Surfing the Crime Net: Domestic Violence
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Surfing the Crime Net: Domestic Violence by Melanie Joyner In this edition we shall be reviewing some of the material on domestic violence available on the World Wide Web. With the rapid expansion of information technology into both government and the academy, it should come as no surprise that electronic collection and dissemination of information plays a key role in policy and research strategies in the field. This, in and of itself, justifies reviewing the topic; however, the growing presence of non-governmental organisation sites and sites mounted by individuals who have experienced violence provides further impetus to examine the emergence of the ‘virtual domestic violence policy community’. Most domestic violence-related Internet material falls into three functional categories. Some activity operates at an academic and professional level, and focuses on the dissemination and exchange of research and information regarding ‘best practices’. Issues addressed in this category include inter-agency co-operation, programme evaluation, particularly of batterer programmes, data collection and measurement, and front-line worker training. A second set of activity falls under the rubric of public education, and covers such topics as defining domestic violence and abuse, recognising and escaping a violent relationship, and describing the role of the police, the legal profession and social/community services in providing support for survivors. Finally, the Internet sometimes acts as a source of support for those involved in violent relationships — both victims and batterers — and gives individuals the opportunity to tell their ‘stories’. We will be looking at sites which fall into all three of these categories from a variety of sources: academic and professional organisations, national and international governments, non-governmental organisations, and sites mounted by individuals who have experienced violence in some way. This overview is not intended to be comprehensive; rather, it sets out to provide an international tour of a variety of sources which demonstrate the breadth and depth of information available, and the possibilities and limitations of the Internet as a medium for information dissemination and research. General WWW resources and directories Most on-line directories and search engines list domestic violence as a distinct category. Yahoo! for example, at www.yahoo.com (links to national Yahoo sites available from this central site) outlines six categories for domestic violence and lists over 200 sites from around the world. Generic on-line directories and search engines can be a good way to begin an information trawl; however, most search engines and many directories are of a ‘self-registration’ nature, in that to be included, a web author merely has to register the site into the database, and it will then be listed whenever anyone enters in matching keywords. This presents two problems. First, different search engines will give different results. A single page is often registered with more than one search e
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