Supporting Accountability in the Field of Mediation

Over time, many fields of work - law, medicine, and teaching - matured from informal bodies of knowledge and skills, passed from one practitioner to another, into professions. In the process each began enumerating and affirming their intellectual and practical roots. Each also began testing practitioners to insure comprehension of relevant knowledge and an ability to demonstrate relevant skills. Family mediators in Canada have moved in this direction. In the United States, people who mediate interpersonal disputes also feel pressured to take additional steps to assure the quality of our work. This article summarizes what mediation organizations in the United States have done and could do to vouch for work in our field. But, taking additional steps calls for a clearer understanding of what a mediator should know and what they are expected to do. These two critical pieces of information remain nebulous. So, this article goes beyond describing ways of insuring accountability by also describing a recently completed job analysis, a tool frequently used in other fields of work to describe the skills and knowledge relevant to a particular job.     

Talking Heads and Bleeding Hearts: Newsmaking, Emotion and Public Criminology in the Wake of a Sexual Assault

Using our own experiences in attempting to ‘do’ public criminology in the wake of a violent sexual assault on our campus, we offer a critique of the emerging public criminology framework. Focusing specifically on tensions between fact and emotion and representations of expertise in the news media, we argue for a greater respect for emotional responses to crime in moving the public criminology agenda forward. We suggest that if public criminology sets as its goal educating the public about crime with an eye towards injecting a counter/critical discourse into ‘get tough’ crime control policies, then public criminologists need to recognize and take seriously the public’s emotions rather than negate them. Drawing on the work of Ahmed (The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge, London, 2004), we suggest that the role of the expert is not to simply inform citizens of the ‘facts’ about crime, but to establish—through emotions—the relationship between themselves and the imagined criminal Other (Young in Imagining crime: Textual outlaws and criminal conversations. Sage Publications, London, 1996). Thus, alongside trying to convince the public to be more ‘rational’ when it comes to crime, critical criminologists must start to accept people’s fear and anger as legitimate reactions and try to redirect these emotions toward more productive ends.     

Probable posttraumatic stress disorder in a sample of urban jail detainees

This study examined the nature and extent of probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among men in a substance abuse treatment program in a large urban jail. Specifically, it explored the prevalence of probable PTSD and other psychiatric problems among jail detainees, the types of trauma detainees experienced during different phases of their lives, and how those experiences might have contributed to the development of probable PTSD. Results showed that psychiatric problems were quite serious; nearly one-quarter of the sample reported previous psychiatric hospitalization, and nearly 10% were being currently treated with psychiatric medication. In addition, 21% of the sample met the criteria for probable PTSD, a rate five times greater than that in the general population. The current study suggests that the presence of probable PTSD among male detainees should be incorporated into the creation and implementation of jail-based behavioral healthcare services, including screening, assessment, and clinical interventions. Furthermore, in-custody drug treatment programs should adopt trauma-informed strategies for all program participants as the expected standard of care.     

Turning Back the Clock? Violence against Women and the Trump Administration

ABSTRACT

The Trump Administration has engaged in a systematic rolling back of protections, regulations, and a host of other social safety net programs for vulnerable people, leaving over half of the population in dismay while others celebrate archaic triumphs. In this context, our focus is limited to the Trump Administration’s efforts—through law and words—to turn back the clock for women. We examine the reinforcement of overt forms of inequality rooted in patriarchy through domestic law as well as Trump’s misogynistic attitude and language toward women. Given that his words hold a greater significance now that he is President of the United States, he has a “gold-plated” pulpit to share and spread his misogynistic hostile rhetoric and propaganda: anti-women objectification, devaluing, and demonization through hegemonic “wordfare” while feeding and fueling sexism across the country. We conclude by suggesting that Trump’s rhetoric and that of other leading political figures are contributing to a darker time for those not in the white elite heteronormative order with short and long term implications and harm. We caution that the current dangers posed by these attacks are entering us into an endemic misogynist normal: retroactively moving the Country back in time at a dangerous speed.     

Assessing Empowerment in Divorce Mediation

The empowerment of disputants is a fundamental concern of mediation research, but empowerment is difficult to measure. This study operationally defines empowerment in a divorce case as an agreed-upon modification of the Texas Standard Possession Order in the direction of granting more time with the child to the noncustodial parent. Using a cross-case analysis of mediated and nonmediated divorce cases, this study found that couples that participated in mediation were empowered, not disempowered, in the construction of their visitation arrangements. Implications for measuring empowerment, litigation, and legislative policy are discussed.     

The consumption of patriarchy: commodification to facilitation and reification

There is an abundance of research from cultural, critical and feminist criminology that has recognized media as a vehicle to propagate various forms of gender inequality and violence against women. Likewise, there has been extensive research on how childhood products and toys replicate the patriarchal construction of gender. However, these bodies of research have been relatively silent on how the commodification of culture is consumed and reified by the very population it oppresses (i.e. women). Here, we argue that violence against women is commodified and eagerly consumed in an age of neo-liberalism, legitimizing the patriarchal power structures that subordinate women. Our goal is to begin a discussion of female consumption of the commodification that gives consent and facilitates the patriarchal perpetual power system. Using examples from media and the consumer market, we hope to begin a broader discussion of how patriarchy, gender roles and inequality are reinforced through everyday banal consumption by both sexes. However, this banal consumption by females not only lends to the legitimization of the heteronormative patriarchal status quo but also makes them active participants in the continuation of inequality and power structures inherent within this patriarchal society.     

Shedding the blanket of immunity: a commentary on the global principle of ending impunity,realpolitik, and legal precedent

Over the course of the past two decades, there have been attempts by governments and the international political community to limit the scope of immunity granted to heads of states. Nevertheless in recent years we have witnessed former heads of state being brought to justice through ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the permanent International Criminal Court. Yet, head of state immunity remains one of the leading points of contention in international law. The issue is further compounded with the multiplicity of national systems that fall short of their duty to prosecute foreign heads of state if they have committed heinous crimes, those considered jus cogens which constitute peremptory norms. As such, there is a need to examine immunity from prosecution by another state separately from immunity from an international tribunal and/or court. This is especially the case given the problems of initiating ad hoc tribunals and the limited abilities of the ICC, highlighting the need to ensure cooperation of states’ willingness and ability to prosecute. In doing so, I draw from the infamous case of former President of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, and subsequent attempts by national systems to hold accountable foreign heads of state. I conclude by suggesting that the optimism for ending impunity is not only premature, but misguided given the realpolitik surrounding national progression for ending head of state immunity and ensuring their legal obligations to prosecute.     

Mortuuspolitics: politicization of the dead,capitalism, and inequality

Capitalism has led to the appropriation of oppressed groups, their experiences and narratives. We believe this includes narratives and given value of the dead where there remains a continuation of inequalities of life unto death and being dead. Specifically, we suggest that the discrepancy of the value of the dead is the result of the links between power, politics, and hegemonic discourse embedded in neoliberalism that propagate and reify unequal power edifices that value some groups over others, in life and death, what we refer to as mortuuspolitics. The State, entrenched within the capitalistic neoliberal definition of value, also decides on the value or non-value of the dead.     

Is overpunishment fairer than underpunishment? Perceptions of deviations from equity

Abstract

Three studies are presented which test hypotheses derived from Equity Theory, Prospect Theory and the principle of Diminishing Marginal Value with regard to preferences for overpunishment and underpunishment in the assignment of penalties to offences of varying severity. The first two studies showed that, with different subject samples, offences, and kinds of punishments, subjects indicated a marked preference for over-punishment rather than underpunishment, when both over punishment and under-punishment deviated from ideal, or equitable, punishment to the same degree. However, the effect was only apparent for serious offences. A third study showed that the overpunishment preference for a serious offence existed even when the overpunishment deviated 30% more from ideal punishment than underpunishment, but again no preference was shown' for the less serious offence. As the results cannot be readily explained in terms of any of the three explanatory principles, a possible explanation in terms of concept of negative reciprocity is advanced.