Non contact sexual offences

Research from CWASU and Durham University shows how non-contact sexual offences are shaping women’s lives and limiting their freedom.

Commissioned by the College of Policing to inform new training and guidance for all police forces in England and Wales, the research conducted by Professor Fiona Vera-Gray and Professor Clare Mcglynn presents findings from the largest representative UK survey to date on sexual exposure (‘indecent exposure’ and cyberflashing), with over 4,000 women and men. It finds that women experience shockingly high levels of sexual exposure (both ‘flashing’ and ‘cyberflashing’) across their lives. It reveals that women are over 3 times as likely to experience in-person sexual exposure as men and almost 3 times as likely to experience cyberflashing, and that the majority of women are having to restrict their lives in order to avoid the reality and threat of sexual exposure.

Publications from the project include a briefing arguing this demonstrates the substantial freedom-based harms of violence against women and girls, and requires a public and policing response that recognises the seriousness of all sexual offending, and a report for the College of Policing on sexual exposure and escalation (see below).

For more information see https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/articles/london-met-research-at-the-heart-of-new-police-training-guidance-on-sexual-offending/

For reports see Reports and papers