Mainstreaming the Sex Industry: Economic Inclusion and Social Ambivalence

This paper seeks to analyse the expansion of commercial sex through processes of mainstreaming in economic and social institutions. We argue that cultural changes and neo-liberal policies and attitudes have enabled economic mainstreaming, whilst social ambivalence continues to provide the backdrop to a prolific and profitable global industry. We chart the advancement of sexual consumption and sexual service provision in late capitalism before defining the concept of 'mainstreaming' applied here. We use the case studies of Las Vegas and Leeds to identify various social and economic dimensions to the mainstreaming process and the ways these play out in law and regulation. While social and economic processes have integrated sexual services into night-time commerce, remaining social ambivalence fuels transgression and marginalization of the industry which in fact assists the mainstreaming process. Finally, we project some implications for gender relations, work, and inequalities as a result of the integration of sexual services into the economy.     

Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

This paper presents the results of the first two longitudinal historical cradle-to-grave datasets constructed in Australia: the Aboriginal population of the state of Victoria, reconstituted backwards using genealogical research and vital registrations, 1835–1930; and an impoverished European population born at the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital, 1857–1900 and traced until 1985. It investigates the hypothesis that the health transition in indigenous people was different from that of the dominant non-indigenous population. Both of these studied sub-populations were highly stressed, resulting in high infant mortality and persistent tuberculosis mortality. The Aboriginal population suffered the additional burdens of racism and social exclusion, even though after the passage of the 1886 ‘Half-Castes Act’, the majority of Aboriginal Victorians were legally ‘white’. The impact of that legislation and the systematic exclusion of Aboriginal Victorians from federal entitlements in the twentieth century sent the Aboriginal health transition into reverse. The contrasting fates of poor whites and ‘unofficial blacks’ during the health transition demonstrate the health burdens of inequality and racial discrimination, and reveal that ‘the gap’ in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is a historical product of long-term government policy and exclusion from citizenship and its entitlements.     

Family Relationships and Family Justice in Europe: Changes and Challenges

The huge diversity in family life and living arrangements across the globe has far‐reaching implications for the ways in which families are supported and family justice is administered. Given the serious concerns about the number of relationships that break down and the potentially detrimental impacts on children and their parents, it is essential to understand the triggers threatening the stability of couple relationships, including the financial stresses caused by the recent global recession and accompanying fiscal austerity. Since family relationships are central to the psychological, emotional, social, and economic well‐being of adults and children everywhere, policy makers and practitioners should collaborate across international boundaries to develop interventions that promote family well‐being, secure the best interests of children, and ensure the conditions and systems in which families can thrive.     

Cross-national differences in female offending and criminal justice processing

The purpose of this study is to assess whether four key theoretical perspectives on female criminality—emancipation, economic marginalisation, net-widening, and modernisation—explain female representation in the criminal justice system equally well for both developed and developing countries and to assess whether the same factors that can explain women’s levels of criminal offending can also explain their representation in subsequent stages of criminal justice processing. Analyzing pooled data for 37 highly developed and 38 less developed countries from 2003 to 2013, the results provide support for modernisation, emancipation, and net-widening theories, but not for economic marginalisation theory. Emancipation and net-widening theories have more explanatory power for more developed countries than less and they can explain women’s representation at different levels of criminal justice processing.     

“Experts by Experience”: The Involvement of Service Users and Families in Designing and Implementing Innovations in Family Justice

Drawing on international research, policy, and practice, this article explores what is meant by service user involvement, how it has developed, and how it has been implemented across different areas of practice. Using examples from across the health and social care fields, it reflects on how the learning from other areas of practice in which service user involvement has been successful may be applied to the family justice field. The arguments presented highlight the value of taking a bottom‐up approach in designing and implementing innovations in family justice, which would embrace the views of family members, including children, as ‘service users.’ It is important, however, to balance both the challenges and the opportunities offered by involving those who are ‘experts by experience’ in the family justice processes, in order to lead to improved services and experiences.     

The role of beliefs about aggression in cyberbullying and animal abuse

ABSTRACT

The current study sought to examine the associations between involvement in bullying (traditional and cyber), attitudes about aggression, and animal abuse. Four hundred and thirty-nine undergraduate students (267 females and 172 males) enrolled in Introductory Psychology completed surveys assessing bullying involvement, normative beliefs about aggression, and animal abuse tendencies. Results revealed that animal abusers reported significantly higher rates of bullying (traditional and cyber) and significantly more accepting views of aggression when compared to non-abusers. A logistic regression model indicated that bullying perpetration (traditional and cyber), normative beliefs about aggression, and gender were significant predictors of animal abuse. In addition, the findings suggest that normative beliefs about aggression may serve as an underlying mechanism linking traditional bullying, cyberbullying, and animal abuse. Implications for prevention and intervention programs for aggression toward humans and animals are discussed.     

Norm Proxy War and Resistance Through Outsourcing: The Dynamics of Transnational Human Rights Contestation

A great deal of constructivist international relations research on norms focuses on the diffusion of liberal human rights values. In contrast, this article analyzes how critics seek to undermine human rights principles in contexts where human rights norms are increasingly hegemonic. It argues that when norm challengers are frustrated by the institutionalization of human rights, they engage in transnational strategies to pursue their agendas. In norm proxy war, actors patronize surrogates in locales where norms are weak in the hope that victories abroad will reverberate internationally and at home. This dynamic is illustrated by American evangelical sponsorship of political homophobia in Uganda, culminating in that country’s draconian anti-LGBT legislation. When norms are resisted through outsourcing, actors contract out human rights violations in an effort to erode norms through practice, as evidenced by patterns of extraterritorial detention and extraordinary rendition to torture in the post-9/11 “Global War on Terror.” Identifying these patterns broadens understanding of potential pathways of norm contestation.