The Role of the People’s Armed Police in Chinese Policing

This study examines the role of the People’s Armed Police (PAP) in Chinese policing. While the PAP has been in existence for over five decades, very little research has paid attention to the critical position that the PAP occupies in Chinese policing. The history of the PAP between 1949 and 1982 was highlighted by a number of changes in name and a constant change of direct control between the military and the public security. The PAP experienced a great expansion and became more stabilized in organizational structure and missions after 1983. While it is part of China’s military forces, the PAP is currently involved in a wide variety of law enforcement, order maintenance, and service activities. Its law enforcement function is carried out chiefly through preventive patrol in urban areas. The most important order maintenance function shouldered by the PAP is the disposition of mass incidents, which have increased dramatically in number and size and have become better organized over the past two decades. The Chinese government also often mobilizes the PAP to undertake emergency rescue and disaster relief tasks. The PAP will continue to be a critical force in the Chinese police system. Its leaders as well as the government should seek ways to improve the legitimacy of the force.     

A Multidimensional Definition of Partner Abuse: Development and Preliminary Validation of the Composite Abuse Scale

The lack of definitional consistency about domestic violence and the absence of a well-validated comprehensive abuse screening questionnaire have been major methodological flaws in domestic violence research. While there are several screening questionnaires in use, they either are narrowly defined and do not have discrete measures of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse or have not been validated on both abused and nonabused samples. This study presents the development and preliminary validation of a new partner abuse screening questionnaire (Composite Abuse Scale; CAS). Items measuring the three areas of partner abuse were extracted from four published scales: the Conflict Tactics Scale, Measure of Wife Abuse, Inventory of Spouse Abuse, and Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory. A survey using these items was sent to all nurses working at a large Australian public, inner-city teaching hospital. Factor analyses of the responses of 427 participants revealed four dimensions: Severe Combined Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, and Harassment. Preliminary evidence is presented on validity and a high scale reliability is reported fof each subscale.     

The Shadow Our Future Throws

Because of his groundbreaking critique of mass industrial society in such books as Energy and Equity, Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health, Toward a History of Needs and Deschooling Society Ivan Illich was considered a founding thinker of the alternative and ecological movements, the prophet of an "era of limits."
This conversation took place at Illich's rustic retreat in Ocotopec, Mexico, in the spring of 1989. (The title of the second chapter of Al Gore's 1992 book, The Earth in Balance is taken from this interview—"The Shadow Our Future Throws.")
Illich was no armchair witness but lived what he preached. In the early 1990s he developed a large tumor that protruded from his right temple. Claiming the right not to be a patient but to "die without diagnosis" as part of "hygienic autonomy," he was never treated, smoking opium to ease the pain over his last years. He died—without diagnosis—in 2002 in Bremen, Germany.