An Examination of the Outcomes of Various Components of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence by Male Offenders

With recognition that police intervention by itself is not entirely effective, in recent years there has been a shift in public policies towards the implementation of a coordinated community response to domestic violence incidents. This article examines the impact of participation in several aspects of a coordinated community response (CCR) in a mid-sized city in the Midwest. Specifically, recidivism was examined using information on officially recorded re-arrests for 131 male domestic violence offenders involved in a CCR type intervention. In addition, exploratory analyses attempt to determine if certain offender characteristics are related to their likely of progressing through each of several post-conviction components of this CCR-type intervention. Limitations of the research and suggestions for policy responses to domestic violence are discussed.

Allergologies Versus Homeopathies

This paper is a reconstruction of Levinas’ reading of Hegel and his understanding of violence (of the enemy and the war). Combining Franz Rosenzweig’s reflections which concern the sick philosopher and Hegel’s state, as well as Derrida’s interpretation of the different attributes of violence, our aim is also to give full evidence of Derrida’s critical reading of Levinas. The first part illustrates the various classifications of the figures of violence from the different periods of Hegel’s life and the traces that these figures have left in Levinas’ texts beginning with ‘Liberté et commandement’ in 1953. In the second part we discuss Hegel’s well-known analogy from his Rechtsphilosophie on sovereignty and the organism—that is to say the parallel reading of some paragraphs of Naturphilosophie too—and the relation between totality and violence, in Levinas’ ‘ontology as allergy’ and in Derrida’s autoimmunology.     

The Reflexive Properties of Corporate Governance Codes: The Reception of the ‘Comply‐or‐explain’ Approach in Slovenia

The Slovenian Corporate Governance Code for Public Joint‐Stock Companies was adopted in March 2004. We examine how far the implementation of the Code has resulted in the ‘reflexive’ learning processes which the ‘comply‐or‐explain’ approach to corporate governance aims to bring about. We find that compliance strategies are strikingly uniform across firms in terms of the content of deviations as well as in types of disclosure and explanations for deviations. Moreover, the quality of corporate reporting is low, with effective explanations representing only a small minority of disclosures. Thus there is little evidence that the Code has stimulated organizational learning. We consider the implications of our findings for the development of corporate governance in transition systems and for the comply‐or‐explain approach more generally.     

Psychopathic Personality Traits and Delinquent and Risky Sexual Behaviors in Croatian Sample of Non-referred Boys and Girls

The current study investigated the association of psychopathic traits with violent and non-violent delinquency, delinquency versatility, and risky sexual behavior in Croatian sample of non-referred boys (n = 226) and girls (n = 480). Psychopathic traits were measured by the self-report Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI). Consistent with the study’s hypotheses, Impulsive-Irresponsible and Callous-Unemotional dimensions were most consistently associated with all outcome measures. Results of the regression analyses showed that the Impulsive-Irresponsible behavioral style had stronger association with non-violent delinquency and delinquency versatility for boys. However, the Impulsive-Irresponsible dimension had stronger influence on risky sexual behavior for girls compared with boys. The results of a two-group confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three-factor model of the YPI was invariant across gender.     

Antisocial features are not predictive of symptom exaggeration in forensic patients

Purpose

To investigate the predictive value of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and features of ASPD (i.e., lack of remorse, blame externalization, and deceitfulness) for symptom exaggeration.

Methods

A sample of forensic psychiatric patients (N = 57) was asked to complete several self‐report instruments (measuring symptom exaggeration, lack of remorse, blame externalization, and offense minimization) and a semi‐structured interview about their most recent offense. To quantify patients’ deceitfulness, the information collected via the semi‐structured interview was checked against the official records of patient's offenses. Additionally, patient's mental disorders and the extent to which patients denied their delinquency were determined by gathering clinician's judgement on this matter from patient records. The relation between symptom exaggeration and the potential predictors of symptom exaggeration was examined through correlational analyses and cross‐tabulation of prevalence rates of symptom exaggeration with prevalence rates of the potential predictors.

Results

Antisocial personality disorder was not a useful predicator of symptom exaggeration. Also, patients who showed little regret for their offenses, or tended to blame their offenses on external factors, or minimized their delinquency, or were inaccurate when reporting their delinquency, had similar levels of symptom exaggeration as those without these tendencies.

Conclusions

Neither ASPD nor antisocial traits, including lack of remorse, blame externalization, and deceitfulness, were meaningfully related to symptom exaggeration and therefore should have no place in the assessment of symptom validity or the detection of malingering. On the contrary; focusing on antisocial traits as indicators of symptom exaggeration is likely to result in large portions of misclassifications.     

Moving to the Gulf: an empirical analysis of the patterns and drivers of migration to the GCC countries, 1960–2013

The migration system in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf is among the largest such systems in the world. This article identifies the major interacting elements of this system, which primarily includes countries in South Asia and the Middle East, and discusses its generating forces and developments over the past five and a half decades. Departing from panel data from the World Bank and the UN’s population database, which hitherto have been largely under-analysed, we investigate the dynamics of migrations in the period 1960–2013. The panel data are combined with cross-sectional outlooks of contemporary trends and are related to political and economic developments in the region. It is suggested that the patterns of migrations in the Gulf may be explained with reference to the economic, political and demographic idiosyncrasies of the system, and to the migration policies of the GCC countries. In short, the key drivers of GCC migration patterns include: (1) socio-economic realities, in particular income differentials between migrant senders and migrant receivers as well as impressive growth rates in the Gulf region; (2) historical, cultural and institutional proximity among the constituent states in the system; and (3) the particularities of the Gulf states’ liberal labour-migrant regimes, which contrast starkly with their restrictive refugee and naturalisation policies.