The world at their fingertips? The mental wellbeing of online distance-based law students

In recent years there has been an increased interest in student mental wellbeing within higher education. In terms of legal education, much of this has been focused upon the United States (US) and Australia, with a lack of United Kingdom (UK)-based empirical data available. Although there is now extensive provision of online distance learning options available to UK (and other) law students, there is a notable lack of research into the possible challenges which are specific to this form of tertiary offering. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of research in this area by reporting upon, and analysing, preliminary data gathered from an empirical study of the mental wellbeing of online distance learning law students.     

Addressing the mental healthcare needs of foster children: perspectives of stakeholders from the child welfare system

A qualitative study was conducted to better understand the factors that contribute to psychotropic medication (PM) overuse among children in the child welfare system in Kentucky, including barriers to providing psychosocial interventions that potentially minimize the need for PM. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with personnel in the Department of Community-Based Services (DCBS). Participants identified important areas to target for system-wide quality improvement efforts, which included improved exchange of health information, training, and communications on the use of PM, and measures to improve access to non-pharmacological psychosocial interventions to address the mental healthcare needs of children in the child welfare system.     

Challenges to inmate classification in a developing country setting: implications for context-based inmate classification schemes

Inmate classification is a key aspect of prison management and inmate programming. It guides inmate housing assignment, level of supervision and control, and inmate programme placement. The Philippines formally incorporated these principles to modernise its prisons. However, structural, organisational, and cultural challenges posed barriers to successful implementation. Utilising qualitative data gathered through interviews and focus group discussions with prison personnel, inmates, and volunteers in a major prison in the Philippines, this paper investigates the practices that impact on inmate classification and how these affect housing assignment, levels of supervision and control, and inmate programming. Implications towards developing an integrated correctional management in the Philippines, and other similarly situated countries, are discussed.     

Broken Hearts and Battered Lives: Adverse and Abusive Life Histories and Externalized Responses to Anger as Pathways to Illicit Drug Use Among Incarcerated Women

Most incarcerated women suffer from adverse and abusive life histories, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as sexual, physical, emotional abuse, and neglect, and intimate partner violence (IPV). In addition, many have difficulties regulating their anger expression and most participate in illicit drug use. Although many have offered explanations for these relationships, the current study is among the first to utilize an integrated feminist pathways and general strain theory (GST) approach to explain them. Using data from a stratified random sample of all incarcerated women in Oklahoma (N?=?441), we explore the linkages between ACEs, IPV, the externalized expression of anger, and heavy illicit drug use. Our findings indicate that childhood physical and sexual abuse are significantly associated with externalized responses to anger. However, the effects of childhood adversities, particularly sexual abuse, on heavy illicit drug use are mediated by externalized responses to anger suggesting that anger plays a significant role in women’s pathways to illicit drug use. In contrast, and somewhat surprisingly, being a victim of IPV was negatively related to externalized responses to anger and not significantly related to illicit drug use. Implications for the importance of utilizing an integrated feminist pathways and GST approach in future research are offered.     

Virginia Stephen at the Dr Williams’s Library

This article considers the implications of Virginia Stephen’s membership of the foremost library of Protestant nonconformity in London—the Dr Williams’s Library. Drawing on research in the library’s archives, the author focuses on the original record of Stephen’s membership in the 1905 ‘Index of Readers’. While paying close attention to the semantic specificities of the record itself, this article also positions Stephen’s individual record in the wider context of the community of readers this index documents. The article explores the degree to which Stephen’s encounter with the predominantly female and scholarly, but also distinctly lower-middle-class and professional readership of the Dr Williams’s Library may have influenced the concerns of her 1909 short story ‘Memoirs of a Novelist’ and her first novel, The Voyage Out.     

The Rise of Dark Americana: Depicting the “War on Terror” On-Screen

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks the American film industry took a while to react to the Islamist threat at home and abroad. From 2005, however, Hollywood responded to the threat to the homeland and the War on Terror “over there” in Iraq and Afghanistan in a variety of ways. This article examines the nature of that response and whether it evinces, as critics allege, that the American film industry reflects and shapes a capitalist and imperialist agenda. More particularly, by evaluating the cinematic treatment of both the Iraq war and the problem of surveillance, rendition, and homeland security, the analysis explores what this distinctive on-screen genre tells about how the U.S. cultural mainstream has dealt with the challenge global jihadism poses to American values. The analysis suggests that post-9/11 movie making, while sometimes bleak and often clichéd, is cognizant of the gray area morality inherent in fighting the “War on Terror,” and is still thus able to offer some possibilities for sophisticated reflection.     

Bouncing back: A commentary on resilience in sustainability narratives

Resilience is an increasingly common element in the sustainability and sustainable growth narratives of a growing number of companies and organisations. At the same time, a number of meanings are claimed for resilience and the relationship between resilience and sustainability has been depicted in a number of ways. With these thoughts in mind, this short commentary paper outlines the characteristic features of the concept of resilience, provides some illustrations of how a number of companies and organisations are harnessing the concept as an integral part of their sustainability strategies and policies, offers some general reflections on the application of the concept, and concludes with some thoughts on how public relations and communications professionals can contribute to resilience planning.