Research on sexual violence: challenges in balancing methodological, ethical and policy issues.

• In Event: Researching sex crimes

Abstract

Criminiological research on sexual violence in Germany has seen a multiplication of projects in the last fifiteen years. A lot of it is driven by prominent cases and advocay groups. Public and institutional interest in the subject have created new funding opportunities. Churches, autorities responsible for childcare institutions and policy makers are under pressure to deal with cases of sexual violence and often do so by involving (not only criminological) resarch. This will be illustrated using two research projects as examples. One research project, completed 2024, examines the processing of rape cases in Lower Saxony on the basis of court files and questionnaires distributed to the persons having reported victimization. In the other one, started in 2023 and still running, sexual violence in the context of the protestant church is analysed on the basis of a case involving one parish priest, with data from interviews and documents. Both differences and similarities are presented in a comparative analysis of the occasions, research approaches and particular challenges in order to draw conclusions on the role on criminology not only in understanding sexual violence but also in beeing part of societal, institutional and policy debates.

Authors

• Theresia Höynck, University of Kassel

• Stella Schwarz, University of Kassel