Intensive psychological treatment of high-risk violent offenders: Outcomes and pre-release mechanisms

Research on correlates of intervention programmes that reduce expected reconviction rates (‘what works’ literature, Risk–Need–Responsivity model) has been highly influential in criminal justice systems throughout much of the western world. But while this psychological research has been acquiring widespread recognition, a deeper understanding of how programmes work and of mechanisms for desistance more generally, has still to develop. This research reports results of a quasi-experimental recidivism outcome study for a series of prison units that provide intensive psychological treatment to high-risk, persistently violent prisoners. Four outcomes were examined over the first 12 months following release on parole: parole violations, new convictions, new convictions for violence, and imprisonment sentences resulting from new convictions. Alongside these results, we conducted preliminary analyses of two potential pre-release mechanisms for surviving the first 12 months on parole without reconviction: lower dynamic risk for violence, and greater release readiness. We found that dynamic violence risk fully accounted for differences between treatment completers and comparison prisoners in proportions reconvicted for violence. However, in all other cases, the proposed mechanisms did not significantly explain treatment-related differences. We close by considering possible explanations for these unexpected results, and reiterating the importance to our field of more sophisticated treatment outcome research.     

Post-feeding larval behaviour in the blowfly, Calliphora vicina: effects on post-mortem interval estimates

Using the rate of development of blowflies colonising a corpse, accumulated degree hours (ADH), or days (ADD), is an established method used by forensic entomologists to estimate the post-mortem interval (PMI). Derived from laboratory experiments, their application to field situations needs care. This study examines the effect of the post-feeding larval dispersal time on the ADH and therefore the PMI estimate. Post-feeding dispersal in blowfly larvae is typically very short in the laboratory but may extend for hours or days in the field, whilst the larvae try to find a suitable pupariation site. Increases in total ADH (to adult eclosion), due to time spent dispersing, are not simply equal to the dispersal time. The pupal period is increased by approximately 2 times the length of the dispersal period. In practice, this can introduce over-estimation errors in the PMI estimate of between 1 and 2 days if the total ADH calculations do not consider the possibility of an extended larval dispersal period.     

Should I help my neighbor? Self-interest,altruism and economic analyses of rescue laws

This article shows that the economic analyses of rescue laws developed in the ‘70s are the outcome of a long-term process that began at the end of the 1950s with the passing of the first legislations intended to promote and control rescue behaviour (the so-called “good Samaritan” legislations, acts or statutes) and that finally results in the economic models of rescue developed by Landes and Posner (The Journal of Legal Studies, 7(1):83–128, 1978a; The American Economic Review, 68(2):417–421, 1978b). The article investigates the context that made the occurrence of the economic analysis of rescue law possible and the controversies that it fueled in both the legal and economic fields. It also highlights the influence of the economic analysis of altruism on this particular field of law and economics.     

Race,Representation, and the Voting Rights Act

Despite wide scholarly interest in the Voting Rights Act, surprisingly little is known about how its specific provisions affected Black political representation. In this article, we draw on theories of electoral accountability to evaluate the effect of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance provision, on the representation of Black interests in the 86th to 105th congresses. We find that members of Congress who represented jurisdictions subject to the preclearance requirement were substantially more supportive of civil rights–related legislation than legislators who did not represent covered jurisdictions. Moreover, we report that the effects were stronger when Black voters composed larger portions of the electorate and in more competitive districts. This result is robust to a wide range of model specifications and empirical strategies, and it persists over the entire time period under study. Our findings have especially important implications given the Supreme Court's recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder.     

Effective HRM Implementation by Line Managers: Relying on Various Sources of Support

We explore one of the key underlying mechanisms that mediate the HRM–performance link, namely HRM implementation by line managers. The purpose of our study is to examine the role of various sources of support in explaining effective HRM implementation by line managers. Results indicate that HR, supervisor, and coworker support are relevant in explaining line managers’ HR role performance. In addition, younger line managers and those with greater supervisory experience are found to perform better in their HR role. Hence, organizations should consider developing a broad support network to ensure effective implementation of HRM by line managers.     

paradise,built in hell: decolonising feminist utopias in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Top of the Lake</Emphasis> (2013)

Jane Campion and Gerard Lee’s miniseries Top of the Lake (2013) marked New Zealand-born but Australian resident Campion’s return to New Zealand for the first time since The Piano (1993). The show’s central subject of child sexual abuse by state officials echoes the different yet resonating political situations in twenty-first century Australia and New Zealand, a state of emergency that allows for the emergence of what Rebecca Solnit (2009) calls a ‘disaster community’. Implicitly addressing critiques of her colonialist gaze in the earlier film, the miniseries both decolonises the idea of the utopian no-place and offers an alternate, emplaced vision of relational, anti-colonial provisional utopia through the main, mirroring female characters, Detective Robin Griffin and her half-sister Tui Mitcham. In contrast to contemporaneous police procedurals focussed on lone female officers, Top of the Lake rejects the authority of the police state and offers a resolution aslant that critiques generic expectations of individual heroism and resolution within a legal framework. Looking specifically at how the show knows its place—Lake Wakatipu on South Island, New Zealand—the article offers a close reading of Top of the Lake’s formal critique of the male colonial gaze and its adoption of a feminist soundscape in relation to Campion’s oeuvre; and considers its politics through indigenous media theory, to argue that it marks an initial step towards a decolonisation of viewing practices in relation to feminist conceptions of utopia.     

Constructing ‘active citizenship’: single mothers,welfare, and the logics of voluntarism

Across welfare states, rights-based conceptions of citizenship are losing ground to obligation-centred notions. Drawing on in-depth longitudinal interviews with lone mothers receiving income assistance in British Columbia during a period of significant welfare reform, we explore the mothers' practices and narratives of volunteer labour in relation to conceptions of ‘active citizenship’. Volunteer work and the narratives women construct about it emerge as key sites of struggle and tension over the meaning of motherhood, work, and social contribution.     

The European Union, Burma/Myanmar and ASEAN: A challenge to European norms and values or a new opportunity?

The recent events in Burma/Myanmar, beginning with the November 2010 elections and the subsequent series of reforms, have taken Europe by surprise. For the last 20?years, the European Union (EU) has been one of the most vocal critics of the junta regime, thus jeopardising its constructive relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its members. In a new context of transition, the EU has to show that it can quickly adjust to an unanticipated scenario if it does not want its credibility to remain deeply undermined in a regional space that is undergoing structural transformations. Europe and ASEAN should together find a way to consolidate both the socio-political transitions in Southeast Asia and the validity of European values.     

Political capabilities for democratisation in Uganda: good governance or popular organisation building?

Opinion is divided about the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) to enhance the political capabilities of disadvantaged groups in neo-patrimonial contexts, and particularly through a hegemonic paradigm which seeks to advance poverty reduction through good governance. Drawing on a qualitative study of CSOs in western Uganda, this paper argues that strategies focused on increasing the participation of rural citizens in formal decentralised planning spaces may be less effective in enhancing their political capabilities than those facilitating social mobilisation through the formation of producer groups and federations. This has important implications for thinking and practice around popular empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa.