Desublimating monstrous desire: the horror of gender in new extremist cinema

Known for graphic gore and formal experimentation, films of European new extremism stand out for the way in which they combine sex with violence, stressing the body in extreme modes of being and rendering its materiality emphatic, uncanny and profoundly disturbing. While this emphasis on sex and violence has been widely recognized in scholarly literature on new extremism, its connections to gendered conventions of genre cinema have not. In this article, we contend that films such as Philippe Grandrieux's Sombre (1998), Lars von Trier's Antichrist (2009) and Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day (2001) directly reference gendered tropes and conventions of horror cinema in their explorations of desire, sexual difference and violence. Far from being inconsequential or secondary concerns, we argue that emphatically gendered characteristics of cinematic horror are crucial to the disturbing impact of these films. By appropriating tropes from the horror film, but refusing them the closure and recuperation customary to narrative conventions of the genre, new extremist films critique these gendered implications, calling attention to the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the gender politics of horror.     

Welfare and Work: Job-Retention Outcomes of Federal Welfare-to-Work Employees

On March 8, 1997, President Clinton announced the federal government's Welfare-to-Work Initiative, a major effort to provide job opportunities for welfare recipients in federal agencies. Using data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File, the authors compare differences in job-retention outcomes for Welfare-to-Work employees and similar non–Welfare-to-Work employees in federal agencies. This approach provides an innovative way to measure job-retention by comparing job-retention outcomes of Welfare-to-Work employees against non–Welfare-to-Work employees. The findings suggest that Welfare-to-Work employees have greater odds of retaining their jobs than non–Welfare-to-Work employees. The results provide useful insights into the dynamics of job retention among welfare recipients who are hired into federal-sector employment.     

Politically valued resources and preferred outcomes: Does the political context matter?

Previous research has concluded that ownership of economic resources that are politically valued leads to preferential outcomes during interactions with government officials. However, how the political context, and specifically the roles of the government actors involved, influences the relationship between political valued resources (PVRs) and desired outcomes has to date been relatively unexplored. In our paper, we argue that in interactions with elected legislators, PVRs are much more likely to lead to preferential outcomes. Conversely, due to the lack of power these resources have with bureaucrats in charge of regulatory enforcement, PVRs are less likely to lead to preferential outcomes. We provide some support for our arguments by looking for shifting patterns of effects in outcome variables that typically fall under the jurisdiction of each political role type. We find that large firms, export firms, and technology firms largely report having favorable influence over laws and regulations due to lobbying and increased foreign ownership, while also spending more days in inspections and more managerial time dealing with regulations.     

New directions for anti-theft policy: Reductions in stolen goods buyers

This study explores the possibility of reducing theft in the United States through reductions in the number of persons who purchase stolen goods. Theft is conceptualized as a market-oriented offense that can be influenced by changes in consumers' willingness to make blackmarket purchases. Based upon several conservative assumptions about the number and the cost of thefts and the number of purchasers of stolen property in the United States, estimates of reductions in the former through reductions in the latter are calculated. Following these estimates, the issue of how best to accomplish a reduction in the number of persons buying stolen goods is addressed through analysis of data pertaining to individuals' decisions to buy stolen property. Key predictors of purchasing behavior are then reviewed for potential contributions to the inhibition of that behavior. In the final analysis, only one predictor, moral belief, appears to possess practical policy implications.     

The Politics of Beauty: The Effects of Partisan Bias on Physical Attractiveness

Does politics cause people to be perceived as more or less attractive? As a type of social identity, party identifiers often exhibit in-group bias, positively evaluating members of their own party and, especially under conditions of competition, negatively evaluating out-party members. The current experiment tests whether political in-party and out-party status affects perceptions of the physical attractiveness of target persons. In a nationally representative internet sample of U.S. adults during the 2012 presidential election, we presented participants with photos of individuals and varied information about their presidential candidate preference. Results indicate that partisans, regardless of gender, rate target individuals as less attractive if they hold a dissimilar candidate preference. Female partisans, however, were more likely to rate target persons as more physically attractive when they held a similar candidate preference whereas no such effect was found for male partisans.     

The utility of trauma evaluations in judicial decision-making in child sex trafficking cases: A qualitative analysis

Youth coerced into trafficking experience multiple forms of abuse, and are deprived of basic human rights associated with liberty and self-determination, all of which can adversely affect mental and psychological well-being (Ottisova et al., Behavioral Medicine, 44(3), 234-241.). This study uses a qualitative approach to exploring how judges use trauma-related information to make decisions about how to adjudicate cases involving minors who have been sexually trafficked. Additionally, the study identifies barriers to receiving data, the court resources needed to effectively respond, and potential remedies to address gaps in effective case management. The study uses data from 82 juvenile and family court judges from around the USA 27-item structured interview was used to determine the availability and utility of trauma services, needed resources, and solutions to overcome gaps in effective case adjudication. Themes emerged related to lack of access to and timing issues that limited the utility of reports, lack of congruency between recommendations and available resources and child and family resistance to disclosures. Solutions to overcome barriers are related to increased cross-disciplinary collaboration, awareness and responsiveness. Legal remedies such as Safe Harbor laws can only be realized if the systemic context is aligned and appropriately resourced toward responsiveness.     

Use of Craniofacial Superimposition in Historic Investigation

A skeleton discovered in Grand Forks, North Dakota was purported to belong to Clelland “Clell” Miller, a James‐Younger gang member, who was killed during the Northfield Bank robbery on September 7, 1876. A 3‐D image from a computer tomography (CT) scan of the skull was obtained, and a craniofacial superimposition was conducted to determine if the skull could belong to Miller. The superimposition method used in this case was to overlay the CT image of the skull onto Miller's postmortem photograph. In addition to the craniofacial superimposition, the images were juxtaposed to compare similarities or differences in facial morphology between the skull and photograph. Superimposition methods can be used to exclude identifications; however, they should not be used as a conclusive method for identification. In this case, there were sufficient similarities between the skull and Miller's photograph; therefore, the skull could not be eliminated as possibly being that of Miller.     

False positive and false negative rates in self-reported intentions to offend: A replication and extension

Purpose

Studies of criminal decision making commonly rely on college students’ self-reported intentions to commit a hypothetical offense. The current study evaluates the predictive validity of these intentions to offend.

Methods

Undergraduate students (n = 726) read a fictitious but seemingly realistic newspaper article describing an illegal opportunity for acquiring digital music files, and then reported their intentions to act upon the opportunity. Afterward, participants’ real world attempts to follow-through on the opportunity were monitored covertly.

Results

Findings reveal that participants who reported weak intentions to offend typically refrained from the act, resulting in a low false negative rate. However, those who reported strong intentions to offend also typically refrained from the act, thereby resulting in a high false positive rate.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that while participants’ predictions of criminal abstention are generally accurate, their predictions of criminal involvement are more problematic. Such faulty intentions have important implications for research on criminal decision making.     

‘Managing’ the Middle Classes: Urban Managers,Public Services and the Response to Middle-Class Capture

There is a longstanding concern about middle-class capture of the benefits of public service provision, although relatively little evidence exists on the exact nature of any advantage or on the processes by which this comes about. Using a framework developed from Gal (J. Gal, 1998. Formulating the Matthew Principle: on the role of the middle-classes in the welfare state. Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare, 7, 42–55), and via two case studies of street cleansing services in the UK, the article explores the ways in which middle-class service users assert influence in relation to service design, resource allocation and practice on the ground. It explores how urban managers respond to middle-class influence, revealing the ways in which influence is accommodated and the benefits of this to middle-class service users. It also evidences how urban managers attempt to resist aspects of middle-class advantage, and the challenges such resistance presents. The article concludes that the need to ‘manage’ middle-class influence permeates the routine institutional policies and practices of this key public service.