DSM-5 proposed diagnostic criteria for sexual paraphilias: tensions between diagnostic validity and forensic utility

In order to prevent sexual crimes, “sexual predator” laws now allow indefinite preventive civil commitment of criminals who have completed their prison sentences but are judged to have a paraphilic mental disorder that makes them likely to commit another crime. Such proceedings can bypass the usual protections of criminal law as long as the basis for incarceration is the attribution of a mental disorder. Thus, the difficult conceptual distinction between deviant sexual desires that are mental disorders versus those that are normal variations in sexual preference (even if they are eccentric, repugnant, or illegal if acted upon) has attained critical forensic significance. Yet, the concept of paraphilic disorders - called “perversions” in earlier times - is inherently fuzzy and controversial and thus open to conceptual abuse for social control purposes. Consequently, the criteria used in diagnosing paraphilic disorders deserve careful scrutiny.The DSM-5 sexual disorders work group is proposing substantial revisions to the paraphilia diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5 nosology. It is claimed that the new criteria provide a reconceptualization that clarifies the distinction between normal variation and paraphilic disorder in a way relevant to forensic settings. In this article, after considering the logic of the concept of a paraphilic disorder, I examine each of the proposed changes to the DSM-5 paraphilia criteria and assess their conceptual validity. I argue that the DSM-5 proposals, while containing a kernel of an advance in distinguishing paraphilias from paraphilic disorders, nonetheless would yield criteria for paraphilic disorders that are conceptually invalid in ways open to serious forensic abuse.     

Digging for Gold or Justice? Misrecognition and Marginalization of “Illegal” Small-Scale Miners in Ghana

Artisanal small-scale mining remains a concern to many mineral-rich countries in the developing world. In Ghana, a significant number of those engaged in the sector are operating illegally. The ubiquity of the illegal mining sector has posed a policy challenge to the government, and high-handed measures to curb the problem have failed. This study contributes to our understanding of the problem by providing a more nuanced alternative perspective to the illegality discourse that has informed discussions and policy till now. Based on qualitative primary data collected from Noyem, a mining community in Ghana, the study shows that the so-called illegal small-scale mining is an outcome of existing social injustices suffered by the miners. It further reveals that those engaged in the sector are not homogenous but differentiated by class and motive. The study recommends among others that government addresses the identified social injustices rather than simply focusing on law enforcement to address the problem.     

Politics, Public Opinion, and Privatization in France: Assessing the Calculus of Consent for Market Reforms

Despite the normative, political, and instrumental importance of privatizing state-owned enterprises worldwide, practitioners and researchers know little empirically about how different types of citizens feel about these efforts, how they arrive at these judgments, and how enduring these attitudes are likely to be. Using citizen attitudes toward privatization culled from the 1995 French National Election Study, this article offers practitioners and researchers an analytical framework for assessing these attitudes, for anticipating and dealing strategically with the perceived consequences of denationalization efforts, and for refining their understanding of the calculus of consent for market reforms in future survey research.