Researching Strangulation with the Institute for Addressing Strangulation
Wed 5 Jun 2024 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM BST
Online, Microsoft Teams
Description
The VAWGRN webinars usually take place four times a year, from 10.30 - 12.30 pm.
We have some brilliant speakers in the pipeline – keep an eye on our next newsletter for details. If you would like to propose a topic or have organised your own panel, please get in touch with us at VAWG-RN@uos.ac.uk.
Researching Strangulation
A collaborative webinar designed to amplify the research efforts
of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation
In June 2022, strangulation and suffocation were recognised as standalone offences within the Domestic Abuse Act (2021) across England and Wales. The introduction of this new legislation helped to make clear that strangulation and suffocation must be seen as serious and potentially lethal offences in their own right, even if they may not immediately lead to the death of the victim. Strangulation is a significant risk factor in intimate partner abuse, which is considered as an escalating factor along a timeline towards domestic homicide (e.g., Monckton-Smith’s ‘Homicide Timeline’, 2019; Glass et al., 2008). It is increasingly well-understood that strangulation is also a common method of killing women (e.g., IFAS, 2024). Outside of a domestic abuse and sexual violence context, we must also consider the rising prevalence of and conversation around strangulation/choking during consensual sex (e.g., Herbenick et al., 2023).
At the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS), we aim to raise awareness of strangulation and the associated risks, conduct research, develop resources, and train professionals in responding to and supporting victims/survivors of these assaults. There are, however, challenges in, specifically, researching this topic, not least due to the relative infancy of strangulation as a topic in its own right. This webinar on Researching Strangulation, hosted by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation on behalf of the VAWG Research Network, will provide attendees with an overview of the key messages related to strangulation more generally, before focusing specifically on the research-associated challenges and potential resolutions.
Speakers:
Marianne McGowan, is the Survivor Liaison and Research Worker for IFAS. She is a certified Domestic Violence Practitioner. She has volunteered and worked in the sector in frontline services for the last 7 years. Her academic background is in Psychology & Criminology. In 2020, she completed a master’s degree in Psychology with accreditation from the British Psychological Society.
Harriet Smailes is the Research Officer for IFAS. She has worked in the sexual violence sector, as a practitioner and a researcher, since completing her undergraduate degree in Applied Psychology (BSc) in 2016.
Her research projects have included examining the funding and provisioning of specialist voluntary sector sexual violence services and investigating sexual violence amongst minoritized groups in universities across the country. Harriet is currently undertaking a PhD exploring sexual violence support and resolution interventions in English universities.
Reference List:
Domestic Abuse Act (2021): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/17/contents/enacted
Glass, N., Laughon, K., Campbell, J., Block, C. R., Hanson, G., Sharps, P. W., & Taliaferro, E. (2008). Non-fatal strangulation is an important risk factor for homicide of women. The Journal of emergency medicine, 35(3), 329–335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2007.02.065
Monckton-Smith, J. (2019). Homicide Timeline - The 8 Stages. https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/7797/
Herbenick, D., Patterson, C., Wright, P. J., Kawata, K., & Fu, T. (2023). Sexual Choking/Strangulation During Sex: A Review of the Literature. Current Sexual Health Reports. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-023-00373-y
IFAS. (2024). Strangulation and Suffocation Offences: June 2022 - June 2023 An Analysis of Police Report Data. https://ifas.org.uk/police-data-reports-2024/