Family strategy of economic inequality among brothers in Korean rural society, 1690–1795

This article examines how inequality among brothers was practised as a family strategy in Korean south-eastern rural society from the end of the seventeenth to the late eighteenth century as a response to local economic changes. The Wolchon area experienced a process of downward levelling in this period. Using the household registers and land registers, the authors reconstituted 58 families with brothers who held land and 406 families who possessed nobi (‘serfs’ or ‘slaves’) for further examination. As a family strategy, most of these families attempted a strategy of unequal inheritance that resulted in maintaining high economic status for only one of the children among all the brothers. This child, in most cases, would be the eldest son, but also could be another son. The degree of inequality among brothers with regard to nobi-holding declined over time. Most families successfully maintained inequality, and through this family status, by efficiently practising the unequal inheritance strategy, while some families failed to keep the same level of inequality by the end of the eighteenth century. The degree of inequality among brothers is intimately connected to family property size. Each family sought its own strategy to suit the actual economic condition of the family. While very wealthy families attempted to give a similar inheritance to all brothers to provide an equal chance to each of them, less wealthy families reduced the survival chances of some children by the concentration of property given to only one child.     

A qualitative investigation of treatment components for families of youth who have sexually offended

ABSTRACT

Traditional treatment approaches for youth who commit sexual crimes are generally understudied and lack consideration for youths’ evolving context and development. A holistic model is important in service delivery, whereby multiple socio-ecological risk and protective factors are targeted in treatment. Family treatment, a key component of holistic practices, has not been well-defined for families of youth who have committed sexual crimes. Better understanding of the practical techniques used in service agencies can inform family services for youth. Using an inductive grounded theory approach, this qualitative study interviews service providers (N?=?19) to understand components of family treatment. Findings suggest components including problem solving, communication skills, and working through the pain meet certain goals of restructuring and uniting families. The therapeutic relationship was a component that meets all goals of family treatment and helps families and youth overcome stigma of sexual offending. Findings have implications for developing and testing models of family treatment for sexually abusive youth.     

Sailors' families and the urban institutional framework in early modern Holland

This article points to a largely neglected theme in the maritime history: the important role of sailors' families in urban seafaring communities during the Early Modern Period. At the end of the seventeenth century and during the first decades of the eighteenth century, about 20% of the crewmembers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were married. Accordingly, in the towns in Holland where the VOC was present, many women had to run a household by themselves for a long period of time. The sailors' families were often confronted by emotional and financial distress, which to some extent affected the financial expenses of VOC towns as well. Many of these families were however able to cope because they received material support from various urban institutions. The Company created a system that encouraged sailors to send their money home during voyages, while urban poor relief often temporarily complemented the family's budget. Contrary to other married women, wives of sailors could obtain the legal power to engage in financial transactions, or to have access to inheritances. Town councils, civil courts, church councils, charity institutions and the East India Company were all willing to help the seamen's families. Their motives were twofold: while urban communities benefited from financially stable families, and the VOC compensated for their low pay by offering their employees fringe benefits, the attitudes towards seamen's wives also indicate that the urban elites genuinely wanted to provide some assistance to these needy families.     

How the Indashyikirwa Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Programme in Rwanda Influenced Parenting and Violence against Children

There is increasing interest in working at the intersections of intimate partner violence (IPV) and violence against children (VAC), especially in the family, yet few programmatic strategies exist or have been evaluated to assess the combined impact of strategies on both types of violence. This paper addresses this gap by exploring the influence that Indashyikirwa—a programme designed to reduce IPV in Rwanda— had on VAC in the families of couples participating in the programme. Indashyikirwa included a 21-session couples’ curriculum, safe spaces for IPV survivors, and community activism against violence. In addition to reductions in IPV, a randomized control trial found significant reductions in parent’s reports of children witnessing IPV, parents’ attitudes condoning harsh physical punishment of children, and parents’ use of corporal punishment as discipline. This paper uses qualitative data to better understand how and why the couples’ curriculum influenced parenting and VAC. Twenty-eight participants (fourteen male-female couples) were individually interviewed at three time points, once before and twice after the couples’ curriculum implementation. Six men and six women who completed the curriculum and subsequently carried out activism were also interviewed at two time points. The data were analyzed thematically. Pathways motivating couples’ attitude and behavior changes towards children included reflecting on the consequences of IPV for children and appreciating the benefits for children of non-violent, gender equitable households. This analysis suggests that working with co-habiting couples presents a viable strategy for working to prevent IPV, VAC and promote more gender equitable family dynamics.

     

Adolescent Physical Abuse: Age at Time of Abuse and Adolescent Perception of Family Functioning

The relationship between physical abuse and family functioning was investigated in a comparative study of victims of adolescent physical abuse. The sample consisted of 99 physically abused adolescents and 99 nonabused adolescents who were administered the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES III). These measures assess family functioning in terms of adolescents' perception of their family's cohesiveness, flexibility, and the degree to which their parents provide care and protection. The relationship between family functioning and physical abuse, severity of abuse, and date of abuse onset was investigated. Abused adolescents perceived their families as significantly less adaptable, less cohesive, and less balanced than the comparison adolescents. Fathers and mothers of abused adolescents were viewed as less caring; abuse group fathers were also viewed as more overprotective. Family functioning was not different when childhood-onset abuse was compared to adolescent-onset abuse. Severity of abuse also did not differ in the childhood and adolescent onset groups. It was concluded that physically abused adolescents view their families as rigid, and their parents as emotionally unavailable. Treatment needs and intervention strategies for these families are outlined.     

Organizational structure as predictor of intelligence strategy implementation in policing

Barriers to strategy implementation are often found in the organizational structure in law enforcement. Strategy implementation is important because failure to carry out strategy can cause lost opportunities and leave police officers reluctant to do strategic planning. Lack of implementation creates problems in maintaining priorities and reaching organizational goals. Yet, strategy implementation suffers from a general lack of academic attention. This research paper makes a contribution to police strategy implementation literature by developing a research model to study the extent of intelligence strategy implementation caused by organizational structure in policing.     

CAN SELF‐CONTROL CHANGE SUBSTANTIALLY OVER TIME? RETHINKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF‐ AND SOCIAL CONTROL*

The primary goals of this study were to test the long‐term stability thesis of Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) general theory of crime and to examine the relationship between self‐control and social control over time. The data come from a field experiment where the “treatment” consisted of an intentional effort to improve the childrearing behaviors of a sample of caregivers whose children were at high risk of criminal behavior. Caregivers in the control condition were given no such training. The intervention occurred when all subjects were in the first grade (mean age: 6.2 years old), and we have measurements on self‐control and the social control/bond for each subject from grades 6 to 11 (mean ages: 12 to 17 years old). Both a hierarchical linear model and a second‐order latent growth model identified meaningful differences in the growth pattern of self‐control among individuals in the pooled sample and a difference in the growth parameters for self‐control and the social control/bond over time between the treatment and control groups. Both findings are inconsistent with Gottfredson and Hirschi's stability of self‐control hypothesis. The same patterns persisted when different analytic techniques and model specifications were applied, which suggests that the results are not an artifact of measurement error, model specification, or statistical methods. Structural equation modeling using the panel design of the data was better able to disentangle the long‐term relationship between self‐ and social control—a relationship that was found to be more dynamic than previously hypothesized.     

A Participant Evaluation of the U.S. Navy Parent Support Program

This study reports on the results of a program evaluation of the U.S. Navy New Parent Support Program (NPSP). NPSP is composed of two components: center-based parenting classes and home-based visits. Data are presented on: (a) satisfaction with program quality, (b) how well the program met its primary objectives (e.g., helps reduce parenting stress), (c) how well the NPSP met its Reasons for Being (RFBs; e.g., Helps service members concentrate on their job), and (d) program impact on mission-related outcomes (i.e., quality of life (QOL), readiness, and program impact on their decision to remain in the military). Results indicate that parents who take part in both the parenting classes and home-based visits report that the program exceeded their expectations, the program improved their perceptions of their parenting and coping skills, they perceived that the program demonstrated the Navy's concern for Sailors and their families, and the program enhanced the family's quality of life. Implications of study findings are discussed.

Patterns of Risk and Protective Factors in the Intergenerational Cycle of Maltreatment

This study investigates the continuation and discontinuation of the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment within the first 13 months of the child’s life. Differences in risk factors and parenting styles between families who initiate (Initiators), maintain (Maintainers) or break (Cycle Breakers) the intergenerational cycle of child maltreatment are explored in comparison to control families (Controls). One hundred and three Health Visitors were trained to assess risk factors and parenting styles of 4,351 families, at both 4–6 weeks and 3–5 months after birth. Maintainers, Initiators and Cycle Breakers had a significantly higher prevalence for the majority of risk factors and poor parenting styles than Controls. Protective factors of financial solvency and social support distinguished Cycle Breakers from Maintainers and Initiators. Therefore, it is the presence of protective factors that distinguish Cycle Breakers from families who were referred to Child Protection professionals in the first year after birth. A conceptual, hierarchical model that considers history of abuse, risk and protective factors, in turn, is proposed to assess families for the potential of child maltreatment.     

Predicting the Use of Different Conflict Tactics Among Arab Siblings in Israel: A Study Based On Social Learning Theory

The article presents a study conducted among 832 Arab adolescents from Israel, in an attempt to predict their use of different tactics (i.e., reasoning, verbal abuse, and physical violence) to resolve conflicts with siblings from the perspective of social learning theory. Different forms of the CT Scales were utilized to elicit information on Arab adolescents' exposure to and experience with different conflict tactics in their families of origin, as well as on their use of such tactics with siblings. Results indicate that the more they witnessed reasoning in their families of origin, the greater the likelihood that they would use the same tactic to resolve conflicts with their siblings. At the same time, the more they witnessed or experienced verbal abuse and physical violence, the greater their use of verbal and physical violence against their siblings. A detailed discussion of different patterns of violence in Arab families as reported by the adolescents is presented, and several implications of the study are addressed.     

The over-citation of Daubert in forensic anthropology

The 1993 US Supreme Court decision Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. presented new guidance for the judicial assessment of expert witness evidence and testimony in the determination of admissibility. Despite the rarity of admissibility challenges to forensic anthropology evidence, Daubert is frequently cited in published forensic anthropology research. This study undertook a qualitative thematic analysis of forensic anthropology articles published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences to assess why authors continue to cite Daubert and express concerns over potential exclusion. The results show a significant increase in the number of articles that cite legal admissibility standards over time (p < 0.001). Authors frequently cite these standards to contextualize their results within the Daubert framework or to justify the need for their research. Notably, many articles present Daubert as a constraining force, misinterpreting the guidelines as rigid criteria or that they require methods to be strictly quantitative. However, Daubert was intended to be a flexible tool for judges—not a standard or instruction for scientists. While it was reasonable to reflect on the scientific rigor of methods in the wake of the Daubert decision, a new perspective is warranted in which forensic anthropologists shift their focus from trying to “satisfy” admissibility guidelines to adopting quality assurance measures that minimize error and ensure confidence in analytical results, and developing and using methods that are grounded in good science—which is important regardless of whether or not the results are ever the subject of a trial.     

A study of families in high-conflict custody disputes: effects of psychiatric evaluation

Each year approximately 2.5 million people divorce, subjecting more than 1 million children to the losses of familial breakup. Hostility in families can be greatly exacerbated by parents' repeated failures to negotiate an altered lifestyle for the family which provides for the children's best interests. Interventions with highly conflictual parents and their children must necessarily address the interface between the mental health and legal professions. How families experience this process must be carefully studied in order to create new strategies for change, not only within the families, but also to facilitate the legal system's cooperation with mental health professionals. To date, little research has been conducted which assesses the efficacy of methods used by mental health professionals to intervene in contested child custody cases. This paper describes a program at the Isaac Ray Center, Inc., designed to help parents settle their custody disputes out of court. The article presents findings based on an 18-month follow-up questionnaire and court records for 45 parents. Data concerning custody settlement, relitigation, and parents' satisfaction with the evaluation process, their attorneys, and the custody outcome are presented and discussed.     

The Clean Development Mechanism: A Bane or a Boon for Developing Countries?

We analyse the gains to developing countries from the participation in the CDM during the Kyoto period (until 2010) in the event an emissions trading (ET) regime exists in the post-Kyoto period (2010–20). We show that the developing countries will always be better-off participating in the CDM if the emissions quota they get in the post-Kyoto period is not linked to their baseline emissions. However if their quota equals (or is related to) their baseline emissions, CDM participation strategy may be a preferred alternative only if the CDM price is high enough to off-set the losses of the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) due to participation in the CDM. We simulate the CDM and ET in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto period and show that with the reduction targets given in the Kyoto Protocol for Annex B countries, participation in the CDM is beneficial to non-Annex B (developing) countries, even if their emissions quota in the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) is determined by their baseline emissions. Abatement supply price in the post-Kyoto period however turns out to be crucial factor in this case.     

Vitality and age of conjunctival petechiae: The expression of P-selectin

Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) results in displaying multiple ruptures of capillaries and venules define conjunctival petechiae as a rhexis haemorrhage. In order to distinguish between petechiae which have arisen before death as opposed to post-mortem artefacts and the establishment of the age of the vessel's damage, we carried out an investigation on a collection of samples from medico-legal cases (positive petechiae: n = 65; post-mortem artefacts: n = 12; control: n = 19) to establish whether the expression of the endothelial adhesion molecule P-selectin as demonstrated by immunohistochemical methods is influenced by trauma before death and possibly by time. Except for cases with massive congestion in those cases where the victim had survived for around minutes, CLSM examination revealed a strong endothelial reaction at the site where the vessel had ruptured. It was impossible to detect a strong P-selectin expression signal in both those vessels which had not suffered any mechanical insult and those which had experienced post-mortem rupture. Therefore, the elevated expression of P-selectin can be used as a criterion to distinguish between those lesions which have occurred in life and those which are post-mortem artefacts.     

Assessing programs designed to improve outcomes for children exposed to violence: Results from nine randomized controlled trials

Objectives

The study tests whether participation in interventions offered by a subset of sites from the National Safe Start Promising Approaches for Children Exposed to Violence initiative improved outcomes for children relative to controls.

Methods

The study pools data from the nine Safe Start sites that randomized families to intervention and control groups, using a within-site block randomization strategy based on child age at baseline. Caregiver-reported outcomes, assessed at baseline, 6 and 12 months, included caregiver personal problems, caregiver resource problems, parenting stress, child and caregiver victimization, child trauma symptoms, child behavior problems, and social-emotional competence.

Results

Results revealed no measurable intervention impact in intent-to-treat analyses at either 6- or 12-month post-baseline. In 6-month as-treated analyses, a medium to high intervention dose was associated with improvement on two measures of child social-emotional competence: cooperation and assertion. Overall, there is no reliable evidence of significant site-to-site effect variability, even in the two cases of significant intervention effect.

Conclusions

Since families in both the intervention and control groups received some degree of case management and both groups improved over time, it may be advantageous to explore the potential impacts of crisis and case management separately from mental health interventions. It may be that, on average, children in families whose basic needs are being attended to improve substantially on their own.     

A cross-sectional study on expression of anger and factors associated with criminal recidivism in prisoners with prior offences

Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine demographical characteristics leading to crime recidivism and define anger levels and anger expression manners for those who re-commit crime.Method: All the literate inmates in zmit Closed Penitentiary were included in this cross-sectional study. The prisoners were asked to respond to State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. Their socio-demographic data were collected and a questionnaire was given to them to determine their state of imprisonment, sentence, nature of the crime in which they were involved, their criminal history, their relationship with inmates and prison staff and substance and alcohol use.Results: Of the 438 prisoners, 302 (68.9%) responded to the questionnaires. Crime recidivism among the study cohort was observed to be 37.4%.Mean trait anger, anger out and anger in scores were significantly higher in prisoners with criminal recidivism in comparison with those who did not have prior criminal records. However, mean anger control scores for prisoners with or without criminal recidivism were similar. Unemployment, education level completed at secondary school or below, having committed a crime under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, having been involved in prison fights, having resisted police officers, caused damage in their vicinity when angry and violent crimes were all found to be possible causes of criminal recidivism. Educational level completed at secondary school or below, getting into fights with other prisoners, unemployment and resisting police officers were determined to be the strongest indicators to predict criminal recidivism when all variables were considered according to a logistic regression model.Conclusion: It can be proposed that those who have problems with officials or hostile towards others constitute a risk group for criminal recidivism. If prisoners with criminal recidivism can be helped to identify and control their anger, their risk of committing a new crime can be minimised.     

Left realism,local crime surveys and policing of racial minorities

The inner-city riots of 1980s Britain provoked an important set of debates in the progressive criminological literature about police accountability and the policing of racial minorities. Two main oppositional political strategies emerged. Following the pioneering work of Hall et al. (1978) some British criminologists supported a police monitoring strategy that proceeded on a case by case approach. In a more generalized approach, the strategy employed by the left realist school made use of the local crime survey in order to gather data on crime and policing practices that were used in public forum to make police accountable. In fulfilling this mandate, the first sweep of the Islington Crime Survey (ICS) provides an empirically grounded analysis of focused military-style policing in the Black community. These authors argue that differential policing practices, such as stop and search patterns, alienate Black youth from the police and contribute to the reduced flow of information from the community to the police vital for police effectiveness at crime control.The premise of this paper is that while both of these positions have been conceptually useful, they probably oversimplify the more complex social response of the Black community to focused policing methods. The paper begins with a critique ofPolicing The Crisis and suggests that it was this critique that primarily motivated the left realist response. In examining the scope of this response, the paper reviews two specific models of these relationships as proposed in various publications from the realist school. It is suggested that seven hypotheses can be deduced from these models, and that data from the first sweep of the ICS allow some assessment of the empirical support for these models.After examining the empirical evidence from the ICS, the paper concludes that while there is considerable empirical support for the analysis provided inThe Islington Crime Survey, the authors have probably not gone as far in their analysis as the data allow. A further analysis suggests that the response to military-style and focused policing, far from being uniform, is, in fact, bifurcated. In some instances, the very people who are the targets of biased policing practices demand more of the same. A model that depicts the complex nature of this response is provided.     

Equal Application or Unequal Treatment

Abstract

Florida's community control program (CC) developed as a punitive alternative to prison. Characterized by intensive supervision and home confinement, the language and the guidelines assume gender equality, however, the model ignores the family responsibilities of controllees. Because women are more likely than men to be primary caregivers for their families, the issue has gender implications at the policy level. This study examines the background of CC legislation in relation to gender, and presents a case example of how the language of community control is applied at the local level. From interviews and observations, the authors show how officers and female controllees in a county program describe the tensions between caregiving and policy restrictions in their daily lives. They argue that caregiver status should be addressed at the policy level, and advocate the formation of “social families” as a way to help controllees meet CC requirements while caring for families.     

Innocent of the crime under investigation: suspects’ counter-interrogation strategies and statement-evidence inconsistency in strategic vs. non-strategic interviews

ABSTRACT

The study examines the counter-interrogation strategies applied by mock suspects (N?=?94), who are innocent of a mock crime under investigation but who were present at the scene, for different reasons, at around the time the crime occurred. Half were present at the crime scene to carry out a lawful act, the other half to carry out an unlawful act. Furthermore, this study examines the effect of the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique as a strategic interviewing technique (vs. a non-strategic technique), on suspects’ statement-evidence inconsistencies. Participants were randomly assigned to the two interview conditions (strategic vs. non-strategic) and were interviewed as suspects of a crime, which none of them had committed. The results show that the most commonly used counter-interrogation strategy in both groups was to be honest. However, 26.1% of the innocent suspects, performing an unlawful act, reported the strategy to be deceptive. In addition, the statements of suspects executing an unlawful act were significantly more inconsistent with the evidence in the strategic than the non-strategic interview condition. The increased statement-evidence inconsistency rates potentially put these suspects at risk of being assessed as guilty of a crime they did not commit.