This study examines temporal and regional patterns in police-recorded sexual offences across England and Wales between the years ending June 2021 and June 2025. Using Office for National Statistics (ONS) police-recorded crime data, a quantitative descriptive analysis was conducted examining annual offence counts, year-on-year percentage change, overall percentage change, population-adjusted regional offence rates (per 10,000 population) and the proportion of sexual offences within overall recorded crime across England and Wales, between 2021 and 2025. The findings indicate an overall increase in police-recorded sexual offences across the five-year observation period, alongside clear regional variation. The Northeast, Northwest, and Yorkshire and the Humber, generally recorded higher rates per population, whereas London and the East of England generally recorded lower rates. Sexual offences represented a relatively small but regionally variable proportion of all recorded crime. The observed patterns may reflect not only underlying offending but also differences in victim reporting, police recording practices, legislative change and policing activity. By providing an up-to-date five-year regional analysis during a post-pandemic period, marked by policing reform and legislative change, this study contributes new evidence on recent geographical and temporal patterns in police-recorded sexual offences across England and Wales. Although police-recorded crime does not provide a direct measure of the prevalence of sexual victimisation, it offers valuable insights into recent spatial and temporal trends and provides an important evidence base for informing policing priorities, resource allocation and future research.
While the understanding of male-on-female sexual offending is fast developing, research on female-on-male ‘forced-to-penetrate’ (FTP) sexual crimes remains limited. This study aims to address this gap by examining the perceptions of online commenters on a genuine trial where a man alleged that he was forced to penetrate a woman without his consent. Furthermore, our study aims to examine the extent to which user comments may serve to reinforce or challenge gendered assumptions and rape mythology. To do this, 250 micro-blogs were collected and analysed from social media comments responding to a 2022 forced-to-penetrate case. Thematic analysis identified three key themes relating to the varied perceptions and discourses among online user commenters to one alleged instance of FTP between an adult male complainant and adult female defendant: (1) Unreliable and unworthy victim-survivors, (2) Support for male forced-to-penetrate victim-survivors, and (3) Responses to legal frameworks and definitions. User comments in response to this specific case often centred around a perceived lack of victim credibility, serving to reinforce attitudes that minimise, delegitimise and discredit adult male victim-survivors forced to penetrate adult female perpetrators. Overall, our findings assess the need for legal reform concerning definitions of rape to include forced-to-penetrate cases in an effort to enhance social and legal recognition, reduce stigma and encourage victim disclosure.
W prezentowanym tomie przedstawiono rzetelny komentarz do przepisów przejściowych i końcowych Konstytucji RP, które odegrały kluczową rolę w budowie nowoczesnego państwa prawa. W komentarzu przeanalizowano proces dostosowania systemu źródeł prawa oraz fundamentalne reformy, będące następstwem Konstytucji z 1997 r., w tym wprowadzenie dwuinstancyjnego sądownictwa administracyjnego oraz utrwalenie zasady sądowego wymiaru sprawiedliwości. Rozważania koncentrują się również na mechanizmach zapewniających ciągłość poszczególnych organów władzy publicznej. Analiza osadza polskie rozwiązania w szerokim kontekście historycznym oraz regulacjach innych państw Unii Europejskiej. Publikacja dowodzi, że te, pozornie historyczne, przepisy wciąż stanowią żywy fundament współczesnej wykładni oraz praktyki stosowania prawa.
Pozostałe osiągnięcia naukoweMonografia (zamknięty dostęp)Monograph
Prior research has shown that contextual cues surrounding ad exposure can influence how consumers process, evaluate, and respond to advertisements. Across three studies, we demonstrate that money-related contexts (which heighten a more self-focused orientation) reduce favourable responses to charitable appeals that emphasize concern for others. Specifically, money-related contexts ranging from a money-themed screensaver (Study 1) to exposure to money-related online news content (Study 2) and a broader money-related online browsing environment (Study 3) negatively influence responses to charitable appeals, including empathy toward people in need, attitudes toward the charitable appeal, and donation intentions. Importantly, we show that self-affirmation—whether experimentally induced (Study 1) or measured (Studies 2 and 3)—attenuates these effects. These findings contribute to research on charitable giving by identifying self-affirmation as an important boundary condition that shapes the extent to which money-related contexts undermine responses to charitable appeals.
Research on democratic backsliding increasingly views mass polarization as a mechanism that facilitates democratic erosion. This study examines trajectories of ideological polarization in Poland between 1997 and 2023, a period encompassing democratic backsliding whose onset is typically dated to 2015. Using repeated issue-based questions from the Polish National Election Study (POLNES), we distinguish three aspects of polarization: radicalization of individuals’ positions on single issues, issue alignment (system-level correlation of issue positions across different domains), and issue partisanship (the extent to which issue positions are explained by party preferences). We find no evidence of increased single-issue radicalization over the studied period. By contrast, both issue alignment and issue partisanship increased, particularly on socio-cultural issues, with little change on economic issues. These trends are not linear: they emerge around the 2011 election and persist thereafter. This pattern is consistent with theories that view changes in mass polarization as facilitating conditions for democratic backsliding. Additionally, our findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of polarization and show that focusing
on single issues or unidimensional ideological scales can obscure important changes in the structure of mass belief systems.
