Anne‐Marie McAlinden
Biographic Data
| ID | 5407277 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anne‐Marie McAlinden |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anne‐Marie |
| FAMILY NAME | McAlinden |
| SIGNATURE | MCALINDEN A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen's University Belfast |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9022-9404 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Deconstructing bystander responsibility for sexual violence in the digital age
This article explores the complexities of the ‘bystander effect’ for determining responsibility for technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV). It highlights how the technical features of digital media and the cultural normalisation of TFSV operate to both dilute and diffuse responsibility for harm. Unpacking bystander responsibility, it argues that TFSV disrupts traditional cultural, social, and legal scripts around responsibility with the in…
Acts of contrition
This article examines some of the complexities of the apology–forgiveness nexus within the context of intergroup apologies by church and state for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on primary research conducted in Ireland, North and South, including the voices of a sample of victims/survivors, it argues that effective intergroup apologies for HIA and the extent to which they might elicit forgiveness among victimized communities are im…
Apologies as ‘shame management’
This paper examines the role of apology as a vehicle for shame management in the aftermath of historical institutional abuse (HIA). It draws on extensive fieldwork in Ireland, North and South, including: archival research on public apologies; focus groups with members of the public and with victims; and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. It focuses on the complexities of apology in managing ‘shame’ and ‘self-blame’ for those consti…
Sinéad Ring, Kate Gleeson and Kim Stevenson
Sexual Violence in the Digital Age
This article examines some of the complexities and tensions which lie at the intersection of popular and official constructions of technology-assisted sexual violence (TA-SV). It argues that many of the core contextual understandings of victimhood and harm which underpin the cultural and legal framing of offline forms of sexual violence are not only reproduced but augmented in virtual settings. Drawing on debates from critical victimology, the ar…
From shame to guilt
This article explores the role of apology in addressing moral and legal responsibility for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it analyses juridical techniques within official apologies, principally by the Catholic Church, to circumvent legal responsibility for HIA: the use of language, the avoidance of tangible redress, and the preference for offering private apolo…
Sexual Violence on Trial
Reconceptualising ‘risk’
Within Western criminal justice traditions, the ‘risk’ paradigm has become the defining logic of contemporary laws and policies on sex offender management. This article critically examines the limitations of current technocratic and algorithmic approaches to risk in relation to sexual offending and how they might be addressed. Drawing on nearly two decades of theoretical and empirical research conducted by the author, it applies the learning on s…
Restorative justice and sex offending
This essay examines the use of restorative justice in sexual offending. Restorative forms of intervention have been used in cases of violent or sexual offending, from first-time and ‘acquaintance’ rape as well as young sexual abusers to high-risk sexual offenders in the form of circles of support and accountability. Such schemes are often presented as a counter to the failings of retributive forms of justice and are premised on Braithwaite’s noti…
Desistance from sexual offending
The literature on desistance from crime has become well established in recent years with strong bodies of evidence supporting the role of factors such as employment, relationships and identity change in this process. However, the relevance of this literature to individuals convicted of sexual crimes is not known as such individuals are almost always excluded from this research. This article presents the results from one of the first empirical stu…
Deconstructing Victim and offender Identites in Discourses on Child Sexual Abuse
Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood and offending behaviour lie at the heart of regulatory policies on child sexual abuse. Legislation is named after specific child victims of high-profile cases, and a burgeoning range of pre-emptive measures are enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’ from the risk sex offenders are seen as posing. Such policies are also heavily premised on the omnipresent preda…
'Grooming' and the Sexual Abuse of Children
This book critically examines the official and popular discourses on grooming, predominantly framed within the context of on-line sexual exploitation and abuse committed by strangers, and institutional child abuse committed by those in positions of trust. Set against the broader theoretical framework of risk, security, and governance, this book argues that due to the difficulties of drawing clear boundaries between innocuous and harmful motivatio…
The governance of sexual offending across Europe
This article examines why England and Wales have comparatively one of the most stringent systems for the governance of sexual offending within Western Europe. While England and Wales, like the USA, have adopted broadly exclusionary, managerialist penal policies based around incapacitation and targeted surveillance, many other Western European countries have opted for more inclusionary therapeutic interventions. Divergences in state approaches to …
Vetting Sexual Offenders
This article examines the state regulation of sexual offenders in the particular context of pre-employment vetting. A successive range of statutory frameworks have been put in place, culminating in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, to prevent unsuitable individuals from working with the vulnerable, and children in particular. Contemporary legislative and policy developments are set against a backdrop of broader concerns in the area of …
Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap
Journal Article Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap: A Question of Attitude. By Jennifer Temkin and Barbara Krahé (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008, xi + 257pp. £30.00 pb) Get access SEXUAL ASSAULT AND THE JUSTICE GAP: A QUESTION OF ATTITUDE. By Jennifer Temkin and Barbara Krahé(Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008, xi + 257pp. £30.00 pb) Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Ac…
Managing risk
In recent years the management of the dangerous, particularly sex offenders, has generated enormous concern. This concern has been reflected at a number of different levels—in media and popular responses to the risk posed by released sex offenders and in official discourses where an abundance of legislation and policy reforms have been enacted within a relatively short period. This analysis seeks to evaluate critically these developments within t…
Setting ’Em Up’
The term ‘grooming’ has been used to describe the offender’s actions during the preparatory stage of sexual abuse. This article will argue that current discourses on grooming have created ambiguities and misunderstandings about child sexual abuse. In particular, the popular focus on ‘stranger danger’ belies the fact that the majority of children are abused by someone well known to them, where grooming can also occur. Current discourses also negle…
The Use of ‘Shame’ with Sexual Offenders
This article explores the use of shaming mechanisms with sexual offenders, particularly those who offend against children. Shaming-a central concept in the broader theory of restorative justicemay be of two varieties. The first-'disintegrative shaming'-characterizes the traditional retributive framework of justice and is evident in recent state-led and popular responses to the risk posed by released sexual offenders. Far from ensuring offender in…
Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders
Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children. By Anna Salter (New York: Basic Books, 2003, 272 + xvipp. £19.99 hb) Get access Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2004, Pages 986–988, ht…
Sex Offeners in the Community
Governing Child Sexual Abuse
Governing Child Sexual Abuse: Negotiating the Boundaries of Public and Private, Law and Science. By Samantha Ashenden (London: Routledge, 2004, 244 + xiipp. £21.99 pb) Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2004, Pages 986–988, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azh088a Published: 01 Nove…
Sex Offender Registration
This paper explores the implications and difficulties of a system of sex offender registration for the two jurisdictions of Ireland. From the orthodox perspective, registration appears justified. Sexual offending has increase and this is used by the media to generate a ‘moral panic’. However, in terms of Blumer's (1971) developmental perspective, sexual offenders in the community have been socially constructed in Ireland, as a problem requiring s…
Sex Offender Registration
Setting ’Em Up’
The term ‘grooming’ has been used to describe the offender’s actions during the preparatory stage of sexual abuse. This article will argue that current discourses on grooming have created ambiguities and misunderstandings about child sexual abuse. In particular, the popular focus on ‘stranger danger’ belies the fact that the majority of children are abused by someone well known to them, where grooming can also occur. Current discourses also negle…
The Use of ‘Shame’ with Sexual Offenders
This article explores the use of shaming mechanisms with sexual offenders, particularly those who offend against children. Shaming-a central concept in the broader theory of restorative justicemay be of two varieties. The first-'disintegrative shaming'-characterizes the traditional retributive framework of justice and is evident in recent state-led and popular responses to the risk posed by released sexual offenders. Far from ensuring offender in…
The governance of sexual offending across Europe
This article examines why England and Wales have comparatively one of the most stringent systems for the governance of sexual offending within Western Europe. While England and Wales, like the USA, have adopted broadly exclusionary, managerialist penal policies based around incapacitation and targeted surveillance, many other Western European countries have opted for more inclusionary therapeutic interventions. Divergences in state approaches to …
Desistance from sexual offending
The literature on desistance from crime has become well established in recent years with strong bodies of evidence supporting the role of factors such as employment, relationships and identity change in this process. However, the relevance of this literature to individuals convicted of sexual crimes is not known as such individuals are almost always excluded from this research. This article presents the results from one of the first empirical stu…
Deconstructing Victim and offender Identites in Discourses on Child Sexual Abuse
Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood and offending behaviour lie at the heart of regulatory policies on child sexual abuse. Legislation is named after specific child victims of high-profile cases, and a burgeoning range of pre-emptive measures are enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’ from the risk sex offenders are seen as posing. Such policies are also heavily premised on the omnipresent preda…
Vetting Sexual Offenders
This article examines the state regulation of sexual offenders in the particular context of pre-employment vetting. A successive range of statutory frameworks have been put in place, culminating in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, to prevent unsuitable individuals from working with the vulnerable, and children in particular. Contemporary legislative and policy developments are set against a backdrop of broader concerns in the area of …
Managing risk
In recent years the management of the dangerous, particularly sex offenders, has generated enormous concern. This concern has been reflected at a number of different levels—in media and popular responses to the risk posed by released sex offenders and in official discourses where an abundance of legislation and policy reforms have been enacted within a relatively short period. This analysis seeks to evaluate critically these developments within t…
Sexual Violence in the Digital Age
This article examines some of the complexities and tensions which lie at the intersection of popular and official constructions of technology-assisted sexual violence (TA-SV). It argues that many of the core contextual understandings of victimhood and harm which underpin the cultural and legal framing of offline forms of sexual violence are not only reproduced but augmented in virtual settings. Drawing on debates from critical victimology, the ar…
From shame to guilt
This article explores the role of apology in addressing moral and legal responsibility for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it analyses juridical techniques within official apologies, principally by the Catholic Church, to circumvent legal responsibility for HIA: the use of language, the avoidance of tangible redress, and the preference for offering private apolo…
Reconceptualising ‘risk’
Within Western criminal justice traditions, the ‘risk’ paradigm has become the defining logic of contemporary laws and policies on sex offender management. This article critically examines the limitations of current technocratic and algorithmic approaches to risk in relation to sexual offending and how they might be addressed. Drawing on nearly two decades of theoretical and empirical research conducted by the author, it applies the learning on s…
Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders
Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children. By Anna Salter (New York: Basic Books, 2003, 272 + xvipp. £19.99 hb) Get access Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2004, Pages 986–988, ht…
Sex Offender Registration
Sex Offender Registration
This paper explores the implications and difficulties of a system of sex offender registration for the two jurisdictions of Ireland. From the orthodox perspective, registration appears justified. Sexual offending has increase and this is used by the media to generate a ‘moral panic’. However, in terms of Blumer's (1971) developmental perspective, sexual offenders in the community have been socially constructed in Ireland, as a problem requiring s…
Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders
Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children. By Anna Salter (New York: Basic Books, 2003, 272 + xvipp. £19.99 hb) Get access Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2004, Pages 986–988, ht…
Sex Offeners in the Community
Governing Child Sexual Abuse
Governing Child Sexual Abuse: Negotiating the Boundaries of Public and Private, Law and Science. By Samantha Ashenden (London: Routledge, 2004, 244 + xiipp. £21.99 pb) Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 44, Issue 6, November 2004, Pages 986–988, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azh088a Published: 01 Nove…
The Use of ‘Shame’ with Sexual Offenders
This article explores the use of shaming mechanisms with sexual offenders, particularly those who offend against children. Shaming-a central concept in the broader theory of restorative justicemay be of two varieties. The first-'disintegrative shaming'-characterizes the traditional retributive framework of justice and is evident in recent state-led and popular responses to the risk posed by released sexual offenders. Far from ensuring offender in…
Managing risk
In recent years the management of the dangerous, particularly sex offenders, has generated enormous concern. This concern has been reflected at a number of different levels—in media and popular responses to the risk posed by released sex offenders and in official discourses where an abundance of legislation and policy reforms have been enacted within a relatively short period. This analysis seeks to evaluate critically these developments within t…
Setting ’Em Up’
The term ‘grooming’ has been used to describe the offender’s actions during the preparatory stage of sexual abuse. This article will argue that current discourses on grooming have created ambiguities and misunderstandings about child sexual abuse. In particular, the popular focus on ‘stranger danger’ belies the fact that the majority of children are abused by someone well known to them, where grooming can also occur. Current discourses also negle…
Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap
Journal Article Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap: A Question of Attitude. By Jennifer Temkin and Barbara Krahé (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008, xi + 257pp. £30.00 pb) Get access SEXUAL ASSAULT AND THE JUSTICE GAP: A QUESTION OF ATTITUDE. By Jennifer Temkin and Barbara Krahé(Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008, xi + 257pp. £30.00 pb) Anne-Marie McAlinden Anne-Marie McAlinden Queen's University Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Ac…
Vetting Sexual Offenders
This article examines the state regulation of sexual offenders in the particular context of pre-employment vetting. A successive range of statutory frameworks have been put in place, culminating in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, to prevent unsuitable individuals from working with the vulnerable, and children in particular. Contemporary legislative and policy developments are set against a backdrop of broader concerns in the area of …
'Grooming' and the Sexual Abuse of Children
This book critically examines the official and popular discourses on grooming, predominantly framed within the context of on-line sexual exploitation and abuse committed by strangers, and institutional child abuse committed by those in positions of trust. Set against the broader theoretical framework of risk, security, and governance, this book argues that due to the difficulties of drawing clear boundaries between innocuous and harmful motivatio…
The governance of sexual offending across Europe
This article examines why England and Wales have comparatively one of the most stringent systems for the governance of sexual offending within Western Europe. While England and Wales, like the USA, have adopted broadly exclusionary, managerialist penal policies based around incapacitation and targeted surveillance, many other Western European countries have opted for more inclusionary therapeutic interventions. Divergences in state approaches to …
Deconstructing Victim and offender Identites in Discourses on Child Sexual Abuse
Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood and offending behaviour lie at the heart of regulatory policies on child sexual abuse. Legislation is named after specific child victims of high-profile cases, and a burgeoning range of pre-emptive measures are enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’ from the risk sex offenders are seen as posing. Such policies are also heavily premised on the omnipresent preda…
Desistance from sexual offending
The literature on desistance from crime has become well established in recent years with strong bodies of evidence supporting the role of factors such as employment, relationships and identity change in this process. However, the relevance of this literature to individuals convicted of sexual crimes is not known as such individuals are almost always excluded from this research. This article presents the results from one of the first empirical stu…
Restorative justice and sex offending
This essay examines the use of restorative justice in sexual offending. Restorative forms of intervention have been used in cases of violent or sexual offending, from first-time and ‘acquaintance’ rape as well as young sexual abusers to high-risk sexual offenders in the form of circles of support and accountability. Such schemes are often presented as a counter to the failings of retributive forms of justice and are premised on Braithwaite’s noti…
Sexual Violence on Trial
Reconceptualising ‘risk’
Within Western criminal justice traditions, the ‘risk’ paradigm has become the defining logic of contemporary laws and policies on sex offender management. This article critically examines the limitations of current technocratic and algorithmic approaches to risk in relation to sexual offending and how they might be addressed. Drawing on nearly two decades of theoretical and empirical research conducted by the author, it applies the learning on s…
Apologies as ‘shame management’
This paper examines the role of apology as a vehicle for shame management in the aftermath of historical institutional abuse (HIA). It draws on extensive fieldwork in Ireland, North and South, including: archival research on public apologies; focus groups with members of the public and with victims; and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. It focuses on the complexities of apology in managing ‘shame’ and ‘self-blame’ for those consti…
Sinéad Ring, Kate Gleeson and Kim Stevenson
Sexual Violence in the Digital Age
This article examines some of the complexities and tensions which lie at the intersection of popular and official constructions of technology-assisted sexual violence (TA-SV). It argues that many of the core contextual understandings of victimhood and harm which underpin the cultural and legal framing of offline forms of sexual violence are not only reproduced but augmented in virtual settings. Drawing on debates from critical victimology, the ar…
From shame to guilt
This article explores the role of apology in addressing moral and legal responsibility for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it analyses juridical techniques within official apologies, principally by the Catholic Church, to circumvent legal responsibility for HIA: the use of language, the avoidance of tangible redress, and the preference for offering private apolo…
Acts of contrition
This article examines some of the complexities of the apology–forgiveness nexus within the context of intergroup apologies by church and state for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on primary research conducted in Ireland, North and South, including the voices of a sample of victims/survivors, it argues that effective intergroup apologies for HIA and the extent to which they might elicit forgiveness among victimized communities are im…
Deconstructing bystander responsibility for sexual violence in the digital age
This article explores the complexities of the ‘bystander effect’ for determining responsibility for technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV). It highlights how the technical features of digital media and the cultural normalisation of TFSV operate to both dilute and diffuse responsibility for harm. Unpacking bystander responsibility, it argues that TFSV disrupts traditional cultural, social, and legal scripts around responsibility with the in…
Criminology (21 works) · Law (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (15 works) · Law (12 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (8 works) · Poison control (8 works)