Removing the barriers; adolescent coping and attitudes towards mental health services in custodial settings – Can we improve services?

Young people in custodial care are known to have high levels of mental health and emotional problems, and recent policy and service developments have sought to improve their access to services. However, little is known about how they cope or about what would increase their uptake of services (when such services are available). This study aimed to develop, validate and use a standardised measure to examine the coping, help-seeking and attitudes of a larger cohort of young people in custody. There was a marked reluctance to seek help for any but the most serious of problems, but there were also indicators of what would make services more acceptable to this population, with implications for both commissioning and delivering services. In particular, greater involvement of parents and carers, offering a wider range of interventions and offering them more flexibly, and challenging stigma within the secure environment may increase uptake of services.     

论我国婚内侵权损害赔偿制度的构建

在法制日益健全、人们维权意识不断增强的今天,夫妻一体的观念正在被打破,对于夫妻之间的侵权行为,当事人也应当承担损害赔偿责任。然而,现有民事立法在婚内侵权问题上存在诸多纰漏,无法为当事人提供有效的救济。因而,我国有必要构建婚内侵权损害赔偿制度。本文在对婚内侵权进行法律分析的基础上,结合我国当前婚内侵权立法的不足,对我国婚内侵权损害赔偿制度的构建,提出几点建议,以期对婚姻家庭法的完善有所裨益。     

What would they do? Latino church leaders and domestic violence

Understanding what Latino church leaders believe about domestic violence, and what they do when they confront it, is a key step in developing programs to help them engage in domestic violence prevention and intervention activities in their congregations. This article presents the findings from an exploratory study of 28 Latino church leaders. The study surveyed respondents' beliefs about domestic violence and asked for their reactions to three domestic violence vignettes they might encounter. We found that study participants were willing to respond to cases of domestic violence in what we would define as constructive ways. However, some responses suggested potentially unsafe and ill-advised reactions to the vignettes. We discuss our study's implications for practice and suggest future directions for additional research.     

Punishment,Liberalism, and Public Reason

The article argues for a conception of the justification of punishment that is compatible with a modern, politically liberal regime. Section I deals with what some have thought are the obvious social interests society has in punishing criminals, and tries to develop those possible interests somewhat sympathetically. Section II suggests that many of those reasons are not good ones if punishment is regarded (as it should be) from the perspective of political philosophy. Social responses to bad things happening to people cannot be grounded in controversial metaphysical views about what is good for people or what people deserve, but many reasons proffered for punishment are in fact grounded in such views. This constraint, accordingly, limits what individuals can expect in terms of a societal response to crime. Section III develops the appropriate reasons for punishment in a modern, liberal regime. Here the article relies on a—largely undefended—conception of public reason as the most plausible theory of what reasons for punishment are available to liberals. Section IV offers some closing thoughts on why people might adopt a politically liberal view about punishment as their own, personal view about how they should relate to others.     

A STUDY OF CLIENT SATISFACTION WITH FAMILY COURT COUNSELLING IN CASES INVOLVING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The Family Court of Australia provides conciliation counselling to couples who are involved in disputes regarding their children following separation. In situations where domestic violence has occurred, the appropriateness of providing counselling to such couples has been seriously questioned This study examines the experience of clients attending counselling at the family court. Two groups of clients are studied—one group who reports domestic violence as a significant issue and a comparison group who does not report domestic violence. The results indicate that the two groups do not differ in their expressed level of satisfaction with the counselling they have received and that both groups consider counselling to have been helpful in resolving their issues. The preliminary results of this study have implications for the provision of postseparation counselling/mediation to couples when domestic violence has occurred.     

Changing Patterns of Culture and its Organisation of the Police in a Society of Transition - Case Study: Hungary

The authors examine what happens to the police when a country is in transition towards a more democratic organisation. They use Hungary as the main example, but also provide information about other Eastern European countries. First they elaborate on the case of continuity - discontinuity. Transition is not a result of one moment, it is more appropriate to talk about the erosion of previous values and patterns having taken place for years or even decades instead of their sudden change. There is, however, an indisputable influence of politics on the police. In the course of the change of regime, not only the police but also all the institutions that previously served (in varying degrees) the institutionalised control of criminality, came to a crisis point and their existence and functions became questionable. The authors deal with the vacuum of legitimacy, and possible answers, such as auditing of the police, democratisation and several ways to establish accountability. Finally, a model of the democratic organisation of the police (demilitarised, decentralised and de-concentrated) is sketched.     

INTEREST IN MARITAL RECONCILIATION AMONG DIVORCING PARENTS

This study offers the first research data on the interest of divorcing parents in marital reconciliation. A sample of 2,484 divorcing parents was surveyed after taking required parenting classes. They were asked about whether they believed their marriage could still be saved with hard work, and about their interest in reconciliation services. About 1 in 4 individual parents indicated some belief that their marriage could still be saved, and in about 1 in 9 matched couples both partners did. As for interest in reconciliation services, about 3 in 10 individuals indicated potential interest. In a sub‐sample of 329 matched couples, about 1 in 3 couples had one partner interested but not the other, and in 1 in 10 couples both partners were interested in reconciliation services. Findings were consistent across most demographic and marital factors. The only strong predictors of reconciliation interest were gender, with males being more interested than females, and initiator status, with far greater interest among those whose partner initiated the divorce. These findings are discussed in terms of attachment theory and future prospects of divorce services.     

Legal reforms appropriate for cohabitants and LATs

Cohabitants and LATs (couples who “live apart together”) do not fit the traditional categories and rules of our family law system. This article describes what we know about both cohabitants and LATs in the U.S., compares the two institutions, and makes recommendations about legal reforms with respect to each. For cohabitants the reforms would assimilate cohabiting couples to marriage after the passage of time, based on the evidence of their economic interdependence and the probability that there are children in their households. As to LATs, the reforms proposed are limited to those that would support the caretaking functions LATs perform for each other, resulting in benefits to society as a whole.     

Cohabitation,Registration, and Reliance: Creating A Comprehensive and Just Scheme for Protecting the Interests of Couples' Real Relationships

This paper argues that courts and legislatures should recognize and protect adult relationships other than marriage, in two ways. First, couples in committed, cohabitating relationships should be protected when their relationship dissolves—even if they are not formally married. The law in this area is currently inconsistent and confusing, and should be cleaned up to reflect the reality of the lives of committed couples in need of legal protection. Second, all states should establish a registration scheme along the lines of Colorado's designated beneficiary law, which allows couples to flexibly design their legal relationship. This status should include specific arrangements about the ownership of property over the course of a long relationship, and should also be expanded to allow people to enter into more than one such relationship at a time, as long as the rights and obligations are not inconsistent. Given the number of couples operating outside of traditional marriage today, these two reforms will increase certainty of legal outcome and better protect the reliance interests of those in committed relationships.     

A qualitative study using a systemic perspective exploring the remediation of abusive interactions in intimate heterosexual couples

Very little attention has been paid to both partners beliefs about why violence in their previously abusive relationship has stopped or significantly reduced despite well-documented details in the research literature outlining the characteristics of both victims and perpetrators. This study aimed to provide some understanding of how each partner believed that the violence has ended. However their answers often were not definitive; instead, they uncovered the complexities in their relationship and their struggle to overcome the uncertainty they have to achieve and maintain successful remediation. The article is based on a qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study that explored the nature of the relationship between six heterosexual couples before and after a therapeutic intervention for the men perpetrators, which followed the Duluth Model. The study included how they both understood the violence and how they maintained nonviolence in their relationship. The men were notably still in the process of reprocessing their understanding of why they were violent and they needed to further understand their reactions to maintain their nonviolence. The IPA themes provided some understanding of how the participants thought they had a better understanding of the factors that had maintained their relationship since the termination of the intervention. The themes, generated from the interviews provided by the perpetrators and their victims, are explored and some explanations for the successful continuation of their relationship following treatment are suggested. Implications for widening the treatment options for men perpetrators are suggested in addition to providing treatment options for couples who wish to remain within their relationships and need help to identify unhelpful and dangerous patterns of interaction.     

Why do evaluation researchers in crime and justice choose non-experimental methods?

Despite the general theoretical support for the value and use of randomized controlled experiments in determining ‘what works’ in criminal justice interventions, they are infrequently used in practice. Reasons often given for their rare use include that experiments present practical difficulties and ethical challenges or tend to over-simplify complex social processes. However, there may be other reasons why experiments are not chosen when studying criminal justice-related programs. This study reports the findings of a survey of criminal justice evaluation researchers as to their methodological choices for research studies they were involved in. The results suggest that traditional objections to experiments may not be as salient as initially believed and that funding agency pressure as well as academic mentorship may have important influences on the use of randomized controlled designs.In August 2005, Dr. Lum’s affiliation will change to George Mason University.     

Problems of definition: What is organized crime?

What do most people, or at least most Americans, think of when they hear, see, or read the term “organized crime”? What do they know about it? And from whence do they get their information? What about law enforcement practitioners, prosecutors, judges, and politicians? And, what about academics and journalists, the folks who study and write about organized crime? Agreeing upon a commonly accepted definition of just what is organized crime has been a continuing problem for both research and policy. The discussion that follows addresses various dimensions of this problem, looks at the implications, and makes certain recommendations.     

What Happens to Children When Their Mothers Are Battered? Results from a Four City Anonymous Telephone Survey

This article presents results of a study examining what happens to children when domestic violence is committed against their mothers. While many investigations have pointed to child exposure to violence in homes where women are battered, few have examined direct reports about what happens to children when adult domestic violence occurs. This study collected direct reports from mothers on real-life events and was designed to go beyond earlier research by eliciting information on a larger array of family and contextual factors that may account for variation in mother’s and their children’s direct and indirect exposure to violence within the same home. Anonymous telephone interviews with 111 battered mothers in four metropolitan areas across the United States elicited detailed information from women on the violence against them and their children. Findings confirm the seriousness of co-occurring mother and child exposure to violence. The research also revealed that women and children were often injured while trying to protect each other from the abuser. The article concludes by recommending further enhancing collaboration between child protection and battered women’s services; augmenting prevention and early intervention services to families experiencing adult domestic violence; and focusing on protecting and increasing the safety of both children and their battered mothers.

Lineup Administrators' Expectations: Their Impact on Eyewitness Confidence

This research focuses on how lineup a administrators influence eyewitnesses' postidentification confidence. What happens to witness confidence when a witness makes an identification that confirms the lineup administrator's expectations; what happens when this expectation is not confirmed? In Experiment 1, participant interviewers (n = 52) administered target-absent photo lineups to participant witnesses (n = 52). The interviewers did not view the simulated crime, but were told the thief's position in the lineup. In every instance this information was false (we used a target-absent lineup). A one-way ANOVA revealed that eyewitness identification confidence was malleable as a function of interviewers' beliefs about the thief's identity. In Experiment 2, participant jurors (n = 80) viewed 40 testimonies of Experiment 1 witnesses (2 participants viewed each testimony). Participant jurors judged all participant witnesses as equally credible despite their varying levels of postidentification confidence.

     

The couple relationship when the female partner has an acquired physical disability

ABSTRACT

‘Whereas the couple relationship is described to be the relationship which is typically the most impacted by disability, spousal support is presented to be the most important form of support following such. To date little is known about the exchange of support and the impact of an acquired physical disability on the couple relationship, especially when considering the perspectives of both partners. Taking a feminist, a resilience and a systemic perspective, this paper seeks to address these gaps by presenting the stories told by three heterosexual couples in whom the females sustained an acquired locomotor disability in the course of the relationship. Individual and joint semi-structured interviews were held with each participating couple. The aim was to systemically understand how the beliefs, ideas and attitudes of each partner mutually contributed to the resilience and maintenance of the couple unit over time, taking also into consideration the contextual factors which helped or hindered the couples in this process.Thematic narrative analysis of the stories told showed how coping post-disability was brought about by mutual and reciprocal circular patterns of interaction initiated and maintained within the couple relationship and influenced by the socio-cultural context. Whereas it was difficult to decipher which party had started off these processes, their occurrence over time limited the burden experienced by both parties because of the disability. The females in this study were empathic and endowed with a sense of gratitude whilst the males were caring and supportive. Both parties were determined to help each other in times of need and to survive the disability ordeal as a couple even if this entailed self-sacrifice and adjustment. Such research presents novel insights about couples impacted by an acquired locomotor disability and the practices and interventions which practitioners, clinicians and policy makers can adopt in supporting couples following such’.     

Abortion and gender relationships in Ukraine, 1955–1970

This article examines the sociocultural conditions underpinning the so-called ‘abortion culture’ in Soviet Ukraine. Unlike previous studies on abortion in the Soviet Union which have primarily used country-level data, this study employs original sources – in-depth biographical interviews and archival materials – to investigate local conditions and the manner in which decisions regarding abortion were made. The author studied couples whose reproductive years comprise the period from 1955 to 1970, when modern contraceptives were not readily available but abortion was legal. Two localities in Ukraine – the cities of Lviv and Kharkiv – are included in the investigation. The findings suggest that local patriarchal gender regimes and their associated spousal dynamics defined when and how women exercised their agency in birth control and abortion decisions. In couples where spouses communicated about birth control and abortion decisions, the women sought less abortions. These women did not feel a need to exercise their agency, as the husband took over both responsibilities. When abortion was practised as a routine family-size-limitation method, spouses did not communicate about birth control and abortion, and the two were practised solely as a husband's and wife's responsibility, respectively. These women sought abortions to fulfil their own goals and, at the same time, to maintain the dominant patriarchal order in marital relationships as they understood it. Additionally, peer networks seemed to be the crucial element reinforcing women's agency in these processes.     

Influences of Childhood Abuse on Parenting Perspectives of Pregnant Cohabitors

Using thematic analysis, we examine the effects of childhood abuse regarding parenthood for pregnant cohabitors from qualitative interviews. Participants (N?=?18; 10 women and 8 men) recalled childhood abuse during the Adult Attachment Interview. Three themes emerged: (1) “Learning what not to do,” whereby abuse is discussed as something not to continue, and harmful toward children; (2) “Use but modify parents’ discipline,” whereby individuals state that they will employ methods of their parents, but in ways different for their children; and (3) “Ambiguous,” whereby discussions are unclear and confused about how the abuse will affect their parenting. These results suggest that even when pregnant cohabitors want to parent differently than their own parents, they may not have relevant models or skills. For practitioners, we suggest interventions aimed at providing alternative models for how to parent, and effective and appropriate disciplining methods, as ways to deter intergenerational abuse.     

Police interrogation practice in Slovenia

Interrogation techniques are well explored, but in Slovenia it has remained unknown what interrogation techniques are used and what the basic characteristics of suspect interrogations are. The Slovenian interrogation manual proposes some coercive interrogation techniques and neglects their weaknesses. The aim of the current study was to examine Slovenian police officers’ beliefs as to the basic characteristics of their interrogations and whether techniques proposed by the manual are used in practice to begin to provide some insight into what actually happens in such interrogations. A survey instrument was used to obtain self-report data from a sample of criminal investigators. From 86 completed questionnaires it was found that a typical interrogation of a suspect lasts around 90 minutes and is not recorded. Interviewers typically use three interrogation techniques namely (i) conducting interrogations in isolation; (ii) identifying contradictions in the suspect's story; and (iii) confronting the suspect with evidence. Findings suggest that some coercive interrogation techniques are used in practice (e.g. offering moral justifications, alluding to have evidence of guilt, good cop/bad cop routine, and minimization). The study is the first insight into the practices of Slovenian investigators when questioning suspects. Differences among general, white-collar and organized crime investigators are also discussed.     

Health economics: a report on the field

This study documents who health economists are, what they do, and what they think about professional and policy issues. Using primary data obtained through a mail survey of 518 health economists, we found that health economists are well trained by the standards of their profession. Most are employed in noneconomics departments in universities, where they spend their time very differently from their cousins in economics departments. There is a clear dichotomy in policy views among health economists. The characterization of the field as composed of "narrow" neoclassicists and "broad" eclecticists is supported by our data.