Stalking,harassment and aggressive/intrusive behaviours towards general practitioners: (2) associated factors,motivation, mental illness and effects on GPs

Seventy per cent of general practitioners (GPs) were found in an earlier study to have been subject to aggressive/intrusive behaviours by patients, with nearly 20% stalked and 20% harassed. Using the same sample, an exploration was undertaken of patterns of behaviour, patient characteristics, including mental illness and motivation, GP characteristics, and effects upon them of aggression/intrusion. There were significant differences in patterns of behaviour between stalking and harassment. Nearly half the patients involved were suspected to be mentally ill, including 54.5% of stalking cases. Stalking was significantly associated with intimacy-seeking motivation, and harassment with resentful motivation. No significant associations emerged between sex of patients or GPs and aggressive/intrusive behaviours. Measures of GP time-at-risk were associated with higher prevalence of individual behaviours. GPs’ responses to aggressive/intrusive behaviours included increasing security and changing routines, with small minorities afraid to go out or be at home alone, and a proportion experiencing adverse effects on personal relationships.     

What to do about stalking: a preliminary study of how stalking victims responded to stalking and their perceptions of the effectiveness of these actions☆

While stalking researchers have cataloged various strategies used by victims to deal with stalking, little research has examined whether these strategies have proven effective. Using data collected from undergraduates at a Midwestern university, we examined the effects of informal responses for victims of both violent and nonviolent stalking who responded to the stalker on their own and victims who enlisted the help of others. Findings indicated that victims who enlisted help from family and friends in their informal responses to the stalker were more successful in attenuating the effects of both violent and nonviolent stalking. Victims of stalking generally were more likely than nonvictims to feel that formal coping strategies were ineffective.     

Co-offending in Canada,England and the United States: a cross-national comparison

This article compares the characteristics of police-reported co-offending groups and solo offenders in Canada, England and the United States. Comparative analysis of crime in these three countries is fostered by the relative similarity of their substantive criminal codes (all originating in English common law), their approaches to law enforcement, and their crime recording procedures. The data include over 100,000 incidents cleared by a large UK police force, 2.5 million incidents in Canada, and 1.3 million incidents in 36 states in the United States, in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Comparative analyses include the prevalence of co-offending, the size and composition of co-offending groups, and key correlates of group crime, such as offence type and the age and sex of participants. Substantial similarities are observed across the three data sets, although there are also intriguing differences. These findings are discussed in relation to ongoing attempts to draw general conclusions regarding the nature and extent of group crime and co-offending networks.     

Typologies,risk and recidivism in partner-violent men with the B-SAFER: a pilot study

The research describes the criminal profile of 100 imprisoned partner-violent men (PVM) in Spain, and the follow-up for an average of 15 months of 40 released cases. The ability of the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER) to classify offenders according to typologies and to predict recidivism is analyzed. The results show that PVM have low level of specialization (only 45% limit their criminal activity to intimate partner violence (IPV)) and high level of recidivism (47% previously have been in prison, and 41% have prior arrest for IPV). The B-SAFER shows a high capacity to classify according to batterers typologies (accuracy of 79% with a score ≥13) in two groups: non-pathological and antisocial/pathological offenders. After prison release, 17.5% relapsed (15% in IPV), and 66% have done so within the first year. The B-SAFER had a predictive accuracy of 70% (sensitivity 100%). From antisocial/pathological group, 21% have recidivate compared to 12.5% in non-pathological aggressors, with an over-representation of antisocial/pathological subtype among recidivists (71%). The best predictive variables are the justification of violence, age at first imprisonment, and treatment. There is a 9% of recidivism among treated offenders compared to 50% in the untreated group.     

Challenging the Ongoing Injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection: James,Wells and Lee v The United Kingdom

The Government has recently abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection, a highly controversial form of indeterminate sentence. Yet, at the time of writing, nearly 6,000 inmates are still serving such sentences, all of whom will have to convince a Parole Board that detention is no longer necessary for the protection of the public. This paper evaluates recent European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence which considered the legality of post‐tariff detention in the absence of suitable rehabilitative provision. The Court held that there would be a violation of Article 5(1) if prisoners were held without access to such provision. Consideration is given to the implications of this ruling for those serving such sentences and, more broadly, to the impact it may have on risk‐based sentencing policies.     

Fear of Crime among Gang and Non-Gang Offenders: Comparing the Effects of Perpetration,Victimization, and Neighborhood Factors

This is the first study to examine adult offenders’ fear of property, personal, and gang crime. We examine five research questions among 2,414 jail inmates, focusing on how afraid offenders are of crime. We compare current, ex-gang, and non-gang members. We ask if more experience with crime perpetration and victimization and more perceptions of social disorganization increase offenders’ fear of crime. Finally, we ask if the importance of these factors in predicting fear varies by gang status. Results show that offenders, generally, were not very afraid of crime. Although ex-gang and current gang members believed they were more likely to experience property, personal, and gang crime, they reported less fear than non-gang members. Crime perpetration did not influence offenders’ fear, but less experience with personal crime victimization predicted fear of personal and gang crime among non-gang members. The results also indicate that perceptions of social disorganization better explain fear among non-gang members than ex-gang and current gang members.     

Risk-Taking,Recklessness and HIV Transmission: Accommodating the Reality of Sexual Transmission of HIV Within a Justifiable Approach to Criminal Liability

This paper examines the issue of justifiability of risk-taking with regard to the transmission of HIV. It considers a number of factors, such as seriousness of risk, likelihood of risk occurring, social utility of conduct involved, ability to use precautions and victim awareness of the risk and willingness to accept it, which combined help to determine whether the taking of a risk is reasonable or not. It argues that by considering the issue of justifiability in this way, it is possible to accommodate the wider social, psychological and public health realities of HIV. It further argues that a criminal law which fails to take account of such considerations is not only overly broad in its application but ultimately risks punishing those who are not in fact deserving of punishment. I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft.