The impact of sex offender’s interpersonal style,treatment readiness and the therapeutic alliance on treatment gain

The impact of internal responsivity factors and therapeutic process variables on intra-individual within-treatment gain in sex offenders has received little empirical attention. This study examined how (1) internal responsivity factors, including treatment readiness and interpersonal style, and (2) therapy process variables, including the therapeutic alliance and the presence of ruptures in the therapeutic relationship, impacted intra-individual within-treatment gain. Participants comprised 71 sex offenders who participated in group-based sex offender treatment programmes in prison or the community. Results showed that offender hostile-dominance and the affective and interpersonal characteristics of psychopathy, as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version Factor 1 score, negatively impacted treatment gain. Pre-treatment readiness, client ratings of the therapeutic alliance and whether or not there were ruptures in the therapeutic relationship had no association with within-treatment gain. The strength of the therapeutic alliance later in treatment did not moderate the relationship between offender interpersonal style, or psychopathy, and treatment gain.     

Measurement of eyeball protrusion and its application in facial reconstruction

The estimation of eyeball protrusion from the bony orbit has traditionally relied upon Wolff's theory (1976) that the cornea will be tangental to a line taken from the superior to the inferior orbital margin. This study tested this theory by taking measurements from MRI cranial images of 78 eyes of white adult subjects. Orbital depth had a significant negative linear correlation with eyeball protrusion, and protrusion of the eyeball was determined by the following standard: eyeball protrusion = 18.3 - (0.4 x orbit depth). Current eyeball position determination was shown to be as much as 3.9 mm too deep in the socket, and a practical application of this result to facial reconstruction is discussed.     

Decentralizing Community Development Decisions: A Study of Oklahoma's Small Cities Program

Decentralization of the CDBG Small Cities program in 1981 gavestates great latitude in deciding how to allocate grant funds.Consequently, scholars expressed concern that, understate control,fewer CDBG funds would be expended for low- and moderate-incomebenefits via housing rehabilitation. Research on the Small Citiesprogram in Oklahoma indicates a definite shift in spending priorities.Since 1982, Oklahoma localities diverted CDBG funds primarilyto infrastructure andeconomic development instead of housing-relatedactivities, and channeled a larger amount of dollars into moderate-and median-income areas. As a result, the Small Cities programin Oklahoma, under state control, was found to provide lessdirect and immediate housing aid to lower income citizens.     

An Examination of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and New Political Participation

The mobilisation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on New Years Day 1994 in Mexico attracted considerable attention from those concerned with the democratic deficits of neoliberal globalisation and the increasing sense of individual powerlessness as states synchronise economic and public policy with the ideas and institutions of global capital. The paper argues that as a critical social movement the EZLN explores the meaning and practice of economic, political and social democracy. The EZLN practises a politics of radical democracy that incorporates a variety of strategies for enriching the democratic project. However, the EZLN's democratic project has little in common with the inclusive democracy project and yet the EZLN's project of radical democracy does cultivate a useful way of rethinking the site and nature of democracy in an age of globalisation when such institutions seem so increasingly inept.