Safety in Intimate Partnerships: The Role of Appraisals and Threat

For most intimate partners, safety is an important goal and basic need. How a partner perceives safety has an impact on what happens in the relationship, and this will in turn affect the responses from the other partner. Lack of safety can provoke negative emotions and actions which can lead to relationship deterioration and violence. However, little is known about this process from the insider’s perspective. In this study, constructivist grounded theory methods were used to analyze interviews from individuals (n = 37) to better understand individual appraisals of relational safety. The results include a theory that illustrates the process of relational safety and threat. This model articulates how certain relational conditions precede a perception of safety or threat, which then leads to corresponding actions. Implications of the model include a focus on interaction and context when assessing for safety and abuse, as well as the importance of self regulation.     

Differential outcomes of court-supervised substance abuse treatment among California parolees and probationers

To explore the effectiveness of court-supervised drug treatment for California parolees, offender characteristics, treatment experiences, and outcomes were examined and contrasted to those of probationers. The analysis used statewide administrative data on 4,507 parolees and 22,701 probationers referred to treatment by Proposition 36 during fiscal year 2006-2007. Compared with probationers, parolee problems were more severe at treatment entry, more were treated in residential settings, treatment retention was shorter, and fewer completed treatment. Regarding outcomes, fewer parolees were successful at treatment discharge and more recidivated over 12-months post admission. Both groups improved in many areas by treatment discharge, but improvements were generally smaller among parolees. Significant interaction effects indicated that parolees benefited from residential care and more treatment days, even after controlling for covariates. Court-supervised drug treatment for parolees can "work;" however, parolees have more frequent and diverse needs, and their outcomes are enhanced by more intensive treatment. Findings suggest methods for optimizing the effectiveness of criminal-justice-supervised programs for treating drug-dependent offenders.     

Social anxiety as a predictor of dating aggression

By far, most research on the behavior of socially anxious individuals has focused on the "flight" rather than the "fight" response described in the traditional conceptualization of anxiety. More recently, however, there has been some speculation and emerging evidence suggesting that social anxiety and aggression may be related. The present study examined social anxiety as a predictor of dating aggression within a late adolescent sample. Two forms of dating aggression were assessed: physical aggression, such as slapping, use of a weapon, or forced sexual activity, and psychological aggression, such as slamming doors, insulting, or refusing to talk to one's partner. One aspect of social anxiety, Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE), emerged as a significant predictor of male dating aggression, even after controlling for relationship quality. Notably, FNE was most predictive of increased aggression of both types when men also perceived their romantic relationship to be more antagonistic. Despite its demonstrated importance as a contextual variable, however, relationship quality did not mediate the association between FNE and psychological or physical aggression. Implications for prevailing conceptualizations of social anxiety and dating aggression are discussed.     

Kevin Kelly's Complexity Theory: The Politics and Ideology of Self-organising Systems

Regarded as a contemporary prophet of the new technology and economy, widely acclaimed author and editor of Wired , Kevin Kelly argues that the realms of nature and human construction are becoming one. Human-made things are becoming more lifelike and life is becoming more engineered. Utilising complexity theory and other concepts fashioned on the paradigmatic logic of biological systems, Kelly envisions a future with radically different forms of social and organisational control. In this future world, control is dispersed in highly pluralistic, open, and decentralised systems. Natural, technological, economic and social elements of the system co-evolve towards a superior, neo-biological civilisation that (among other things) will foster bottom-up control, co-ordinated change and co-operation among all elements. We contest Kelly's metaphysic of the new economy and new technology, arguing that he illicitly collapses technology and the economy into nature, using nature metaphors to legitimate the new forms of economy and organisation. We argue that Kelly fails to factor in the logic of capital into his scenario and does not explore the consequences of the new organisation of economy and new technology for the environment and society.     

Utility of the Frontonasal Suture for Estimating Age at Death in Human Skeletal Remains*

Abstract: This project evaluated the utility of the frontonasal suture for estimating age at death. Utilizing human remains of known age at death with varying degrees of fusion, curated at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, data were collected from the ectocranial surface of 522 crania; 68 of these were sagittally sectioned, allowing collection of internal data and observation of suture closure through the bone. Degree of ectocranial suture closure does not significantly predict age, even when sex and ancestry are accounted for. Suture closure progression data were converted into a Hershkovitz ratio (sum of the measurement of open portion divided by the total suture length), and regression models demonstrate that the effect of age accounts for only 13% of variation in suture closure.     

Violence,Law, and Politics: Hannah Arendt and Robert M. Cover in Comparative Perspective

Despite many significant points of intersection between his work and that of Hannah Arendt, the legal scholar Robert Cover largely declined to engage her perspective, which posed major challenges to his own. While scholars seeking to rethink Cover's legacy in order to develop a jurisprudence of violence have criticized Cover's acquiescence to the Hobbesian model of the sovereign state, they have similarly ignored Arendt's critique of the Hobbesian model and her attempts to build an alternative to it. This article examines central issues of convergence and divergence between Arendt's and Cover's approaches to law, politics, and violence with the aim to redress this neglect of Arendt's perspective. It begins by focusing on their interpretations of the role and significance of the courtroom trial. It then compares their analysis of the character, effects, and implications of domination as a type of organized power and as a means of conceptualizing punishment, before it concentrates on their instrumental conception of violence, the issue of justification, and its relationship to power. The article concludes by arguing that Arendt's approach, which situates an analysis of law and violence within a broader critique of modernity, provides a more trenchant critical framework for examining the rise of the carceral state than does Cover's.     

A Primer on Criminal Child Abuse and Neglect Law

This article surveys major aspects of criminal child abuse and neglect law encountered by judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers, child advocates, and child care professionals. The author, whose casebook, Children and the Law: Doctrine, Policy and Practice (West 4th ed. 2010) (with Sarah H. Ramsey), is required reading in law schools throughout the United States, analyzes both constitutional and statutory law.