Early criminal recidivism among mentally disordered offenders

Criminal recidivism was studied during 2 years in a Swedish population-based cohort (N = 318) of mentally disordered male offenders who had undergone a pretrial forensic psychiatric investigation, been convicted in subsequent trials, and been sentenced to forensic psychiatric treatment (FPT; n = 152), prison (n = 116), or noncustodial sanctions (n = 50). Recidivism was analysed in relation to index sanctions, levels of supervision, diagnoses, and criminological factors. Significantly lower recidivism in the FPT group was related to lower crime rates during periods at conditional liberty in this group alone, and recidivism was significantly more common among offenders with at least one of the two diagnoses of substance abuse disorder and personality disorder than among those with psychotic or other mental disorders alone. Age at index crime and number of previous crimes emerged as significant predictors of recidivism. The results of this study suggest that the relapse rates depend as much on level of supervision as on individual characteristics.     

Academic outcomes among principal investigators,co-principal investigators,and non-PI researchers

Faculty at research universities are evaluated on a number of productivity measures including their ability to conduct research, teach, and engage in service. Research outcomes include publishing research results and acquiring grants and contracts to conduct additional research. While it is assumed that researchers who are awarded grants are more likely to publish research results, there is little research investigating the ways in which grants affect outcomes or how principal investigators differ from researchers who do not hold research grants or those who are co-principal investigators. This research seeks to understand if principal investigators are more or less productive than co-principal investigators and those who do not have grants, and if so, what explains that variation in productivity. It also examines whether women PIs are more or less productive than men PIs. This research uses longitudinal data drawn from an NSF funded survey of academic scientists in Carnegie-designated Research I universities in six fields: biology, chemistry, computer science, earth and atmospheric sciences, electrical engineering, and physics. From this national random sample of men and women scientists and engineers we investigate whether there is variation in the production of outcomes (e.g. publications, teaching, and training graduate students) among PIs, co-PIs, and other researchers. Findings show that productivity and outcomes vary significantly for PIs, co-PIs and by sex.     

Adolescent self-image as a mediator between childhood maltreatment and adult sexual offending

Purpose

The link between maltreatment and offending has been well established in the literature, with research examining the etiology of criminal behavior consistently documenting the negative effects of experiencing trauma early in life. Theoretically, ideas behind the cycle of violence hypothesis have greatly contributed to our understanding of this connection; however, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanisms underlying this relationship. We address this research gap by examining the mediating role that adolescent mental health, particularly self-image, plays in the relationship between child maltreatment and subsequent adult sex offending.

Methods

We utilize retrospective data from a sample of incarcerated sex offenders at a maximum security penitentiary located in Canada (N = 565).

Results

Results indicate that poor self-image in adolescence partially mediates the relationship between child maltreatment and the extent of sex offending in adulthood.

Conclusions

Implications for research, theory, and policy are discussed.     

Sex industry exposure over the life course on the onset and frequency of sex offending

Purpose

Research has examined pornography use on the extent of offending. However, virtually no work has tested whether other sex industry experiences affect sex crime. By extension, the cumulative effect of these exposures is unknown. Social learning theory predicts that exposure should amplify offending. Separately, the developmental perspective highlights that the timing of exposure matters.

Methods

Drawing on retrospective longitudinal data, we first test whether exposure during adolescence is associated with a younger age of onset; we also examine whether adulthood exposure is linked with greater frequency of offending.

Results

Findings indicate that most types of adolescent exposures as well as total exposures were related to an earlier age of onset. Exposure during adulthood was also associated with an overall increase in sex offending, but effects were dependent on “type.”

Conclusion

There are nuances in the effect of sex industry exposure on offending patterns. Implications of results are discussed.     

The Responsible Migrant,Reading the Global Compact on Migration

Law and Critique - In 2016, the international community, in reaction to the growing number of ‘tragedies’ occurring as people attempted to move across borders, met to discuss large...     

Packing Heat in the Classroom: Public Support for “Armed Teacher” Policy

ABSTRACT

Recently, states have enacted teacher-carry laws. While controversial, little scholarship has tapped public attitudes toward such reforms. Because public opinion shapes policy, the public is an important stakeholder in this debate. Thus, we investigated three questions. First, how supportive is the public of arming teachers? Second, what demographic and social divides exist, if any, for reform approval? Finally, do crime-related perceptions, concerning views about public safety, and criminogenic influences shape policy preferences? We test these questions using a 2018 poll of Virginia residents (N = 521). Overall, approval for teacher-carry is split. Crime-related perceptions mediate some of the initial social and demographic divides in opinion but other correlates, such as parental status, remain salient predictors of views. Implications are discussed.     

Tension in democratic administration: Does managerial confidence in administrative capacity reduce citizen participation in organizational decision-making?

The tension between bureaucratic and democratic values has characterized significant debates in the field of public administration. In this article, we ask, does public managers' confidence in their organizational administrative capacity affect citizen participation? Using managerial confidence in organizational response capacity (ORC) during crises as a vehicle to investigate the tension between democratic and administrative values, we examine whether an administration-centric approach to management influences citizen participation. We posit that higher levels of managerial confidence in organizational administrative capacity can lessen the pressure from political stakeholders which, in turn, might allow managers the autonomy to isolate themselves from the general public. The empirical analysis uses a structural equation model (SEM) to examine survey data from senior managers in 500 US cities. We find that managerial confidence in ORC reduces citizen participation, but only indirectly through diminishing influence from other governmental actors or by allowing managers to win the trust of political principals.     

Rural unions and the struggle for land in Brazil

Studies of Brazil's agricultural labor movement have generally neglected its relationship to the struggle for land, but this is neither fair nor accurate. Analyzing the rural labor movement's historical contributions to the land struggle in Brazil, this contribution has been organized into three main periods, emphasizing social relations, institutional activism and policy changes. It argues that despite the peculiarities of different historical contexts, rural labor consistently provoked protest against policies that privileged large landholders, whose concentration of power over land and labor resources continually worsened Brazil's ranking as one of the most unequal of nations. For more than half a century, the most constant opponent of this situation among the peasantry has been the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture (CONTAG), a corporatist organization of rural labor unions founded in 1963.     

Death and the erotic woman: the European gendering of mortality in times of major religious change

This paper explores the use of European erotic death imagery produced in the Death and the Maiden (D&M) genre in two time periods. It compares and contrasts D&M imagery produced by the Germanic-speaking proto/early-Reformation artists, Hans Baldung (alias Grien) (c1484–1545), Niklaus Manuel (known as Deutsch) (c1484–1530) and Sebald Beham (known as Hans Sebald Beham) (1500–1550) which highlighted the folly, futility and transience of earthly vanities during the transition from Roman Catholic to Protestant Christianity, with contemporary calendar art produced by Cofani Funebri (from 2003) and Lindner (from 2010) which advertise coffins manufactured in the increasingly secular countries of Italy and Poland. Drawing on Biblical narrative, Augustinian theology and European socio-cultural perceptions of gender, this paper argues that these D&M images are highly eroticised and place woman as signifiers of transcient life (vanitas) and earthly pleasure (voluptas), juxtaposing her with a masculine/male representation of death; Death being imaged as an individual in the sixteenth century, and as a coffin in the contemporary works. The paper also contextualises the imagery in terms of traditional European Christian notions of life and death, as informed by the Biblical Fall narrative, with its elucidations of sin, concupiscence and punishment. It thus asserts that both socio-cultural and religious attitudes towards gender are highly significant in D&M imagery and indeed in terms of the artworks, argues that the masculine signifier of Death can be placed as Adam, whilst the Maiden, as fecund life, represents Eve. However, the overt eroticism of both sets of artworks also allows for a reading that draws on Messaris' [(1997). Visual persuasion; the role of images in advertising. London: Sage] notion that visual images ‘make a persuasive communication due to iconicity; the emotional response to the visual image presented’. Thus, this paper contrasts D&M imagery produced over 400 years apart to examine consciously erotic gendered thanantological allegories of women as vanitas and voluptas, and the male/masculine as representations of Death.