Criminalizing Intimate Image Abuse

Abstract Intimate image abuse is a recent, endemic phenomenon which raises multiple legal issues and presents a significant challenge for the traditional institutions of law and criminal justice. The nature of this phenomenon requires considering the traditional complexities of regulating privacy, sexual offences, and cybercrimes, alongside the social and cultural issue of what may be considered ‘intimate’, ‘private’, or indeed ‘sexual’. Since the harm experienced by victims of intimate image abuse is particularly serious and involves disparate legal interests, criminal law has been invoked as one of the solutions, but it is unclear what its role and limits should be. The law’s approach should avoid any moralistic attitude, trying to achieve a balance between sexual autonomy and the protection of sexual privacy. At the same time, the needs of criminalization must be balanced with the traditional principles of criminal law. Criminalizing Intimate Image Abuse strives primarily to generate new conceptual and theoretical frameworks to address the legal responses to this phenomenon, by bringing together a number of scholars involved in the study of intimate image abuse over recent years. This volume compares the solutions developed in different legal systems. Once the criminalization of intimate image abuse, as well as its theoretical and practical limits have been established, the analysis focuses on possible new legal strategies, complementary or alternative to traditional criminal justice, such as restorative justice. Finally, in order to achieve an effective safeguard for victim-survivors, the book deals with the role of Internet Service Providers and bystanders in preventing intimate image abuse.