Animal rights is a social justice issue

The literature on social justice, and social justice movements themselves, routinely ignore nonhuman animals as legitimate subjects of social justice. Yet, as with other social justice movements, the contemporary animal liberation movement has as its focus the elimination of institutional and systemic domination and oppression. In this paper, I explicate the philosophical and theoretical foundations of the contemporary animal rights movement, and situate it within the framework of social justice. I argue that those committed to social justice – to minimizing violence, exploitation, domination, objectification, and oppression – are equally obligated to consider the interests of all sentient beings, not only those of human beings.     

Is delusional ideation a critical link in the nexus between personality disorder and violent offending?

Evidence suggests that consideration of personality disorder (PD) severity, incorporating both externalising and internalising features of PD, might help to clarify the PD – violence relationship; moreover, that separate developmental pathways might link externalising and internalising personality pathology with criminal violence. This study of 96 forensic patients with confirmed PD and a history of violent offending addressed the question of whether delusional ideation, measured by the Peters Delusions Inventory, might play a significant role in the link between severe PD and criminal violence. Severe PD, defined by summing scores across DSM-IV PD criteria, was significantly associated with delusional thinking, with violence, and with high levels of both externalising and internalising personality features. Delusional thinking was associated with violence via internalising but not externalising PD features, suggesting that the link between severe PD and violence may be partly mediated by delusional thinking.     

Blurring the line between licit and illicit: transnational corruption networks in Central Asia and beyond

The anti-corruption norm in both scholarship and the policy world has too narrowly focused on the domestic and institutional context of bribe-taking and public corruption. Instead, we argue that corruption in the contemporary global economy requires a multiple set of connected transactions, processes, and relationships that take place within informal transnational networks that blur the line between illegal and legal activities. These networks include multinational companies, elites in host countries, offshore financial vehicles and conduits, middlemen and brokers, and destination financial institutions. We examine how these actors operate in Central Asia, a region that is widely identified as corrupt, yet is rarely understood as embedded in the types of global processes, offshore connections and transnational links specified in our analysis. Examples of offshore centers in tax planning from Central Asia, and partial results from a field experiment based on impersonating high corruption risks from four Central Asian states, provide evidence for how the various actors in transnational financial networks structure their dealings. We then present two brief illustrative cases of how these transnational networks have operated in energy explorations services in Kazakhstan and telecommunications contracts in Uzbekistan. Our findings have theoretical, practical, and normative implications for scholars and practitioners of Central Asian international political economy and other ‘high risk' regions.     

Conjuring up the next attack: the future-orientedness of terror and the counterterrorist imagination

Although terrorism is widely understood to be the politically motivated creation of fear by means of violence in a target group, the nature of that fear is seldom explained or even considered. The present article attempts to close that gap by proposing a definition of terror as the apprehension of (more) violence to come. Because every terrorist act is perceived to be part of a potential series, terror is oriented towards the future and involves the imaginary anticipation of prospective events. On the basis of this definition, I will examine the problematical role of counterterrorist discourse. As the statements of public officials and security experts in the run-up to, and during, the “War on Terror” demonstrate, the peculiar dynamic of terror is, seemingly paradoxically, reinforced by counterterrorist rhetoric. With its insistence on the escalatory nature of terrorist violence and its repeated prediction of even worse attacks, counterterrorism contributes to the evocation of terror in the sense proposed here.     

POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: SITUATIONS INVOLVING VETERANS EXHIBITING SIGNS OF MENTAL ILLNESS*

Drawing on attribution theory, research on police discretion, and public attitudes toward mental illness, we examine attributional processes in police decision making in response to domestic violence situations involving veterans and nonveterans with signs of mental illness. Using data from experimental vignettes varying veteran status, victim injury, and suspect compliance administered to a sample of 309 police officers, the results indicate that 1) veterans are perceived as less responsible for troublesome behavior but more dangerous than nonveterans, 2) suspects’ veteran status has a significant effect on officers’ preference for mental health treatment versus arrest, and 3) part of the effect of veteran status on officer response is mediated by internal and external attributions for problematic behavior and by perceptions of dangerousness. The study empirically demonstrates countervailing processes in police decision making—recognition of the causes for troublesome behavior and the need for mental health treatment on the one hand and concern for community safety and enforcing the law on the other.     

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD: NARRATIVES OF PERSISTENCE AND DESISTANCE

Prior research on patterns of intimate partner violence (IPV) has documented changes over time, but few studies have focused directly on IPV desistance processes. This analysis identifies unique features of IPV, providing a rationale for the focus on this form of behavior cessation. We develop a life‐course perspective on social learning as a conceptual framework and draw on qualitative interviews (n = 89) elicited from a sample of young adults who participated in a larger longitudinal study (Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study). The respondents’ backgrounds reflected a range of persistence and desistance from IPV perpetration. Our analyses revealed that relationship‐based motivations and changes were central features of the narratives of successful desisters, whether articulated as a stand‐alone theme or in tandem with other potential “hooks” for change. The analysis provides a counterpoint to individualistic views of desistance processes, highlighting ways in which social experiences foster attitude shifts and associated behavioral changes that respondents tied to this type of behavior change. The analyses of persisters and those for whom change seemed to be a work in progress provide points of contrast and highlight barriers that limit a respondent's desistance potential. We describe implications for theories of desistance as well as for IPV prevention and intervention efforts.     

Comparison of the Columnar‐Thin‐Film and Vacuum‐Metal‐Deposition Techniques to Develop Sebaceous Fingermarks on Nonporous Substrates,

Both the columnar‐thin‐film (CTF) and the vacuum‐metal‐deposition (VMD) techniques for visualizing sebaceous fingermarks require the deposition of a material thereon in a vacuum chamber. Despite that similarity, there are many differences between the two techniques. The film deposited with the CTF technique has a columnar morphology, but the film deposited with the VMD technique comprises discrete islands. A split‐print methodology on a variety of fingermarked substrates was used to determine that the CTF technique is superior for developing fingermarks on clear sandwich bags and partial bloody fingermarks on stainless steel. Both techniques are similar in their ability to develop fingermarks on glass but the CTF technique yields higher contrast. The VMD technique is superior for developing fingermarks on white grocery bags and the smooth side of Gloss Finish Scotch Multitask^? tape. Neither technique worked well for fingermarks on black garbage bags.