“Not a death of that hospital”: the social production of maternity statistics in Freetown

This paper explores the social practices underlying the production of clinical statistics at Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Combining ethnographic and historical methods, it focuses on the contexts surrounding the point at which the raw data (on which country statistics are generated) are entered into the medical record. This focus sheds light on the hidden, elided, or otherwise unseen aspects of clinical practice that global health stakeholders risk missing when privileging statistical data over direct observation. Direct observation reveals not only how specious data comes to be part of the medical record, but why.     

Police Integrity and the Czech Police Officers

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 ended the socialist period in former Czechoslovakia. Sixteen years after the transition toward democratic policing, we explore the integrity contours of the Czech police. In the summer of 2005, we surveyed more than 600 police officers from East Bohemia regarding their perceptions about the seriousness of police corruption, the appropriate punishment such misconduct deserves and would receive, and their willingness to report misconduct. The results indicate that the majority of the respondents correctly labeled behaviors described in our questionnaire as rule‐violating. Furthermore, with the exception of the least serious forms of corruption, they supported and expected the two most serious forms of discipline: a cut in salary and dismissal. Finally, the majority of the respondents said that they would not be willing to tolerate the most serious forms of corruption in silence.     

Women on Parole: Understanding the Impact of Surveillance

Research suggests that over the past several decades, the institution of parole has strayed from its original operating tenets of rehabilitation and reintegration and has increasingly become more focused on employing methods centered on surveillance and risk management. This article explores how a group of 43 women reentering their communities via parole understand the purpose of this institution. Through qualitative interviews, these women explain how they perceive parole as a tool intended to monitor their actions as opposed to assist them in getting back on their feet. The findings also demonstrate how this surveillance produces feelings of fear, anxiety, and powerlessness in individuals and how this affects women newly released from prison who are working to regain control over their own lives.     

Distress Tolerance and Intimate Partner Violence among Men in Substance Use Treatment

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is overrepresented among men in substance use treatment. Individuals who relapse following substance use treatment report greater IPV perpetration relative to individuals who remain remitted. In addition, distress tolerance has been shown to be an important treatment target in substance use treatment, with distress tolerance predicting relapse following treatment. However, we are unaware of any research that has examined the relationship between distress tolerance and IPV among men in substance use treatment, which may hold important treatment implications. The current study therefore examined this relationship in a sample of men in substance use treatment (N = 138). Results demonstrated that distress tolerance was negatively associated with physical and psychological IPV perpetration. After controlling for age and substance use and problems, distress tolerance remained associated with psychological, but not physical, IPV perpetration. These findings suggest that distress tolerance may be an important component of treatments for IPV, particularly for psychological aggression. Substance use treatment programs that target distress tolerance may concurrently reduce the risk for relapse to substance use and IPV perpetration.     

Suicide in Police Work: Exploring Potential Contributing Influences

Police officers are considered at increased risk for suicide. The objective of this study was to explore potential influences on suicide ideation among 105 randomly selected men and women urban police officers. Depression, gender, and marital status appeared to be most strongly associated with police suicidal ideation. Depressive symptoms were higher among women than men officers (12.5 percent vs. 6.2 percent). For each standard deviation increase in depressive symptoms, the prevalence ratio (PR) of suicide ideation increased 73 percent in women (PR?=?1.73, 95% CI?=?1.32–2.27) and 67 percent in men (PR?=?1.67, 95% CI?=?1.21–2.30). The association between depression and ideation was stronger among unmarried women officers (PR?=?4.43; 95% CI?=?2.19 – 8.91) than married women officers (PR?=?1.39, 95% CI?=?1.09 – 1.79). While depression has previously been associated with suicide, such results are unusual in a healthy working population such as the police.     

An Exploratory Framework for Community-Led Research to Address Intimate Partner Violence: a Case Study of the Survivor-Centered Advocacy Project

This case study discusses the Survivor-Centered Advocacy (SCA) Project, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project that convened anti-violence advocates from culturally specific communities to design and implement research. The project used a unique approach to build grassroots research capacity and center survivors of intimate partner violence from historically marginalized communities. This approach coalesced into the creation of an exploratory Community-Led Research (CLR) framework that incorporated trauma-informed, research justice and language justice principles. The CLR framework responded to community members’ desire to lead, rather than simply participate in, the research process. As a result, five studies were designed and executed by practitioners turned community-based researchers, most of whom had never before engaged in research, except as subjects. The CLR framework integrated the skills and experiences of community-based and external researchers, and led to high levels of engagement, rich data, more equitable research processes and innovative research projects.     

The Effects of Attribution of Responsibility and Work History on Perceptions of Reasonable Accommodations

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers must provide employees with disabilities reasonable accommodations that will enable them to perform job duties, as long as the accommodations do not financially burden the organization. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether disability origin and/or prior work history impermissibly influence the granting of reasonable accommodations under the ADA. In both studies, participants granted more accommodations for employees whose disability was caused by some external factor than for those whose disability was caused by the employee's own behavior. In Study Two, participants also granted more and costlier accommodations for an employee with an excellent work history than for an employee with an average work history. Implications of the use of extralegal factors in accommodation decisions are discussed.     

Phantom Counterfactuals

Researchers often seek to identify the effects of a treatment on a sequence of behaviors, such as whether citizens register to vote and whether they then cast ballots. I show that average treatment effects (ATEs) are only identified until the first behavior (registering to vote) that affects the set of possible subsequent actions (voting). When one action changes the set of possible subsequent actions, it creates ‘phantom counterfactuals,’ or undefined potential outcomes, which render ATEs unidentified. I show that applied theory allows researchers to diagnose phantom counterfactuals, which helps to recognize unidentified ATEs and focus instead on other estimands that are identified. I illustrate this approach using a stylized model of crime reporting, showing how different theories generate different sets of identified estimands while holding constant an experimental design. I thereby establish the necessity of applied theory for causal identification in empirical research with sequential behavioral outcomes.     

The Dangers of Diplomatic Disengagement in Counterterrorism

This article assesses the utility of diplomatic sanctions in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Through an examination of the United States' use of diplomatic sanctions in Afghanistan and Sudan in the 1990s, the article argues that diplomatic disengagement runs the danger of being more costly than beneficial. The blowback from diplomatic disengagement in counterterrorism includes, but is not limited to, the loss of valuable intelligence, a diminished public diplomacy capability, and the potential radicalization of moderates in the target regime. The article also highlights some of the general benefits of diplomatic engagement with problematic regimes and closes with recommendations aimed at enhancing the role of diplomacy in both counterterrorism and non-proliferation foreign policies.