Predicting fear of crime: personality outperforms prior victimisation

Reported levels of crime continue to fall, but fear of crime remains a significant social problem. Previous studies have identified several factors that predict fear of crime (e.g. age and gender), however, it is not obvious how this information can be used to help distinguish between individuals in larger groups. Personality is predictive of other lifestyle outcomes yet its relationship with fear of crime remains unknown. We examined personality correlates of fear of crime alongside other well-established predictors. A total of 301 participants completed the HEXACO-PI-R personality scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. Higher levels of emotionality (r = .37) and lower levels of honesty-humility (r = ?.18) correlated with increased levels of crime-related fear; however, prior victimisation did not improve a subsequent model. While elucidating the relationship between fear of crime and personality, our results also raise additional questions concerning the measurement of crime-related fear in the general population.     

Victimization and Relational Aggression in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: The Influence of Parental and Peer Behaviors, and Individual Adjustment

Consistent with the view that adolescent relationships are established in the context of important characteristics of their social networks, we examined the effects of adolescents’ experiences of parenting (psychological control and positive monitoring) and of peer aggression and victimization, on their self reports of dating victimization and aggression. We also examined the effects of individual differences in emotional and behavioral problems. We used questionnaire data from a population-based sample of youth 12–18 years old who were in dating relationships (n = 149). Parental monitoring emerged as a protective factor in reducing both dating victimization and relational aggression. Our findings also point to a significant transfer of aggression in peer relationships to relational aggression in dating relationships.

The Role of Peer Group Aggression in Predicting Adolescent Dating Violence and Relationship Quality

Past research has shown that adolescent peer groups make a significant contribution to shaping behavior but less is known about the role of peer groups in adolescent dating relationships. This longitudinal study examined the contribution of aggressive peer group norms on relationship quality and dating violence among dating adolescents. At the beginning of the school year (T1) and 6 months later (T2), participants (n = 1,070; M _age = 15.45; 49 % Female) provided self-reports of attitudes towards aggression, and physically- and relationally-aggressive behaviors. Peer groups were identified using a peer-nomination technique and aggressive behaviors and attitudes were averaged across peer groups. Participants with dating experience (n = 598) reported on the frequency of their experience with dating violence (both as a victim and perpetrator). Multilevel analyses indicated that peer group relational aggression at T1 positively predicted dating abuse victimization and perpetration, and negatively predicted relationship quality at T2, beyond individual predictions. An unexpected finding was that membership in physically aggressive peer groups at T1 was associated positively with relationship quality at T2. Results point to the importance of the peer group in shaping adolescent dating experiences.     

Who Lobbies Whom? Special Interest Politics under Alternative Electoral Systems

Why do some interest groups lobby politicians and others lobby bureaucrats? We theorize lobbying venue choices and intensity as a function of contract enforceability with policy makers, politicians, or bureaucrats. We argue that organizational structures of interest groups, in particular, whether they are centralized or decentralized, substantially affect their lobbying strategies because they are associated with different ability to monitor and enforce contracts with policy makers and punish them when they fail. We further demonstrate that the effect of centralized versus decentralized structure on venue choices is conditional on the types of electoral system: majoritarian, semiproportional (single, nontransferable vote: SNTV), or proportional representation systems. We test this argument using longitudinal survey data on lobbying which span two decades and cover around 250 interest groups in various sectors and issue areas in Japan. The results lend strong support to our argument about contract enforceability under alternative electoral systems.     

Managing the MedUSA: comparing the political economy of US–Japan,US–German,and US–UK relations

Abstract

International experience tells that public services often fail to work for those in need. To make things work requires complex institutional changes that are difficult to come by, let alone sustain. This paper examines the situation of rural public service provision in China and a local attempt to revamp the service provision institution through adjusting the mix of state and the market. It reveals the dialectical process of policy evolution whereby innovation, and resistance to it, has emerged.     

‘We Are All Poor Here’: Economic Difference,Social Divisiveness and Targeting Cash Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa

While the central thrust of Michael Lipton's work has been the crucial role of productivity gains in small farm agriculture for rural poverty reduction, in many sub-Saharan African countries this desirable outcome has stubbornly refused to materialise, and growing numbers of rural poor people are found persistently to fail to secure even minimal acceptable levels of food consumption. A social protection policy response is to target social cash transfers to the chronic extreme poor. This article focuses on the level of cash transfers relative to income differences between households in the bottom half of the income distribution, and the social tensions that arise from beneficiary selection and exclusion. It is found that cash transfers to target groups such as ‘the poorest 10 per cent’ or the ‘ultra-poor labour constrained’ must be set low, even below the welfare levels they seek to achieve, if they are to avoid socially invidious reshuffling of the income distribution. The article identifies critical trade-offs between the cost and coverage of different types of social transfer, their social acceptability and their political traction, helping to explain the reluctance of governments to adopt scaled-up poverty-targeted transfers as the preferred form of social cash transfer to those most in need in their societies.     

Parents' and Children's Views on Talking to Judges in Parenting Disputes in Australia

Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedingsare an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and manyother common law jurisdictions. While there has been some debateabout the merits and risks of such a practice among professionalsand academic commentators, there is little research on the viewsof children and parents. In this study, children and parentsinvolved in contested and non-contested family law matters inAustralia were asked to comment on this practice. A subsequentarticle will explore the views of Australian judges on talkingwith children in chambers, and their experience of doing so.Children and parents had mixed views but most children saidthat it should be an option even if they did not want it forthemselves. Children who had been the subject of contested proceedingswere generally keen to talk to the judge even though most hadbeen interviewed by an independent expert and had a child legalrepresentative. Resident parents were, however, much more likelythan non-resident parents to be in favour of children beingable to talk with the judge, either alone or together with acounsellor or ‘interpreter’. Both parents and childrenwho were in favour of children talking directly to judges gavevery similar reasons. They were related to children's rightto be heard and acknowledged, the value of direct communicationand the likely beneficial effect on the decision.