An Empirical Study of Rape in the Context of Multiple Murder

In recent years, multiple homicide offending has received increased research attention from criminologists; however, there is mixed evidence about the role of rape toward the perpetration of multiple murder. Drawing on criminal career data from a nonprobability sample of 618 confined male homicide offenders selected from eight U.S. states, the current study examines the role of rape as a predictor of multiple homicide offending. Bivariate analyses indicated a significant association between rape and murder charges. Multivariate path regression models indicated that rape had a significant and robust association with multiple murder. This relationship withstood the confounding effects of kidnapping, prior prison confinement, and prior murder, rape, and kidnapping. These results provide evidence that rape potentially serves as a gateway to multiple murder for some serious offenders. Suggestions for future research are proffered.     

Identifying Urban Flashpoints: A Delphi-Derived Model for Scoring Cities’ Vulnerability to Large-Scale Unrest

Although great strides have been made toward forecasting state-level instability, little progress has been made toward the prediction of outbreaks of urban unrest. This article presents a method for the assessment of cities’ vulnerability to large-scale urban unrest. Forty-five factors correlated with urban unrest are identified and weighted by an expert panel. Based on expert elicitation through an iterative Delphi exercise, the explicitly methodological discussion describes both the process and the resulting assessment framework. Results include a tool that will allow users to rank cities on their vulnerability to large-scale urban unrest.     

The Revitalization of Diplomatic History: Renewed Reflections

Diplomacy is one of the oldest human institutions, with diplomatic records dating back to some of the earliest civilizations. At present, the methods and content of diplomatic history have much to offer modern scholars, but the field as a whole suffers from being out of step, philosophically, with the mainstream of historical and political-scientific study. The departure of diplomatic history from the philosophical mainstream both of political science and of history in general has left the field in dire straits. Fallen from its former grace, diplomatic history requires a new vision: not a groundbreaking, original vision, but a vision informed by previous generations, adapting their foundational principles to the ideals and demands of the twenty-first century academy. It is thus not only the Grand Tradition itself, but its ethos that must be preserved, in order to retain the distinguishing character and methods of diplomatic and military history as independent, politically moderate academic disciplines, regardless of their reputation among neighboring fields.     

A brief measure of the triarchic model of psychopathy among community youths: psychometrics and measurement invariance

ABSTRACT

The development and validation of empirically sound measures that operationalize the Triarchic model of psychopathy among youth is currently in the nascent stage. The present study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of a brief refined measure of the Triarchic model of psychopathy based on the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI-Tri-S) among a mixed-gender school sample of 782 youth (M?=?15.87 years, SD?=?1.72) from Portugal. Confirmatory factor analysis offered support for the theoretically expected three-factor structure. Cross-gender measurement invariance using the present sample and cross-sample measurement invariance of the YPI-Tri-S using a previously collected forensic sample of institutionalized males was established. The YPI-Tri-S showed adequate psychometric properties in terms of discriminant validity, convergent validity, concurrent criterion-related validity, known-groups validity, and internal consistency. Findings indicate that YPI-Tri-S is a valuable brief and psychometrically reliable and valid self-report measure of the Triarchic model of psychopathy for use in diverse samples of youth.     

Predicting dropout from a residential programme for adolescent sexual abusers using pre-treatment variables and implications for recidivism

Abstract

This study addresses the prediction that dropout from a UK specialized residential treatment program for adolescent sexual abusers can be determined from pre-treatment variables. Participants were 49 adolescents aged 12–16?years, who had sexually abused children, peers/adults or both. Of the variables examined, 25 showed a significant association with treatment dropout. A scale, consisting of 20 items, was designed to predict treatment dropout. As a measure it showed internal consistency (alpha?=?0.84) and predictive validity. Treatment dropout was linked to a greater risk of recidivism: offences of a general; violent; and combined violent or sexual nature. Missing data confounded the overall small sample size; therefore, a brief checklist of factors associated with dropout was produced as a guide for treatment managers and clinicians.     

The Everyday Spaces of Global Politics: Work,Leisure, Family

Despite many innovative contributions to international relations theory over the past two decades, a "common sense" view of global politics continues to persist both in the field and in the arenas of public policy and opinion. This article investigates the origins of this persistence and offers an alternative framework for the analysis of global politics that considers international relations as social relations produced by a broad array of actors in multiple spheres. Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre, the article investigates the role of alienation in everyday life and the resulting mystifications of the realities of global politics and goes on to consider the social spaces of work, leisure and the family as important arenas where these mystifications can be overcome and international relations be reclaimed from the realm of experts and statesmen.     

Strategies,tactics and the question of un lieu propre : what/where is “media theory”?

This paper uses the work of Michel de Certeau (1988 de Certeau M 1988 The practice of everyday life Berkeley: University of California Press  [Google Scholar]) to argue that it is possible to distinguish between “expert” or “authorised” approaches to media theory, construed as existing “strategically” within the “proper place” of the academy, and “tactical” appropriations of media theory operating in audience discourses. It takes media fan audiences as one case study in relation to this process, arguing that fans should be viewed as “poaching” from “official” media theory as well as from “official” media texts. It then goes on to suggest that we should not univocally celebrate or romanticise fans' uses of media theory, but should remain alert to the sociological and cultural reproductions that otherwise “tactical” media theory can participate in. This means rethinking fans' “tactics” not merely as the “arts of the weak” (de Certeau 1988 de Certeau M 1988 The practice of everyday life Berkeley: University of California Press  [Google Scholar], 37), but simultaneously as forms of appropriation that might enact forms of (sub)cultural power for fans.