Patient Profiles of Criminal Behavior in the Context of Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to significant post‐traumatic disturbances in mood and behavior, with the frontal lobes playing a key role in emotional and behavioral regulation. Injury to the frontal lobe can result in disinhibition and aggression which can result in police intervention and/or incarceration. We highlight four adult cases with a history of severe TBI with frontal lobe injuries and the presence of post‐TBI criminal behaviors. There is evidence to support an anatomical basis for aggressive behaviors, yet there are other risk factors to be considered. Behaviors must be investigated thoroughly by obtaining adequate pre‐ and post‐TBI psychiatric and psychosocial histories. By having a comprehensive understanding of aggression while appreciating the complex relationship between TBI, aggression, and premorbid risk factors, clinicians can more adequately treat patients with TBI, with the aim of potentially preventing criminal behaviors and recidivism.     

The political economy of Australian regulatory reform

The problem of regulatory accumulation has increasingly been recognised as a policy problem in its own right. Governments have then devised and implemented regulatory reform policies that directly seek to ameliorate the burdens of regulatory accumulation (e.g. red tape reduction targets). In this paper we examine regulatory reform approaches in Australia through the lens of policy innovation. Our contributions are twofold. We first examine the evolutionary discovery process of regulatory reform policies in Australia (at the federal, intergovernmental, and state levels). This demonstrates a process of policy innovation in regulatory mechanisms and measurements. We then analyse a new measurement of regulatory burden based on text analytics, RegData: Australia. RegData: Australia uses textual analysis to count ‘restrictiveness clauses' in regulation – such as ‘must’, ‘cannot’ and ‘shall’ – thereby developing a new database (RDAU1.0). We place this ‘restrictiveness clauses’ measurement within the context of regulatory policy innovation, and examine the potential for further innovation in regulatory reform mechanisms.     

Tangles,tears and messy conversations: using a media discussion group to explore notions of strong women

In this article, we discuss the experiences of six female secondary-school students participating in a media group that encouraged critical discussion and analysis of gender, particularly with respect to notions of strong women in popular media texts. Throughout the study, the participants viewed various forms of media and critically discussed gender representations. We describe the ways that we encouraged critical discussion that prompted the participants to challenge dominant perspectives and develop personal positions regarding gendered representations in popular media. Many discussions were convoluted and often contradictory. Throughout these debates, however, moments emerged in which participants identified complexities associated with gendered representations of strong women as related to privilege, beauty ideals and autonomy. We identify these moments as messy yet critical, requiring the researchers to challenge participants’ postfeminist notions of strong women. We emphasize the importance of ongoing dialogue and the potential of media for encouraging discussion.     

Global Capitalism and the Transformation of State Socialism

The article outlines the footprint of international economic interests under state socialism, and considers in more detail the economic integration of the postcommunist countries into the world system in the post-1989 period of the building of capitalism. The focus of the article is on the extent of economic globalization of countries and their economic corporations. It is contended that the globalization of capitalist companies and the direct role of global economic forces had little importance under state socialism. Since 1989, policy in the former state socialist countries has been geared to “joining” the world system, optimistically its core. Important differences have developed between the postsocialist states with respect to economic penetration and exposure to the world market. The outcomes have not fulfilled the expectations of early advocates of transformation and entry to the world economy. Although the new member states of the European Union have entered the world economy as formal members of the “core,” they are not economically equal to the dominant “old” members of the EU. In all the postcommunist countries, there is an absence of large scale global companies, of comparable levels of innovation, research and development. Russia is a resources rich country, a “hybrid” social formation containing elements of state economic control, national capitalism, and global capitalism. I conclude that the semi periphery is not a transient category in the world economy; it has potential for persistence and renewal.     

Theories and fear of gang crime among Whites and Latinos: A replication and extension of prior research

Fear of gang crime was used as a key justification for harsh punishment policies recently, and gangs were known to be associated with more disorder and crime. There was little systematic evidence about the presence, causes, or consequences of gang-related fear for the public. Prior studies showed that in some people's minds, racial and ethnic diversity was blamed for disorder, community decline, and crime. Using latent variable structural equation models, this article tests this idea and examines the causal relationships among perceived diversity, disorder, decline, and gang fear among Orange County, California residents. Results indicated that for Whites, diversity concerns increased perceptions of disorder, which increased concern about decline and therefore gang fear. For Latinos, concern about diversity increased perceptions of disorder and consequently gang fear, but community concern (decline) was unrelated to gang fear.