Violence ratings of female patients in broadmoor hospital

Abstract

A study is described which characterised the female population of Broadmoor Special Hospital on a scale (Robertson et al., 1987) which rates violence associated with the index offence and previous episodes of violence both in terms of prosecuted violence and unprosecuted incidents. This scale has been applied recently to the male population of Broadmoor (Wong et al., 1993). The findings here confirm the notion that the female population of a Special Hospital are less violent than the males in terms of rating of violence associated with the index offence and in previous convictions for violent offending. The females contain a larger proportion of patients convicted of the offence of Arson (index offence) and patients transferred from other hospitals because of being unmanageable in these settings (under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act). Extreme ratings of violence amongst the females is associated with a diagnosis of personality disorder rather than schizophrenia or psychosis.     

Data protection: The future of privacy

The Art. 29 Working Party (hereinafter “Art. 29 WP”) is an influential body comprised of representatives from the Member State Data Protection Authorities² established under the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, has recently issued an opinion with the Working Party on Police and Justice. This is quite significant, since the opinion sets out some of the issues that will need to be addressed in the lead up to the revision of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.³ This comes at a time, when there have been discussions on the current application of the European Data Protection Directive to the internet,⁴ (such as social networking) and the recent European Commission’s consultation on the legal framework for the fundamental right to protection of personal data. Not least, there have been a number of cases brought before the European Court of Justice dealing with the partial implementation of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.⁵The aim of this paper is to consider in detail the issues set out by the Art. 29 WP and the likely challenges in revising the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.     

Is Trafficking Slavery? Anti-Slavery International in the Twenty-first Century

Why was Anti-Slavery International (ASI) so effective at changing norms slavery and even mobilizing the support that ended the transatlantic slave trade at the end of the nineteenth century, and why has that success not continued on into subsequent eras? This article claims that ASI's organizational structure is the key to understanding why its accomplishments in earlier eras have yet to be replicated, and why today it struggles to make modern forms of slavery, such as human trafficking, salient political issues. Organizational structure is defined by how an NGO distributes power over agenda-setting (proposal and enforcement power) and its implementation. Those NGOs that centralize agenda-setting and decentralize the implementation of that agenda will be most effective at changing international norms. This paper demonstrates the tractability of that claim with a comparative analysis of ASI past and present to show that changes in organizational structure have led to differences in their effect on international norms, in spite of the fact that slavery in its modern forms persists as a political and social problem.     

The effect of offenders' sex on reporting crimes to the police

This article examines the difference in victims' reporting behavior regarding crimes committed by males and by females. The authors expect that victims of female offenders are less likely to report to the police than victims of male offenders because of differences in the victim-offender relationship as well as in the victim's sex. With recent developments in Bayesian statistics, new tools have become available that enable the direct evaluation of researchers' expectations. All cases of robbery with assault from the National Crime Victimization Survey have been investigated (n = 478). Findings reveal that female offenders are underreported compared with male offenders and that this can be explained by the victim characteristics but only in combination with the offender's sex.     

Establishing Trust in the Illegal Wildlife Trade in China

This study focusses on the role of trust in the illegal distribution of protected wildlife in China. This research attempts to contribute to the literature by disentangling the establishment of trust within the illegal wildlife trade based on ethnographic fieldwork between 2011 and 2016. Both traders and consumers are resorting to mechanisms of trust to foster exchange and to increase credibility of their agreements. This study discusses the existence of such mechanisms of trust within wildlife trafficking networks that are rather characteristic of illegal wildlife trade in China.

     

Books received 2000–2001

Publications Received

Books received 2000–2001     

Diversion from youth courts in five Asia Pacific jurisdictions: welfare or restorative solutions

Since the 1970s, there has been a trend to move away from punitive and retributive approaches to reintegrative practices. This article provides an account of how young offenders in five Asia Pacific jurisdictions are diverted from being prosecuted in the youth courts and of to where they are diverted. The five cases demonstrate that diversionary measures in the Australasian jurisdictions tend to be more restorative in their practices than are those in Chinese-dominated jurisdictions, which adopt welfare responses. It is concluded that although there is some progress in the areas of decarceration and delegalization, the diversion goals of decategorization and deprofessionalization in Chinese-dominated jurisdictions have yet to be achieved. Such diversionary strategies carry the risk that many more young people committing minor offences may be subject to more intrusive measures and disguised social control in the name of diversion, welfare, or the prevention of future offending.     

Social Policy Under One Country, Two Systems: Institutional Dynamics in China and Hong Kong since 1997

Hong Kong's 1997 reversion to Chinese sovereignty brought two hitherto distinctive social policy systems into one country. As Hong Kong is gradually assimilated into China in the coming decades, the two social policy systems will need to identify elements of convergence. In this article, we argue those elements can be found in parallel efforts to curtail the reach of the state, extend the role of the market, enhance individual responsibility, and in the development of a productivist social policy orientation in both societies. The social policy systems of the two societies remain strikingly different in many ways, reflecting their diametrically opposed starting points. But their reform trajectories appear to be pointing in similar directions.     

Peer Relations and Chinese-Canadian Delinquency

The main and interactive effects of delinquent friends, peer attachment, and association with Chinese friends on delinquency are examined based on a sample of Chinese-Canadian youths. The results reveal that association with delinquent friends increases delinquency involvement, whereas attachment to peers has just the opposite effect. In terms of interactive effects, it is found that strong attachment to peers dampens the criminogenic effect of delinquent friends. There is also the unexpected finding that association with Chinese friends increases the likelihood of delinquency involvement. Further analyses have shown that association with Chinese friends may indicate the degree of balance between same-ethnic and cross-ethnic friendship ties that, in turn, affects delinquency. The results underscore the importance of both cultural adherence and friendship ties in the prevention of delinquency.