In the Spotlight!
Building a Social Identity Theory of Stigmatized Sexual Practice
Noam Haviv, Associate Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has received the 2026 Outstanding Theoretical Paper Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, together with coauthors Judith Abulafia and Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill. Their article, “Building a Social Identity Theory of Stigmatized Sexual Practice,” published in Self and Identity, explores how BDSM practitioners develop a sense of identity and belonging while navigating social stigma. The research highlights how communities can offer support while also creating expectations that shape how individuals understand and express themselves.
International Conference on Combating Transnational Organized Crime in South Korea
ICJ Assistant Professor and interim deputy director Lauren Moton represented John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the International Conference on Combating Transnational Organized Crime, hosted by the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice (KICJ) in Seoul, South Korea.
Dr. Moton delivered a presentation titled, "Transnational Exploitation in the Digital Age: Lessons From East African Migration for the Cambodia Scam Centre Crisis," which examined how emerging forms of cyber-enabled human trafficking in Southeast Asia share common mechanisms with labor trafficking affecting migrant domestic workers in East Africa and the Gulf. Drawing on her research in Ethiopia and Tanzania, she explored how deceptive recruitment, digital coercion, and transnational criminal networks create vulnerabilities across regions, and discussed policy recommendations for strengthening international cooperation to combat organized crime and human trafficking.
The conference brought together government officials, researchers, and criminal justice experts from across Asia and around the world to discuss innovative, collaborative responses to emerging transnational crime threats. The visit also provided opportunities to build new international research partnerships and strengthen John Jay's global engagement in the fields of international criminal justice and human trafficking research.
Street Harassment Should be Speakable
A team of criminologists from the University of Manchester (Eon Kim and Reka Solymosi) and John Jay College (Mangai Natarajan and Dhanya Babu) conducted mixed-methods research to better understand sexual harassment in public places. This study utilized crowdsourced data from Safecity.com within an environmental criminological framework, offering a fresh perspective on addressing sexual harassment in urban settings.
The Local Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA) map, which analyzed 1,763 reported incidents of sexual harassment in Delhi, India, identified specific "hotspots" where these incidents clustered. Field observations at these hotspots allowed the researchers to describe the environmental and situational characteristics of areas with a high concentration of harassment incidents.
Their research reveals distinct categories of both physical and non-physical forms of sexual harassment, with various contextual factors influencing the likelihood of these incidents occurring. This highlights the need for place-based situational prevention strategies that specifically target the environmental factors contributing to sexual harassment. In countries such as India, gender-sensitive measures have been introduced, including women-only buses, ladies' seats, dedicated lanes, and train compartments. However, effectively combating sexual harassment in public places requires a continued focus on situational prevention strategies.
*Pictured: Dr. Mangai Natarajan is one of the founding members of JJ's ICJ programs and is a dedicated researcher, teacher, and scholar in international crime and justice issues. Prof. Dhanya Babu is an alumna of the ICJ MA program and a PhD candidate at GC/JJ-CUNY. She teaches research methods in our ICJ BA program.
Beyond Victimhood
Dr. Barberet is actively engaged with the work of the UN Commission on the Status of Women via her position as Senior Representative to the United Nations for the International Sociological Association. Along with co-guest editors, Dawn Beichner-Thomas and Sheetal Ranjan, she is pleased to announce a monograph issue of Current Sociology entitled Feminist Approaches to Justice at Beijing +30. This issue is focused on the link between research in feminist criminology and sociology, and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
The articles come from presentations delivered at parallel events at the 2025 NGO CSW forum in New York and online.In this monograph issue is an article by MA ICJ faculty member and CEDAW Committee Member Jelena Pia-Comella, entitled “The synergies between the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women to combat sexual and gender-based violence against women in both times of peace and armed conflict.”
Dr. Barberet has also co-authored an article in this issue entitled “Beyond Victimhood: Feminist criminology and the Beijing Platform’s framing of women in criminal justice.” The monograph issue is online with library access and will be open access on September 1st.
This is the sixth time Dr. Barberet has co-organized research-focused panels on the priority theme of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and then guest co-edited a special issue of an academic journal afterwards.
The objective of this Feminist Approach to Justice initiative is to encourage academics to engage with the work of the United Nations, and to encourage UN personnel and the diplomatic community to engage with relevant research.Manuscripts are being reviewed now for a special issue of Crime, Law and Social Change from CSW70 on the topic of Access to Justice.
*Pictured: Dr. Barberet with co-guest editors, Sheetal Ranjan (Montclair State University) and Dawn Beichner-Thomas (Illinois State University)
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