Reported compliance in police-civilian encounters: The roles of accommodation and trust in Zimbabwe and the United States

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated that, for young adults, officers’ accommodative practices are potent predictors of civilians’ attributed trust in the police, and their perceived likelihood of compliance with police requests. The present study continued this line of work in the African nation of Zimbabwe and in the United States. Besides differences between nations, results revealed that for US participants, officer accommodativeness indirectly predicted civilian compliance through trust. For those in Zimbabwe, however, only direct relationships were found – between officer accommodation and civilian trust, and between accommodation and compliance. The theoretical and practical significance of these are discussed.     

Terrorism and public opinion: A five country comparison

This article examines public attitudes towards terrorism in five countries: Uruguay, Spain, Italy, Germany and Northern Ireland. It analyzes public concern over terrorism, images of the terrorists, support for the terrorists' goals, and public approval of anti‐terrorist measures. There are significant differences between nationalist and revolutionary terrorism. Nationalist terrorists have a high degree of support from an ethnic constituency, while revolutionary terrorists attract a much smaller degree of support primarily from the educated young. It is concluded that public opinion towards terrorism is a product of complex historical situations, and that public attitudes are unaffected by the terrorist campaign itself.     

Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Revisited

In The Gathering Storm, Winston S. Churchill claimed that during the 1930s British leaders were willfully blind to the German threat and failed to meet it by rearming. Accepting the Churchillian narrative, leading IR scholars regard British grand strategy during the 1930s as glaring example of strategic adjustment failure. This article reappraises British grand strategy during the 1930s and rejects both the Churchillian narrative, and the scholarly claims that Britain did not adjust its strategy to the German threat. In the 1930s, Britain did balance against Germany and focused on countering what policy makers perceived as the key threat facing Britain: its vulnerability to German air attack. Britain's grand strategic options were limited by external conditions and by domestic economic constraints. Neville Chamberlain, therefore, was playing a weak hand, and did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt. Britain's 1930s grand strategy is one of the historical cases most frequently used by IR scholars for theory testing. For that reason alone, it is important to get the history right. This is not the only reason, however. The 1930s have provided many of the concepts, images, and metaphors that have dominated the discourse about American foreign policy since World War II. Because scholarship about the events of the 1930s shapes the discourse about real-world policy, getting the history right matters.     

Cooperation in EU disaster response and security provision: circulating practices

There is a profound disconnect between the practice and scholarly study of security in Europe. The 2010 Internal Security Strategy added disasters such as forest fires, earthquakes, and floods to the list of European Union (EU) internal security concerns, expanding on the more traditional anxieties over militaries, border protection, and the effects of poverty. This article explores how evolving practices of disaster response, a policy area once separate from EU security discourse, have become part of the EU's wider security provision and with what implications. Based on interviews conducted at the Directorate-General (DG) for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), it provides a detailed study of three EU disaster response practices – monitoring, training, and information co-ordinating – and their circulation to the wider field of EU internal security provision. It uses this case to outline that new understandings of what it means to “voluntarily co-operate” in European security projects have been radically under-theorized.     

The relationship between risk,deviance, treatment outcome and sexual reconviction in a sample of child sexual abusers completing residential treatment for their offending

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between static and dynamic risk and reconviction in a sample of child sexual abusers who had completed a long-term residential treatment programme for their sexual behaviour problems. Results found that only High/Very High risk men as measured by a static risk assessment schedule (Risk Matrix 2000) were reconvicted for sexual offences (17% over a 2-year period, 42% over a 5-year period). Results also showed that it was generally men who were rated as a high level of dynamic risk that were reconvicted for a sexual offence (13% versus 5% over a 2-year period; 44% versus 10% over a 5-year period). The study also indicated the benefits of residential treatment for such High risk/High Deviance men in that no men who left the programme having responded to treatment had been reconvicted for sexual offences at either follow-up period.     

Jewish household structure in an early modern town: The Worms ghetto census of 1610

In July 1610, municipal officials of the German city of Worms conducted a visitation of the city's Jewish ghetto. The visitation resulted in a remarkably precise census of this Jewish community, which was one of the largest in early modern Germany. In 1610, the Jewish community of Worms had a total of 759 inhabitants living in 95 households plus some additional indigents living in communal institutions. A total of 619 of those living in households (81.6%) belonged to the householders' own families while 140 (18.4%) were students, servants, or other nonrelatives. Households ranged in size from 1 to 21 inhabitants. The median household size was seven persons. One-third of the Jewish households of Worms included more than one conjugal unit, typically the householding couple plus one or more married children.     

The personal impact of delivering a one-to-one treatment programme with high-risk sexual offenders: Therapists' experiences

Abstract

Previous research suggests that delivering treatment for sexual offenders can have both positive and negative effects on therapists. We know less about the specific impact of conducting such work in different ways; for example, individually rather than in groups. This study aimed to explore the experiences of sexual offender therapists delivering a one-to-one programme with clients. Eleven therapists delivering an individual intervention with high-risk sexual offenders in English prisons took part in interviews and focus groups about the impact this work has had upon them. One participant also completed a diary charting their experiences while delivering the intervention. Content analysis identified that participants felt they experienced changes in how they viewed themselves, others and the therapeutic relationship, in both positive and negative ways. They also described experiencing intrusive thinking and feeling overly responsible for the outcome of treatment. However, positive effects were also identified. Findings suggest that the provision of structured supervisory support was particularly key in mitigating the impact of treatment delivery.     

Old hacks or new blood? The effects of inter-party competition on PRI candidates for the Mexican chamber of deputies, 1997–2000

This study examines the effects of increased inter-party competitiveness at the district level in Mexico between 1997 and 2000 on changes in the characteristics of Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidates nominated to run for single-member district seats in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. Such characteristics indicate the degree to which these candidates are visibly connected to the party and include prior leadership experience in party/sector organisations, administrative positions and elected office, as well as political ties to influential individuals in the party. Decreases in deputy candidate connectedness are hypothesised to occur in 2000 where district-level competitiveness increased in 1997. Where district-level competitiveness is above the mean in 1997, the PRI leadership attempts to counteract this competition by nominating deputy candidates in 2000 who are less visibly connected to the party. As the results of the 2000 election show, a less connected candidate is no guarantee for success at the polls for the PRI. These results suggest only that a successful candidate is more likely to have fewer connections to the party machine than one with more connections to the party.     

Factors related to recidivism for youthful offenders

Little is known about youth who were previously placed in a detention facility and what factors predict a subsequent recidivism to placement. This study of a two-county juvenile offender population (one urban and one rural) investigates what demographic, educational, mental health, substance dependence, and court-related variables predict recidivism to detention placement. Findings from logistic regression analysis indicate that seven variables significantly predict juvenile offenders’ recidivism placement, some expected and some unexpected. Predictors that made recidivism more likely include youth with a previous conduct disorder diagnosis, a self-reported previous suicide attempt, age, and number of court offenses. Conversely, predictors that made recidivism less likely include race (Caucasian), a previous attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis, and a misdemeanor conviction. These findings indicate that the use of a community-based suicide and mental health screening and referral approach may help to identify and assist these high-risk youth in receiving needed services prior to juvenile court involvement or during delinquency adjudication.