This presentation was given at the 2018 Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Global Summit hosted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. (http://EndExploitationSummit.com)
Mary G. Leary
Professor, The Catholic University of America
This talk builds on Professor Leary’s article, the Third Dimension of Victimization (Ohio state Journal of Criminal Law), in which she advocates a review criminal codes and a restructuring of them to recognize the many new forms of victimization that are achieved digitally. This presentation will discuss the uniquely pernicious harms of digital victimization and the failure of current criminal to capture both the social value being protected and the harms accomplished through these digital victimizations. She discusses how one’s digital self can be harmed in ways that are distinct from our current understanding of personal or property crimes and that this form of victimization should be recognized by the criminal law. Thus, she calls for a recognition of a third dimension of criminal victimization: the victimization of the digital self.
Professor Leary is a professor of law at The Catholic University of America. She is a former prosecutor and attorney in the non-profit sector, focusing on crimes against women and children; the former policy consultant and deputy director for the Office of Legal Counsel at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC); and the former director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA).
Professor Leary’s scholarship examines the intersection of criminal law, constitutional criminal procedure, technology, and contemporary victimization. She focuses on the exploitation and abuse of women, children, and “vulnerable peoples.” She is a recognized expert in the areas of criminal law, victimization, exploitation, human trafficking, missing persons, technology, and the Fourth Amendment.
She is the lead co-author of Perspectives on Missing Persons Cases (Carolina Academic Press), the only comprehensive multi-disciplinary book on this type of victimization. Her most recent works include an article advocating for the recognition of digital victimization as a modern and separate category of crime (The Third Dimension of Victimization). Additionally, she recently published a critical analysis of the use of the term “modern day slavery” to describe human trafficking, arguing that it is an appropriate label (“Modern Day Slavery” – Implications of a Label). Her current work in progress includes an exploration of the promise of affirmative consent, arguing for its use in a broader “consent culture” modeled after the anti-drunk driving movement of the late 20th century.
Before joining academia, Professor Leary worked primarily on issues addressing the abuse and exploitation of children and women, child pornography, sex trafficking, computer facilitated crimes against children, and family violence cases. As both a state and federal prosecutor, Professor Leary focused on family violence and sexual assault, but successfully prosecuted at the trial and appellate levels, an array of criminal cases. She is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and served as deputy chief of the Domestic Violence Unit for the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Leary also served as an assistant district attorney in the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Professor Leary clerked for the Hon. Sue L. Robinson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Professor Leary plays an active role in policy development on a number of issues regarding victimization, exploitation, and technology. She was appointed to the Victim Advisory Group of the United States Sentencing Commission and is the former co-chair of the Victims Group of the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section.
Professor Leary is a sought after commentator for numerous media outlets and has provided commentary to platforms including, but not limited to The New York Times, C-Span National Journal, National Public Radio, The Legal Times, Wall Street Journal Online, Gannet Newspapers, Politifact, CNET News, and USA Today. She is a regular contributor to the Mirror of Justice Blog.
She is the 2011-12 recipient of the Award for Teaching Excellence in Early Career from The Catholic University of America. Graduating classes selected professor Leary as their Faculty Marshal 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014. In 2009 and 2015, the students of Catholic University’s law school named Professor Leary Teacher of the Year. She is also the recipient of the Mary, Mirror of Justice Award (2009).
She received her B.A. with honors from Georgetown University and earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
