAR), and End Rape Statute of Limitations (ERSOL) that successfully abolished the time limit on prosecuting rape in California. She is currently curating the first Civil Rights museum in New Orleans with Miss Leona Tate, one of the four little girls who desegregated the Deep South in 1960. 
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • In our last episode, Who is the Ideal Victim? we spoke with Dr. Danielle Slakoff about media depictions of survivors of interpersonal and sexual harm. Specifically, we unpacked the way that race influences media narratives about who qualifies as a “real victim” worthy of help and sympathy. Black and Latina victims are frequently portrayed as somehow to blame for their victimization. 

    The sexual harm experienced by Black women and girls is often undisclosed, unaddressed, and unseen. In this episode, Dr. Carolyn M. West and Dr. LaDonna Long share their work that exposes the ways in which Black women and girls are treated not only by the media but also by the criminal legal system and its actors. 

    Much of our conversation centers on the need to understand and acknowledge our country’s racist past in order to make sense of the way that Black women and girls are treated by the criminal legal system. For most of this country's history the rape of Black women and girls was not illegal because they were considered property and were not seen as human beings. This permeated our legal system, and the consequences are still felt today.  

    Ultimately, it will take all of us to make the changes necessary to reverse these injustices and we hope that our conversation will take us one step closer to understanding the way forward. 

    Additional readings and resources:

    Love with Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse – edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons
    Pornography Consumers of Color and Problematic Pornography Use: Clinical Implications (2022) – Carolyn M. West, PhD
    Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel: Historical Images of Black Women and their Implications for Psychotherapy (1995) – Carolyn M. West, PhD
    Let me Tell Y’all bout Black Chicks: Images of Black Women in Pornography by Carolyn M. West, PhD
    Sara Bartman – Black Past
    Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake, and Thalia Gonzalez 
    Race and Prostitution in the United States by Donna M. Hughes
    New Docuseries ‘Hunt for the Chicago Strangler’ focuses on Murders of Dozens of Black Women over 20 Years – Fox 32 Chicago
    Surviving the Silence: Black Women’s Stories of Rape by Charlotte Pierce-Baker
    Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation by Beth E. Richie
    Black and Missing Foundation
    Black Women’s Blueprint
    We as Ourselves

    Guest Bios:

    Carolyn M. West, PhD is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Associate Dean of Special Initiatives at the University of Washington. She is an award-winning author, internationally recognized speaker, documentary filmmaker, and expert witness. For more than three decades, she has been investigating gender-based violence, with a special focus on domestic violence and sexual assault in the lives of African American women. Her mission is to deliver keynote addresses, conduct workshops, and customize innovative training material to educate and equip professionals with the skills to provide culturally responsive services. Her vision is to educate, empower, and inspire a multicultural alliance of survivors and professionals to prevent all forms of violence.

    LaDonna Long, PhD is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Roosevelt University. Her research focuses on women’s experiences with victimization, particularly how race, class, and gender influences post-assault coping mechanisms. Her prior work focused on age and educational differences in African American women who have experienced sexual victimization as well as factors that predict disclosure of sexual victimization to health professionals. She has also published work on medical advocates’ experiences in the emergency room with survivors and law enforcement as well as vicarious trauma.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Throughout season 1, we have discussed how society, often times through the media, blames survivors of sexual violence. Frequently, media portrayals impact trial outcomes, a survivor’s willingness to report, and more. In this episode, we speak to Dr. Danielle Slakoff, a professor and prominent researcher that studies the ways in which the media inaccurately portrays survivors of domestic violence and sexual harm. 
    During the episode, we also talk about ‘the ideal victim’. According to her research and analysis of newspaper stories, women that are missing, that experience sexual harm or domestic abuse are portrayed differently based on race. The ideal victim has historically been white women and girls. They are frequently portrayed as being blameless and in need of protection. Black and Latina women, women that do not conform to this stereotype, are often blamed for the victimization. 
    According to Dr. Slakoff’s research, Latina and Black women and girls were portrayed much more negatively than the white women and girl victims. Specifically, they were portrayed as risk-taking at the time that the crime occurred and somehow responsible for the harm they experienced. This deep dive into the ways in which the media influences the way we think about who experiences harm and why is a critical piece of a broader conversation about race and the criminal justice system. 
    Additional Readings and Resources:
    Media Messages Surrounding Missing Women and Girls: The “Missing White Woman Syndrome” and Other Factors that Influence Newsworthiness - Danielle C. Slakoff and Henry F. Fradella
    A Timeline of 22 Year Old Gabby Petito’s Case - CNN
    White, Black, and Latina Female Victims in U.S. News: A Multivariate and Intersectional Analysis of Story Differences - Danielle C. Slakoff and Pauline Brennan
    How Social Media Shone a Light on the Lauren Smith-Fields Case - Time Magazine
    The Black and Missing Foundation
    Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples
    Guest Bio:
    Dr. Danielle Slakoff is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University, Sacramento. Her research interests include media representations of women and girl victims and perpetrators, women’s issues within the criminal justice system, race/ethnicity, true crime, and domestic violence. Dr. Slakoff’s commentary on media portrayals of the justice system has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @DSlakoffPhD. 
    Follow us on Facebook at Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast, on Instagram @beyondfearpodcast, and on Twitter @fearcrimes. If you have questions about this or any of our previous episodes, or if there is anything you'd like to know about our work, we hope you will email us at [email protected] or you can contact us on our site here.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Child sexual abuse material (CSAM), previously known as child pornography, can be a confronting and uncomfortable topic. CSAM can refer to the possession, viewing, sharing, and creation of images or videos that involve the visual depiction of children involved in a sex act. Although CSAM was almost completely eradicated in the 1980s, the dawn of the Internet ushered the proliferation of it. The anonymity of the Internet and the ease of sharing digital images of children makes this material ‘one click away’.
    During this episode, we speak to Nicholas a person who was convicted of and served prison time for the possession of child sexual abuse material. Importantly, Nicholas emphasizes the fact that although his committed a non-contact offense, his crime was not victim-less. His description of his life before, during and after the offense provides critical insights regarding the factors that can lead someone to consuming CSAM, the importance and effectiveness of treatment, the challenges of life after prison for someone convicted of an act of sexual harm, and many other topics that we have covered during previous episodes. 
    We understand that hearing Nicholas’ story can be confronting and uncomfortable, but we think his account provides important information that can be used to combat the proliferation of child sexual abuse material in the future. 
    Additional Readings and Resources:
    Child Pornography – The United States Department of Justice
    Citizen’s Guide to U.S. Federal Law on Child Pornography – The United States Department of Justice
    Child Pornography Offenders: Quick Facts – United States Sentencing Commission 
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Episode 5 is the last part of our series of episodes dedicated to human trafficking. In this episode, you will hear Jess’s story of surviving trafficking. Our conversation exposes some of the many myths about the crime of human trafficking (which often includes sex trafficking), including who perpetrates it, who experiences it, and the context within which it occurs.
     Traffickers do not usually target victims they do not know. In fact, like other types of sexual harm, survivors are usually trafficked by someone they know, such as a family member. People often assume that trafficking involves traveling or transporting a person. While this is sometimes the case, as Dr. Branchini-Risko noted in Episode 4, trafficking does not require movement across boarders. And as we hear in the case of Jess, a child may be trafficked or exploited from their own home. Furthermore, people who are trafficked are often not held against their will but may be controlled through other means, like a lack of financial independence.
     Jess’s story of healing is emblematic of what many survivors of sex trafficking experience. The psychological harm may take many years to heal and often include post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.
     
    Additional readings and resources:
     Centering Survivors – Polaris Project
     Survivors of Human Trafficking Recount Experiences, Provide Advice – U.S. Department of Defense
     Faces of Human Trafficking – Office for Victims of Crime (OVC)
     Helping Human Trafficking Victims – Center for Prevention of Abuse
     
    Guest Bio
    Jess grew-up in the duality of New York City and Seattle. They settled in the Pacific Northwest and earned their bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice, from the University of Washington. While attending undergrad courses, Jess found a passion for Restorative Justice and a desire to influence policies responding to real life circumstances. Advocating for change, Jess challenges systemic racism and the false narratives of popular culture. 
     After several years in the Social Justice arena, Jess made the decision to pursue their master’s degree in Social Work to expand their professional process. Embracing adversity and a colorfully diverse background, Jess is focused on the advancement of Transformative Justice and continues their commitment to harm-reduction and enhancing repair, one person at a time. 

    Follow us on Facebook at Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast, on Instagram @beyondfearpodcast, and on Twitter @fearcrimes. If you have questions about this or any of our previous episodes, or if there is anything you’d like to know about our work, we hope you will email us at [email protected] or you can contact us on our site here.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Human trafficking is an incredibly complex issue that includes several different important topics we felt should be covered during our second season. Due to this complexity, we agreed to dedicate three episodes to cover it.

    Welcome to Understanding Trafficking Part 2! During this episode, we speak with Dr. Casey Branchini Risko, an expert on international labor and sex trafficking. The interview with Dr. Branchini Risko gives further insight into the many ways that trafficking is associated with other crimes perpetrated against the most vulnerable people in societies across the globe. Importantly, Dr. Branchini Risko also emphasizes that there is often significant overlap between labor and sex trafficking. We also talked to Dr. Branchini Risko about more specific offenses, including sex tourism.

    Stay tuned for Episode 5 next week when our discussion of trafficking comes full circle and we hear the story of a trafficking survivor.

    Additional Resources and Organizations
     
    Terres de homes
    Heart Kenya
    Free the slaves
    Freedom Fund
    Polaris Project (United states)
    Winrock International
    Kachin Women's Association Thailand
    Tenaganita

    Guest Bio
    Casey Branchini Risko, PhD is a public health researcher with more than a decade of experience working in the anti-trafficking field – both on research and programming. Her work focuses on using rigorous methods to better understand how human trafficking impacts health, including how to accurately measure these issues and conduct monitoring and evaluation of interventions. She has spent much of her career traveling throughout Southeast Asia and other parts of the world to better understand risks and protective factors associated with trafficking and to find new and innovative ways to prevent and respond to the crime. 
    Dr. Branchini Risko received both her PhD and MHS in International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While at Hopkins, she also served as a co-investigator on studies estimating the prevalence of forced marriage and childbearing among Burmese women trafficked to China as well as on the health impact of human rights violations, including trafficking, among North Korean children. 

    Follow us on Facebook at Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast, on Instagram @beyondfearpodcast, and on Twitter @fearcrimes. If you have questions about this or any of our previous episodes, or if there is anything you’d like to know about our work, we hope you will email us at [email protected] or you can contact us on our site here.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Human trafficking has moved into the public consciousness as a serious offense both domestically and internationally. Over the course of the next three episodes of Beyond Fear, we will cover trafficking from the perspective of researchers and a survivor.  

    Human trafficking, including sex trafficking, is a multi-billion-dollar industry that impacts an estimated 24.9 million people globally. In the U.S., human trafficking is defined as using force, fraud, or coercion, to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor services against their will. In some instances, people are trafficked for the purpose of commercial sex and in others people are trafficked and forced to work under inhumane or illegal conditions. 

    In Understanding Trafficking Part I, we speak to Katie Gosch and Dr. Katherine Gomez – experts on domestic sex trafficking. Our conversation touched on several important topics including who is most at risk for victimization, the demographic profile of traffickers, ways to combat trafficking and more. 

    This episode is the beginning of our exploration of human trafficking. So, stay tuned next week for our discussion as we discuss human trafficking from a global perspective.


    For additional reading, check out:

    Human Trafficking Hotline

    Sex Trafficking – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

    What is Human Trafficking? Department of Homeland Security

    Polaris Project

    Guest Bios:
    Katherine C. Gomez, PhD (she/her) currently serves as the Director of Human Trafficking Intervention for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FDJJ). She holds a PhD in Public Affairs from the University of Central Florida. She has served Florida since 2006 as a juvenile probation officer, trainer, researcher, and senior administrator. She specializes in working with juvenile justice system-involved youth who have experienced human trafficking, youth charged with sexually-related offenses, youth who identify as part of the LGBTQI community, and high-profile multi-jurisdictional cases. 
    Ms. Gotch has worked in the field of sexual abuse prevention for over twenty years as a clinician, evaluator, trainer, educator, and in the development of evidence-informed public policy. She currently maintains a private practice, Integrated Clinical & Correctional Services, which provides specialized clinical and consultation services related to adults with sexual behavior problems and other forms of abusive/violent behavior. She is a Clinical Member & Public Policy Executive Board Member – ATSA, Former Board Member & Public Policy Advisor – Oregon ATSA, and Advisory Board Member & Former Public Policy & Engagement Action Team Co-Chair – NPEIV National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence. She frequently provides training to correctional agencies, treatment providers, policy makers, and other community partners on sexual offense specific management and treatment, static and dynamic risk, public policy, public engagement, and related topics.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • The topic of sex work can illicit strong stereotypes, incorrect assumptions, and ill-advised suggestions on how this issue should or should not be addressed by the criminal legal system and society in general. Regardless of what comes to mind, people who engage in sex work frequently face dehumanizing treatment simply based on what they do for a living – who they ARE is rarely part of the equation.
    Our goal this season was to humanize many of the controversial and misunderstood topics related to sexual harm by speaking to the people directly impacted by them. In “Understanding Sex Work” we speak to Sive Sanchez – a person that has engaged in sex work for many years in San Francisco. During our conversation, they demystify what sex work is, who does it, and why. Sive also shares some of the struggles they have faced and many of them stem from the fact that sex work is illegal.
    There has been a significant shift to decriminalize sex work. A critical part of this conversation has to do with police interactions with sex workers. Research shows that in criminalized contexts, sex workers are often physically or sexually coerced by police through threat of detention, violence (including rape) or extortion. Due to discrimination and mistrust of police and the high risk of being arrested, sex workers are not likely to report crimes against them or cooperate with the police in investigations. Decriminalization would also eliminate the fear of arrest that frequently prevents sex workers from seeking justice and would better protect sex workers from violence at the hands of their clients (see list of resources below).
    We learned a lot from our conversation with Sive and believe that their story is invaluable for you to hear. We hope this will encourage you to lean into difficult conversations and share what you have learned here. As always, we thank you for continuing to journey with us Beyond Fear.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Welcome to Season 2 of Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast. We are so excited to share this newseason with you. This time around, we will be diving deeper into critical issues related to sex crimes.Many of the episodes feature people directly impacted by these topics. Guests include experts as well aspeople that are directly impacted by them.We are also excited to announce that we have joined the Article III podcasting network. During thisepisode, we talk to Dr. Meghan Sacks and Dr. Amy Schlosberg - co-founders of Article III and co-hosts ofthe popular podcasts Direct Appeal and Women and Crime. Meghan and Amy join us to discuss how thispartnership came about and we also analyze the case of Ellie Nesler. Meghan and Amy recently did adeep dive into this case on an episode of Women and Crime and we highly recommend that you check itout before listening to this episode.Here we give you our take as criminologists and break down many of the themes that run throughoutBeyond Fear including the ripple effects of sexual harm, the impact on survivors, as well as the criminallegal response to sex crimes and more!We hope you enjoy it and stick with us as we continue to move Beyond Fear!Please follow this link for a direct download of the episode.Be sure to check out Meghan and Amy’s podcasts Women and Crime and Direct Appeal.Guest BiosMeghan Sacks, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and the criminal justice Graduate Program Director atFairleigh Dickinson University. She teaches classes on Women and Crime, Serial Killers, and Crime Policy.Her research interests include bail reform, plea bargaining, sentencing policy and corrections. She haspublished her work in several journal articles and periodicals, co-authored two books and contributed toseveral more. Meghan received her PhD and master’s from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.Prior to her academic career, Meghan served as a United States Probation Officer in the SouthernDistrict of New York. She is also the co-creator and co-host of two true crime podcasts: Women & Crimeand Direct Appeal.Amy Shlosberg, Ph.D., is Department Chair and an Associate Professor of Criminology at FairleighDickinson University. Her primary research focuses on miscarriages of justice, the negative implicationsof incarceration and issues surrounding reentry, with an emphasis on policy and procedural reform. Herworks in this area have been accepted for publication in several academic journals, including the AlbanyLaw Review, Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Psychology, Crime & Law, Wrongful Conviction LawReview and Criminal Justice Policy Review. She is also the co-creator and co-host of two true crimepodcasts: Women & Crime and Direct Appeal.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Throughout the first season of Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast, we have received dozens of questions and comments from listeners. The conversations we have had one-on-one with each other and those we have had with some of you who have reached out have affirmed our belief that the work we do and the way we accomplish it are both incredibly important.
    We’ve learned over the years that bringing our full selves to the table is critical. It is with that lesson in mind that we bring you the bonus episode of season one. As we noted, we have received dozens of interesting and important questions from our dedicated listeners. We could not possibly answer all of these questions in a single episode and will use many of them as topics for our second season.
    Instead, we decided to tackle two questions that survivors ask us all the time. We decided to answer them intimately and authentically – perhaps with an honesty and openness with which we have not always answered. The greatest gift we can give others is to be one hundred percent ourselves. We want anyone who has been harmed and those who have caused harm to fully understand the indelible impact that sexual harm can have. We also want listeners to understand that healing is not linear, that is is complicated and messy. It is layered. Healing is sometimes, as in the case for both of us, entangled in navigating both sexual trauma and mental illness.
    The two questions we tackle in this deeply personal episode include:

    How do I know I am “over it”?

    How to I navigate medical doctors/procedures/appointments as a survivor?

    In the episode we talk about two books that have been integral to our understanding of trauma. The first is called The Body Keeps the Score, by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. This book helped us both to understand how trauma impacts us and changes us as a cellular level. The second book is called Trauma and Recovery, by Dr. Judith Herman. It was this live changing book, which was first published in 1992, that helped us both to fully recognize that we were not alone.
    Later in the episode we talk about the importance of trauma informed medicine. We believe that trauma informed care is critical for survivors of all forms of trauma to receive the medical care they need.
    Our friend Christine “Cissy” White, whose work can be found at http://www.healwritenow.com, talks about how it is not trauma informed if it isn’t informed by trauma survivors. Her work has significantly impacted how we think about medical care.
    Finally, we discuss a potentially important and impactful intervention called pelvic floor physical therapy. This is not a very well known intervention, but many survivors who experience chronic pelvic pain, it can be life changing. You can learn more about pelvic floor physical therapy from thee following links:
    Why Going to Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Transformed My Life
    Pelvic Physical Therapy: Another Potential Treatment Option
    For a transcript of this episode click here.
    For a direct download of this episode
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • In Episode 12 of Beyond Fear, we interview David Prescott, an internationally known expert on treatment for those who sexually offend.
    A mental health practitioner of 36 years, David Prescott is the Editor of Safer Society Press. He is the author and editor of 20 books in the areas of understanding and improving services to at-risk clients. He is best known for his work in the areas of understanding, assessing, and treating sexual violence and trauma. Mr. Prescott is the recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Contribution Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and the 2018 recipient of the National Adolescent Perpetration Network’s C. Henry Kempe Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Prescott currently trains and lectures around the world.
    In this episode, we talked about everything from the history of treatment, to the need for trauma informed practice, to the use of person-first language.
    David recently co-authored a book Trauma-Informed Care: Transforming Treatment for People Who Have Sexually Abused.
    In the episode, we talked about a recent blog post on person first language that you can find here.
    For a transcript of this episode, click here.
    For a direct download of this episode, click here.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • The image that comes to mind when we think about a person who commits a sexual offense is more often than not, male. While it is true that the vast majority of sexual harm around the world is committed by men, women can – and do – commit sex crimes. In this episode of Beyond Fear, Alissa interviews Alexa about her expertise on female sexual offending. Alexa sheds light on this important, understudied and often misunderstood issue.
    The names that come to mind when we think about women who sexuall offend are those that have become household names: Mary Kay Letourneau and Debra LaFave. Both were attractive, relatively young school teachers who sexually abused younger boys. However, we cannot and should not reconcile all sexual abuse committed by women with that which was committed by these two women.
    Sexual abuse by women happens for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are similar to those we understand about men who sexually offend and some are quite different. It is important that we recognize and understand these reasons so we can promote prevention efforts.
    A few important things we do know:

    Women who sexually offend have significantly high rates of all forms of abuse and family dysfunction in childhood.

    Approximately 10% of sex crimes are committed by women.

    Women are likely to offend with a co-offending male partner.

    Sexual abuse by women causes similar harm to sexual abuse by men, but it is far less likely to be reported.

    For an interview with Debra LaFave click here.
    For a transcript of episode 11 click here.
    For a direct download of the episode click here.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • In Episode 9, “Why Should I Care?!”, Alexa interviews Dr. Alissa Ackerman about sex crimes policies in the U.S. Alissa is widely considered an expert on sex crimes policy and much of her research has examined the efficacy of the sex offense registry, residence restrictions, and community notification. Notably, her research, and that of most other researchers, have found that sex crimes policies have done nothing to make society safer and have not reduced rates of sexual violence since their implementation. 
     
    In this episode, we discuss two policies that apply only to those who have committed what the law defines as a “sex crime”: the publicly available sex offender registry and residence restrictions. These policies were enacted after the high-profile abductions and murders of young children by a known “sex offender”. The names of these child victims, Adam Walsh, Megan Kanka, and Jacob Wetterling, are well known. Unfortunately, these cases do not represent typical sex offenses. In fact, these are the rarest type of sex crimes.
     
    The assumptions underlying sex crimes policies is the notion that sex offenders are somehow different from everyone else. That they do not stop offending and each offense is more violent than the last. As we discussed in Episode 8 with Dr. Danielle Harris, most people who have committed sex offenses do desist, or stop offending. Additionally, studies of recidivism rates consistently indicate that people who offend sexually recidivate at lower rates than most other offenders and are more likely to recidivate with a non-sexual offense than a sexual one. The collateral consequences of these laws, the shame, stigma, inability to find housing and employment, are precisely the elements that are necessary for a person to reintegrate into their community in a positive, prosocial way. 
     
    Why should you care?! Anyone that wants to end sexual violence should care about the ineffectiveness of sex crimes policies and their collateral consequences. Instead of spending money on policies that are doing nothing to decrease rates of sexual violence, money and legislative efforts could be better directed toward sexual violence prevention. 
     
    In this episode we referenced several studies. You will find links to those research articles below. If you would like more information, please feel free to email us. 
     
    To read about Alissa’s work with the data from NCMEC, click here.
     
    To read more about the sex offender registry in an article by Dr. Alissa Ackerman, Dr. Andrew Harris, Dr. Jill Levenson, and Dr. Kristen Zgoba click here.
     
    To read more about research on the efficacy of sex offense policies on reducing rates of sexual violence, read an article by Dr. Alissa Ackerman, Dr. Meghan Sachs, and Dr. David Greenberg here.
     
    We highly recommend the documentary Untouchable which provides a comprehensive understanding of these policies and the very human impact of them. 
     
    Please note that Alissa references the findings of a meta-analysis conducted to evaluate the impact of sex offense legislation. She actually was referring to a comprehensive literature review on the topic which can be accessed here.

     
     For a transcript of this episode, please
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Research shows that, like people who commit other crimes, those who sexually offend also desist from offending. This is both hard to hear and important to acknowledge. In Episode 8 of Beyond Fear, we made the deliberate decision to pivot from conversations about survivor experiences to a focus on the experience of individuals who have sexually offended.When we first started studying sexual violence, we both wanted to study the effects of victimization, but it didn't take us much time to figure out that in order to stop sexual violence we had to go further upstream. Victimization doesn't end without stopping offending.In this episode we interview Dr. Danielle Harris, a friend and colleague based at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, whose work focuses almost exclusively on desistance from sexual offending. What we know from the research is that recidivism rates, or reoffense rates, for people who sexually offend is quite low. In fact, studies consistently find that sexual recidivism rates for those who sexually offend are low.So why does this matter? Why should we care about people who sexually offend? Why do their experiences of reintegration matter to us? And why should they matter to you?Well the answer is quite simple, actually. What we are doing doesn't work. First, the vast majority of people who commit sex crimes will never be processed through the criminal justice system and even if they were, this still wouldn't end sexual violence (this is an entire episode in itself). Second, people who commit sex crimes are not monsters or boogeymen. They are our family members, our friends, our clergy, our coaches, our teachers... they are people we know and they are people we love. It is easy to treat people as castaways when we treat them as "the other", but people who commit sex crimes are just that.... people... who commit sex crimes.This requires that we understand why they offend in the first place and how to help them to stop. This is at the heart of Danielle's work.In "The Deliberate Shift", we talk about Danielle's path to this work, the major findings of her research, why she continues this research agenda, and why we advocate for a better understanding of those who sexually offend.In this episode we referenced several books and studies.To find out more or to purchase Desistance from Sexual Offending, click here.To find out more or to purchase Making Good, https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4316097 click here.Sample, L. L., & Bray, T. M. (2003). Are sex offenders dangerous? click here.For additional reading, check out Chapter 5 of the Sex Offender Management and Planning Initiative Report on adult sexual recidivism https://smart.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh231/files/media/document/recidivismofadultsexualoffenders.pdfFor a transcript of this episode, please https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wQhExAdX0xsADwpruVLi7rStx8dgSaZV4rNkDNAOUcI/editTo download a direct MP3,https://www.buzzsprout.com/1054714/5110456-episode-8-the-deliberate-shift.mp3 please click here.Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/fearcrimes, on Instagram @beyondfearpodcast, and on Twitter @fearcrimes,If you have questions about this episode or any of our previous ones, please reach out to us at [email protected] more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • The Beyond Fear Podcast is one continuous story, where episodes build from one to the next with the ability to reach back to previous episodes when necessary. Yet, when we started writing the story in episode 1, we didn’t fully recognize the impact that telling the story would have on us. Recording Episode 7 was one of those experiences that is hard to put into words.
    In this Episode, we sit down with Alexa’s mom, Stacey Branchini, for a intimate, unscripted and candid conversation about the impact of a criminal trial on a survivor and their family. Often referred to as “the second rape”, the criminal trial is often just as traumatizing as the assault itself. This is evident in our decision to invite Stacey to talk with us, because as we worked on writing this episode Alexa was unable to remember many o f the details from after her rape. Including Stacey provides a unique perspective of this process and also highlights how trauma due to the rape impacted Alexa’s ability to recall certain events around that time. 
    In this episode, Stacey and Alexa often refer to “the foundation”. After Alexa’s rape and the criminal justice process that ensued, her family founded the “It Happened to Alexa Foundation” to help survivors and their families navigate the justice process. Specifically, the It Happened to Alexa Foundation provided financial support for survivors and their support networks at the time of trial. This included airfare, lodging, money for meals, and more throughout the time of the trial.
    We hope that this episode provides insight for our listeners into “the second rape”. When we first began working on this episode we envisioned a more academic episode, but we believe Alexa’s story highlights what the justice process is often like for survivors and their families.
    We know that material like this can be difficult to listen to. It is okay to listen in short chunks, to listen with a friend, or to turn us off.
    If you have questions about this or any of our previous episodes, or if there is anything you’d like to know about our work, we hope you will email us at [email protected].
    For a transcript of this episode of Beyond Fear, click here.
    For a direct download of this episode of Beyond Fear (MP3), click here.
    Follow us on Facebook at Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast, on Instagram @beyondfearpodcast, and on Twitter @fearcrimes
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices