Courtship Violence Among College Students: A Comparison of Verbally and Physically Abusive Couples

This study used a modified version of the Conflict Tactic Scale (Straus, 1990) to measure the expression of verbal and physical aggression among 572 college students (395 females and 177 males) involved in dating relationships over the previous year. Results indicated that 82% (n = 465) of the total sample reported having engaged in verbally aggressive behavior with a dating partner over the past year, whereas 21% (n = 116) admitted to acting in a physically aggressive manner over the same interval. No significant gender-based difference was found for verbal aggression scores; however, females were significantly more likely to report using physical force than were male students. Male and female students who used verbal aggression were characteristically similar to each. Both had experienced aggression from a parent as children and had drunk alcohol within 3 hours (before or after) an argument with a dating partner. Male and female students who admitted using physical force were dissimilar except that both had experienced parent-child aggression. For male students, having witnessed conjugal violence and their general drinking patterns were also significantly related to their using physical force, whereas for females, the use of physical force was associated with drinking alcohol within 3 hours of an argument with a dating partner.     

Three Sorries and You’re In? Does the Prime Minister’s Statement in the Australian Federal Parliament Presage Federal Constitutional Recognition and Reparations?

Then newly elected Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, made a historic statement of “Sorry” for past injustices to Australian Indigenous peoples at the opening of the 2008 federal parliament. In the long-standing absence of a constitutional ‘foundational principle’ to shape positive federal initiatives in this context, there has been speculation that the emphatic Sorry Statement may presage formal constitutional recognition. The debate is long overdue in a nation that only overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius and recognised native title to lan with the High Court’s decision in Mabo in 1992. This article explores the implications of the Sorry Statement in the context of reparations for the generations removed from their families under assimilation policies (known since the Bringing Them Home Inquiry as the Stolen Generations). We draw out the utility of recent human rights statutes—such as the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT)—as a mechanism for facilitating justice, including compensation for past wrongs. Our primary concern here is whether existing legal processes in Australia hold further capacity to provide reparation for Australian Indigenous peoples or whether their potential in that regard is already exhausted. We compare common law and statutory developments in other international jurisdictions, such as Canada, as an indication of what can be achieved by the law to facilitate better legal, economic and social outcomes for Indigenous peoples. The year 2008 also saw Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper express his apology to residential school victims in the Canadian Parliament, providing thematic and symbolic echoes across these two former colonies, which, despite remaining under the British monarchy, both forge their own path into the future, while confronting their own unique colonial past. We suggest that the momentum provided by the recent public apology and statement of “Sorry” by the newly elected Australian Prime Minister must not be lost. This symbolic utterance as a first act of the 2008 parliamentary year stood in stark contrast to the long-standing recalcitrance of the former Prime Minister John Howard on the matter of a formal apology. Rather than a return to a law enforcement-inspired “three strikes and you’re out” approach, Australia stands poised for an overdue constitutional and human rights-inspired “three ‘sorries’ and you’re in”.     

“Success” in policy piloting: Process,programs, and politics

Research has demonstrated that pilots contain multiple shifting purposes, not all of which relate to simple policy testing or refinement. Judging the success of policy pilots is therefore complex, requiring more than a simple judgment against declared goals. Marsh and McConnell provide a framework against which policy success can be judged, distinguishing program success from process and political success. We adapt Boven's modification of this framework and apply it to policy pilots, arguing that pilot process, outcomes and longer-term effects can all be judged in both program and political terms. We test this new framework in a pilot program in the English National Health Service, the Vanguard program, showing how consideration of these different aspects of success sheds light on the program and its aftermath. We consider the implications of the framework for the comprehensive and multifaceted evaluation of policy pilots.     

Race/ethnicity,citizenship status,and crime examined through trauma experiences among young adults in the United States

Race/ethnicity, citizenship status, and trauma, have significant impact on delinquency and crime outcomes; though the reasons for some expected and unexpected crime pathways are still unanswered. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (n?=?7,103), this study found the following results: no difference in the likelihood of engagement in delinquency and crime between blacks and whites; cumulative trauma increased delinquency and crime rates for all racial and ethnic groups; racial and ethnic minority groups compared to whites reported a significantly higher level of childhood trauma experiences; and native-born female immigrant groups (but not male) were more likely to engage in delinquency and crime than first-generation female immigrant groups. Implications and recommendations are set forth.     

Interspecies Violence and Crimes of Dissent: Communication Ethics and Legitimacy in Message Crimes Involving Wildlife

In this article, we consider the phenomenon of message crimes involving harm to wildlife from a sociological and criminological perspective. Using a case study of dissident Nordic hunters killing protected wolves to send a message to the state agencies responsible for their conservation, we engage philosophically with the question of wildlife victimhood and why interspecies violence is unjustifiable as a mode of political dissent. As an alternative to the species justice perspective in green criminology, we examine how the acts disrespect animals as moral subjects of public communication and frustrate dialogue regarding what is owed to them in terms of political justice.     

The "other diseases" of the Millennium Development Goals: rhetoric and reality of free drug distribution to cure the poor's parasites

The sixth MDG aims 'to combat HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases'. The residual category of 'other diseases' has become the focus of intense interest, partly because it has provided an opportunity to increase resources for the control of the mostly parasitic 'neglected tropical diseases' (NTDs). Intense lobbying has secured large amounts of funding from donors, as well as generous donations of medicines from the major drug companies. A massive programme is now underway to treat the parasites of the poor in Africa via integrated vertical interventions of mass drug administration in endemic areas. The approach has been hailed as remarkably effective, with claims that there is now a real prospect of complete control and, for some NTDs, even elimination. However, a closer look at evaluation and research data reveals that much less is known about what is being achieved than is suggested. Competition between implementing organisations is leading to potentially counterproductive exaggerations about treatment coverage. Detailed local-level research in Uganda and Tanzania shows that actual rates of drug take-up among target populations are often lower than is necessary to effectively control the diseases, and that methods of drug distribution may even lead to active resistance to treatment. If current trends are not corrected, declining rates of NTD infection will not be sustained. Much more rigorous and effective monitoring is essential.     

Examination of the Relationship Between Parental Satisfaction and Child Maltreatment Potential While Considering Social Desirability

Parental dissatisfaction with children appears to be associated with child maltreatment. However, little is known regarding the specific domains of parental dissatisfaction that may increase child maltreatment potential, particularly in perpetrators of child maltreatment where substance abuse is present. In this study, responses to the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAPI) and a scale measuring parental satisfaction in 11 domains were examined in a sample of 82 mothers who were referred for treatment of substance abuse and child neglect by the local child protective service agency. Results indicated that mothers were relatively most satisfied with their children overall, and least satisfied in domains that were relevant to discipline (i.e., following house rules, compliance, reaction to redirection and punishment, completion of chores). Five of the 11 areas of parental satisfaction that were assessed evidenced negative correlations with child abuse potential, indicating that as satisfaction increased, abuse potential decreased. However, when correlation analyses excluded participants with elevated CAPI Lie scale scores (a measure of social desirability), only overall happiness demonstrated a significant negative correlation with child abuse potential. These results suggest that while associations are present among measures of parental satisfaction and child abuse potential, these associations are moderated to some extent by social desirability, which may help explain some of the inconsistencies reported in prior studies of parental satisfaction and child maltreatment potential.     

Traumatic Brain Injury Alters Word Memory Test Performance by Slowing Response Time and Increasing Cortical Activation: An fMRI Study of a Symptom Validity Test

The Word Memory Test (WMT) is an established symptom validity test that relies on verbal memory performance to make inferences about “effort.” Previous studies, using a functional MRI (fMRI) adaptation of the WMT with healthy controls, have shown that successful completion of the WMT relies on a widespread network of neural systems associated with high cognitive effort. Additional studies using the same fMRI paradigm with patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) suggest that increased activation of cortical regions associated with cognitive load are recruited to meet the cognitive challenges that the WMT places on a compromised neural system. This study builds on previous findings as a result of highly uncommon circumstances in which fMRI data on the WMT task were made available from the very same individual both 1 year before and 1 year after sustaining a TBI. Interestingly, the effect of TBI did not appear to impair performance on the WMT in terms of standard accuracy measurements, though response times were notably slower. The main fMRI finding was a significantly stronger and more widespread pattern of activation post-injury, particularly in the frontal and parietal brain regions, suggesting that stronger engagement of these networks was necessary to sustain accurate WMT performance compared to pre-injury testing. This unique source of data, together with previous findings, suggests a more complex relationship between effort and performance levels on the WMT than what is commonly assumed.