Graduate student Kylie Reale wins award for research paper

PhD student Kylie Reale is the recipient of the 2018 Emerald Literati Award for Excellence. Her research paper, “Sadism in sexual homicide offenders: identifying distinct groups” published in the Journal of Criminal Psychology received the Highly Commended Paper Award. She wrote the paper while completing her Master’s degree in the School of Criminology in 2017.

Distributed internationally, the Emerald Literati awards celebrate the outstanding contributions of authors and reviewers to scholarly research. The winners of the Highly Commended Paper Award are chosen by an editorial team who selects papers they consider to be the most impressive pieces of work from the previous year.

Reale co-authored the paper with her Master’s supervisor, Professor Eric Beauregard and Melissa Martinuea, the manager of research and development in the Department of Polygraph Training Unit, Canadian Police College.

“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Kylie for her excellent work on this paper. This represents quite an accomplishment as this paper was in fact the second paper coming from her [Master’s] thesis,” says Beauregard.

“Having your paper published is one thing, but having your paper being recognized as one of the best papers of the year is something else. This reflects well on the quality of Kylie’s work but also on the whole department at SFU.”

Reale’s study is original and represents a unique contribution to the field of sexual violence.

The paper investigated whether it is possible to identify different types of sadistic offenders within a sample of homicide offenders. This is a question of significance because researchers do not have a firm definition of sadism. The study used a sample of 350 cases of sexual homicide in Canada, and categorized the types of sadism based on similar crime scene behaviours. The results of this study have potential utility for clinical and research purposes, and as support for sadism being viewed as dimensional rather than a distinct clinical entity.

“It is an honour to have my research recognized as an important and meaningful contribution to the field of sexual violence. I am very grateful for the support and guidance provided by my senior supervisor, Dr. Eric Beauregard, and for the Emerald Publishing Group for granting me this award” says Reale.

Reale is currently a second-year PhD student in the School of Criminology, under the supervision of Eric Beauregard. Her main research focus involves the offense behaviour of homicide offenders, and more specifically, the role of forensic awareness on detection avoidance. She has had her research published in several top specialized journals in the field, and has presented at domestic and international conferences.