People We Hire as Executioners: Who Are They? Who Are We?

Christopher Bennett has introduced a new inquiry into the capital punishment debate by looking at whether the role of executioner is one in which it is possible and proper to take pride. He argues that this will depend on the kind of justifications that an executioner can offer in defense of his role and takes as an example the English executioner Albert Pierrepoint as portrayed in the film Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman. Bennett claims that none of the justifications available to Pierrepoint are adequate, that his pride in his role was unjustified, and that this gives us reason to doubt those justifications for capital punishment. I am unpersuaded by Bennett’s arguments and give reasons for thinking that the role of executioner can under certain circumstances be an honorable vocation in which one may legitimately take pride.     

Neighborhood Social Ties and Shared Expectations for Informal Social Control: Do They Influence Informal Social Control Actions?

Objectives

Social disorganization states that neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control are necessary for the exercise of informal social control actions. Yet this association is largely assumed rather than empirically examined in the literature. This paper examines the relationship between neighborhood social ties, shared expectations for informal social control and actual parochial and public informal social control actions taken by residents in response to big neighborhood problems.

Methods

Using multi-level logistic regression models, we integrate Australian Bureau of Statistics census data with the Australian Community Capacity Study survey data of 1310 residents reporting 2614 significant neighborhood problems across 148 neighborhoods to examine specific informal social control actions taken by residents when faced with neighborhood problems.

Results

We do not find a relationship between shared expectations for informal social control and residents’ informal social control actions. Individual social ties, however, do lead to an increase in informal social control actions in response to ‘big’ neighborhood problems. Residents with strong ties are more likely to engage in public and parochial informal social control actions than those individuals who lack social ties. Yet individuals living in neighborhoods with high levels of social ties are only moderately more likely to engage in parochial informal social control action than those living in areas where these ties are not present. Shared expectations for informal social control are not associated with the likelihood that residents engage in informal social control actions when faced with a significant neighborhood problem.

Conclusion

Neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control are not unilaterally necessary for the exercise of informal social control actions. Our results challenge contemporary articulations of social disorganization theory that assume that the availability of neighborhood social ties or expectations for action are associated with residents actually doing something to exercise of informal social control.

     

Pathways of Victimization and Resistance: Toward a Feminist Theory of Battered Women’s Help‐Seeking

Although intimate partner abuse has been extensively researched over the last thirty years, battered women’s help‐seeking remains perplexingly undertheorized, particularly within criminology. This analysis aims to offer a corrective by applying the feminist pathways theoretical model—which examines women’s and girls’ offending behaviors in the context of their past victimization experiences—to battered women’s help‐seeking. Data from in‐depth life history interviews with 22 battered women in two states indicate that the women’s childhood victimization experiences informed their adult help‐seeking decisions in meaningful ways. The primary theoretical contribution of this analysis is the identification of specific mechanisms—five help‐seeking inhibitors and three help‐seeking promoters—through which childhood victimization influenced participants’ help‐seeking. Results of this analysis demonstrate the benefit of a feminist pathways theoretical model of battered women’s help‐seeking in order to better understand how pathways of victimization and resistance develop over the course of women’s lives.     

Considering Destructive Interparental Conflict and Intimate Partner Abuse: Is there a Difference?

Building on existing evidence that destructive interparental conflict and intimate partner abuse (IPA) share research methodology and predict the same adjustment difficulties across numerous areas of child development, this article brings awareness to differences in terminology across disciplines and the impact these nuanced differences may have on families. We begin by identifying two main streams of scholarships followed by a discussion of research methodology similarities and differences. Important implications of differences in naming conventions for practitioners, legal and academic scholars, and victims are then discussed. Finally, we encourage professionals from both scholarships to consider referencing the other's terminology and using comprehensive assessments to better promote the well‐being of families.     

A National Survey of Mental Health Services Available to Offenders with Mental Illness: Who Is Doing What?

The purpose of this study was to examine the national practices of psychotherapy services for male offenders with mental illness (OMI) in state correctional facilities. Participants consisted of 230 correctional mental health service providers from 165 state correctional facilities. Results indicated that mental health professionals provided a variety of services to OMI that can be conceptualized by six goals considered important in their work: mental illness recovery, emotions management, institutional functioning, re-entry, risk-need, and personal growth. Mental health professionals in this study generally viewed mental illness recovery, institutional functioning, and personal growth as significantly more important and spent more time focused on these goals than emotions management, re-entry, and risk-need. Mental health professionals tended to believe the services they provided were effective across four key treatment foci including mental illness, skill development, behavioral functioning, and criminogenic needs with more progress perceived in areas related to mental illness and skill development than their ability to effectively change behavioral functioning. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Psychological Abuse and Depressive Symptoms in Dating Women: Do Different Types of Abuse Have Differential Effects?

The purpose of the current study was to examine potential differential effects of two forms of psychological abuse, emotional/verbal and dominance/isolation, on women's depressive symptoms. It was expected that emotional/verbal abuse would have a direct impact on both concurrent and prospective depressive symptoms among dating women. In contrast, it was expected that the depressogenic effect of dominance/isolation abuse would be moderated by level of perceived interpersonal control. Women who perceived themselves to have high levels of interpersonal control were hypothesized to be less negatively affected by partner dominance/isolation behaviors than their low control counterparts. Although the effects of both types of abuse on concurrent depressive symptoms were relatively weak, more robust longitudinal effects were found. Emotional/ verbal abuse at Time 1 did not predict Time 2 depressive symptoms after controlling for depressive symptoms at Time 1. In contrast, dominance/isolation abuse at Time 1 significantly predicted increases in depressive symptoms over time, and this effect was moderated by level of perceived interpersonal control in the expected direction. Implications for future research and clinical intervention/prevention efforts are discussed.     

Seeking Help to Protect the Children?: The Influence of Children on Women’s Decisions to Seek Help When Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has a detrimental effect on the wellbeing of victims and their children. Situational as well as individual factors shape victims’ responses to the experiences of IPV in many ways. This study uses a quantitative approach to examine the factors that influence victims’ decisions on whether and where to seek help. The role of (unborn) children has been examined together with other demographic and situational factors to reveal their influence on victims’ help-seeking decisions. Two items were used to measure the role of children, including victims’ pregnancy at the time of the abuse and children residing with the victim and witnessing the abuse. Relevant findings derived from the analysis of a sub-sample of women interviewed in the process of the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) 2002/03 are discussed throughout this paper with a specific focus on the role of children. While the presence of unborn children (i.e., pregnancy) had no effect on victims’ help-seeking decisions, children witnessing the abuse emerged as the strongest predictor of general and more formalized help-seeking decisions.     

Who Is the Client and Who Controls Release of Records in a Forensic Evaluation? A Review of Ethics Codes and Practice Guidelines

Forensic psychologists often refuse to release evaluation records, especially to the evaluee. One justification for this practice is based on the ethical positions that the referral source “is the client” and “controls release of records” (also found in the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology). To determine whether these ethical positions are shared by the field of forensic mental health, official documents from forensic mental health organizations were used as a proxy for these views. Thirty-four supporting arguments for either position were identified from the literature; it was postulated that official documents would support both positions and utilize supporting arguments. Fifty-four official documents were discovered, and qualitative analysis was used to construct a 17-category model of official views. Neither position was supported by a majority of documents, and few of the supporting arguments were utilized by supportive documents. The positions are unsupported because official documents espouse a wide diversity of views, there are a number of logical flaws in supporting arguments, and even official APA documents hold conflicting views. Ethical arguments are advanced for contrary positions, and the referral-source-control of records release is contrary to law. A more ethical view is that the psychologist may have multiple, possibly conflicting responsibilities to multiple entities; the psychologist’s roles and responsibilities should be clarified with each entity using an informed consent process. Psychologists should release records at the behest of the evaluee, lest they be subject to licensing discipline, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) complaints, and/or civil sanctions. Recommendations are offered for psychologists, future ethics codes and professional practice guidelines, and test security practices.     

Innovation strategies of firms: What strategies and why?

This paper analyzes various innovation strategies of firms. Using five waves of the Community Innovation Survey in Sweden, we have traced the innovative behavior of firms over a 10-year period, i.e. between 2002 and 2012. We distinguish between sixteen innovation strategies, which compose of Schumpeterian four types of innovations (process, product, marketing, and organizational) plus various combinations of these four types. First, we find that firms are not homogenous in choosing innovation strategies, instead, they have a wide range of preferences when it comes to innovation strategy and some of the innovation strategies are “commonly” used among firms. Second, using Transition Probability Matrix, we found that firms also persist to have such a diverse innovation strategy preferences. Finally, using Multinomial Logit model, we explained the determinant of each and every innovation strategies, while we gave special attention to the commonly used innovation strategies among firms.     

Examining the Paradox of Crime Reporting: Are Disadvantaged Victims More Likely to Report to the Police?

This study uses an intersectional approach to examine the “paradox” that disadvantaged victims often mobilize the police, despite their distrust and lack of confidence in the law. Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1994–2016) were analyzed using logistic regression to model the predicted probabilities of police notification by victims of crime. Economic disadvantage, as measured by family poverty and lack of a high school education, increased the probability that females reported their victimization to the police, but decreased the likelihood that males did so. Economically disadvantaged black females had the highest probability of reporting, while economically disadvantaged black and Hispanic males had the lowest. Examining the intersectional differences across social groups shows that reporting behavior is not just a function of one attribute but rather is a function of multiple identities and structural inequalities.