A comparison of rapists and sexual murderers on demographic and selected psychometric measures

This study compared 58 sexual murderers and 112 rapists who were about to undergo treatment in prison for their sexual offending behavior. The two groups were compared on background, personality, offense, and victim characteristics. The sexual murderer group were less likely to have been involved in a relationship at the time of their index offense, generally attacked older victims, and had higher self-esteem. The rapist sample were found to have more violent previous convictions and scored higher on measures of historical deviance (nonsexual), paranoid suspicion, and resentment. No differences were found on the personality or clinical syndrome scales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III. However, the rapist sample had significantly higher mean scores on the Paranoid Suspicion, Resentment, and Self-Esteem subscales of the Antisocial Personality Questionnaire. Future research should compare the two groups on dynamic or changeable factors to determine differential treatment needs.     

Continuity and Pathways from Aggression in Childhood to Family Violence in Adulthood: A 30-year Longitudinal Study

Literature suggests that early patterns of aggressive behavior in both girls and boys are predictive of later violent behavior, including violence that takes place within family contexts. Utilizing the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, a study of individuals recruited as children in the 1970s from inner-city schools in Montreal, this study examined different pathways whereby aggressive behavioral styles in childhood may place individuals at risk for continuing patterns of violence towards children and spouses. Childhood aggression directly predicted self-reported violence towards spouse for both sexes, with indirect routes through lowered educational attainment and marital separation. Aggression in childhood was also found to predict parents’ self-reports of using violence with their children. For mothers, educational attainment and current absence of the biological father from the child’s home also played important roles in predicting violent behavior towards offspring. These findings provide evidence of both continuity of aggressive behavior and indirect risk paths to family violence, via lower educational attainment and parental absence. In both men and women, childhood aggression may be an identifiable precursor of family violence and child abuse.     

CHILD‐FOCUSED AND CHILD‐INCLUSIVE DIVORCE MEDIATION: COMPARATIVE OUTCOMES FROM A PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF POSTSEPARATION ADJUSTMENT

This study compared outcomes over 1 year for two groups of separated parents, who attended two different forms of brief therapeutic mediation for entrenched parenting disputes. The two interventions each targeted psychological resolution of parental conflict, enhanced parental reflective function, and associated reduction of distress for their children. The child‐focused (CF) intervention actively supported parents to consider the needs of their children, but without any direct involvement of the children, while the child‐inclusive (CI) intervention incorporated separate consultation by a specialist with the children in each family, and consideration of their concerns with parents in the mediation forum. Repeated measures at baseline, 3 months, and 1 year postintervention explored changes over time and across treatments in conflict management, subjective distress, and relationship quality for all family members. Enduring reduction in levels of conflict and improved management of disputes, as reported by parents and children, occurred for both treatment groups in the year after mediation. The CI intervention had several impacts not evident in the other treatment group, related to relationship improvements and psychological well‐being. These effects were strongest for fathers and children. Agreements reached by the CI group were significantly more durable, and the parents in this group were half as likely to instigate new litigation over parenting matters in the year after mediation as were the CF parents. The article explores the potential of CI divorce mediation to not only safely include many children in family law matters related to them, but also to promote their developmental recovery from high‐conflict separation, through enhanced emotional availability of their parents.     

Democracy and Human Rights in the Mexican States: Elections or Social Capital?

Why does the relationship between a government and its citizens deteriorate to violence? Large-N cross-national quantitative analyses of human rights violations have found an inverse relationship between democracy and violations. These analyses, however, have not been able to address the central finding of an influential subnational analysis of democracy that stresses the importance of a single dimension of democracy, social capital. In this article we combine these two streams of research with fresh data from the Mexican states to investigate how and why democracy inhibits violations. Theoretically, we connect a policy interest in protecting human rights to politicians' office-seeking goals and to the level of social capital. Empirically, our data allow us to disentangle two principal components of democracy, elections and social capital, and include important control variables, notably ethnic diversity, which have been largely left out of the cross-national analyses. Our central finding is that the electoral components rather than social capital produce important consequences for the protection of citizens' human rights.     

Voluntary Narrative Disclosures by Local Governments: A Comparative Analysis of the Textual Complexity of Mayoral and Chairpersons' Letters in Annual Reports

Research on local government annual reports has been limited, particularly in relation to report narratives. This study aims to determine whether characteristics of narratives vary between the reports of local governments and listed companies. After considering the nature of the potential report audiences it was predicted that, if writers consider their audience, local government report narratives would be easier to read, less likely to be obfuscated, and use fewer passive sentences than those in corporate reports. The results suggest that mayoral letters exhibit higher reading ease and are less likely to be obfuscated than their corporate counterparts but they are also shorter and contain more passive constructions, making conclusions about readability and understandability ambiguous. This research acquaints readers with important aspects to consider when preparing or evaluating narrative reports.     

Energized

How China and the EU are helping each other to find - and save - the energy that will drive their economies. VORACIOUS consumption of energy and higher oil prices could damage economic growth and choke climates unless major power consumers like the EU and China cooperate on energy security and efficiency. At least that was the message EU Commissioner for Energy     

Did the project fail? A community perspective on a participatory primary health care project in Ecuador

This article examines a UNICEF/Ministry of Health primary health care programme in Ecuador from a community perspective. It contributes to the debate concerning the way in which the relative ‘success?s or ‘failure?s of participatory projects is measured. It argues for evaluators to distinguish between the perceptions of the different actors involved, and to extend their enquiries beyond the actual lifespan of the project. It also provides lessons for the future by discussing the contribution that technical projects can make to capacity building and the empowerment of community-level organisations.     

Psychiatric care or social defense?: The origins of a controversy over the responsibility of the mentally ill in French forensic psychiatry

While some countries like Belgium chose a penal system clearly inspired by social-defense theories for mentally disturbed criminals, the French law hasn't been consistent and varies from the enlightened classical law and social-defense law. Indeed paragraph 1 of article 122-1 states that people whose discernment or control is abolished by a psychiatric disorder are non-responsible respecting the classical logic of law. On the other hand, Paragraph 2 of Article 122-1 allows the mentally ill to be judged responsible whereas no institution exists to take care about them. Then the system of psychiatric care in prisons present as a solution for professionals wishing to promote a system where people are punished and socially rehabilitated. Thus these forensic psychiatrists don't refer to paragraph 1 of article 122-1 and even people presenting serious mental disorders are considered responsible. Moreover, if a controversy has always existed between psychiatrists who argue a large conception of mental irresponsibility and professionals who defend the right to punish and to conclude that responsibility even for mentally disturbed criminals, the controversy becomes more important in French forensic psychiatry after the Second World War. If until the 1970s the practice of imposing responsibility for mentally ill individuals shows itself as a humanism, it occurs more within a security perspective today.