How do professionals experience working with offenders diagnosed with personality disorder within a prison environment?

To explore the different experiences of a Multidisciplinary Team working with offenders diagnosed with personality disorder (PD) and produce a substantive model of the Offender PD Pathway strategy from a staff perspective. Fourteen participants were recruited from ‘Unit A’ located within a high security prison. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and the data collected were analysed using constructivist grounded theory. A model was constructed depicting the experiences of those working with offenders with PD. Main themes identified were: prison environment; synergy of the workforce; understanding of the client; individual perceptions; support; and personal change. Although there was enough similarity within the participants’ responses to consider them to be a homogenous population, there were some noticeable differences in trends of responses evident between the two sub-groups of health service-based clinical staff and prison staff as expressed in the model. There is interplay between factors which influence an individual’s experience of working with offenders with PD. How a member of staff experiences working with offenders with PD depends on more than just the nature of the client and the challenges they pose. These factors external to the client group appear to have a significant impact on the professional and their emotional experiences of their work.     

Definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse among undergraduate students of social work

The article focuses on definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse among undergraduate social work students in Israel. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. The vast majority of students in Study 1 acknowledged acts thought to constitute wife assault and disapproved of a husband's use of force against his wife. The majority of students in Study 2 did not justify wife abuse nor tend to believe that battered women benefit from beating, although they tended to blame the violent husband for his behavior. Significant amounts of the variance in dependent variables were explained by the students' marital role expectations (Study 1) and their attitudes toward women and sex role stereotypes (Study 2). The students' year of study and participation in family violence or wife abuse courses did not contribute toward explaining the variance in their beliefs. Results are discussed in light of the students' patriarchal ideology, and implications for future research are presented.     

Limitations of Diagnostic Precision and Predictive Utility in the Individual Case: A Challenge for Forensic Practice

Knowledge of group tendencies may not assist accurate predictions in the individual case. This has importance for forensic decision making and for the assessment tools routinely applied in forensic evaluations. In this article, we applied Monte Carlo methods to examine diagnostic agreement with different levels of inter-rater agreement given the distributional characteristics of PCL-R scores. Diagnostic agreement and score agreement were substantially less than expected. In addition, we examined the confidence intervals associated with individual predictions of violent recidivism. On the basis of empirical findings, statistical theory, and logic, we conclude that predictions of future offending cannot be achieved in the individual case with any degree of confidence. We discuss the problems identified in relation to the PCL-R in terms of the broader relevance to all instruments used in forensic decision making.     

A NOT SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY: THE FOSTER YOUTH TRANSITION FROM ADOLESCENCE INTO ADULTHOOD

Every year close to 25,000 youth age out of our foster care system; without the anchor of a family, former foster youth disproportionately join the ranks of the homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed. While the average age of financial independence in America is twenty‐six years of age, we presume that foster youth can somehow attain financial and emotional independence by age eighteen. Instead, these adolescents are woefully unprepared for independent adult life, and when they falter, too often no one is there to provide support or guidance. As a result, former foster youth are ten times more likely to be arrested than youth of the same age, race, and sex and one in four youth who age out of foster care will end up in jail within the first two years after leaving care. This article will discuss strategies for changing these disheartening outcomes for transitioning foster youth, including breaking down our silos and collectively taking charge of the lives of children in our care; keeping a watchful eye on data and outcomes and using that information to guide our actions; ensuring that the voices of youth are an ever‐present part of decisions and processes that will chart their future; and educating ourselves about best practices and new approaches. This article also discusses new opportunities that now exist to support foster youth as they move into adulthood, including new federal legislation that—for the first time—will allow states to support foster youth beyond age eighteen. Finally, this article provides a backdrop for this Special Issue and summarizes the insightful articles and innovative thinking contained herein.     

Forlorn daughters? The role of social motherhood in transnational African Methodist Episcopal missionary women networks, 1900–1940s

Abstract

This paper examines the transnational networks formed between women who were part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) within the United States (US) and its South African missionary societies during the early twentieth century. From the outset, these networks enabled South African women to gain tertiary education in the US, but were nonetheless entrenched in unequal power dynamics. US-based women considered themselves metaphorical mothers to the female South African members, portraying the African women as daughters in need of social and financial support. US AME women were complex role models for Black African women who could not reasonably maintain the lifestyle enjoyed by many AME missionary women. Often, however, South African women appear to have utilized these unequal power dynamics, embracing the rhetoric of being “forlorn daughters” of Africa to maintain the AME’s support. Nevertheless, these networks helped sustain both US and South African women’s participation within the AME Church.