The Relationship Between Religious and Spiritual Factors and the Perpetration of Intimate Personal Violence

Despite some understanding of general correlates and possible antecedents to intimate partner violence (IPV) within the Christian community, the impact of religious and spiritual factors tends to be confounded by other factors and is often misjudged. Archival data from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were used to examine the impact of nine religious and spiritual factors on the probability of IPV perpetration by males, aged 18 to 26, who nominally classified themselves as Catholic, Protestant, or Christian. Logistic regression results indicated that IPV perpetration could not be adequately predicted from the religious and spiritual factors. Given the geographic breadth and the size of the Add Health sample, no finding of a predictive model for Christian male-perpetrated IPV challenges the paradigm that religious and spiritual factors should be overtly addressed in faith-based batterers’ programs targeting young adult males.     

Boubou

He was only a little monkey, a very little one the first timeI saw him, not more than 9 inches tall; and when he died 3 yearslater, fully grown, he did not measure more than a foot anda half.     

The State of the Science in Technology Transfer: Implications for the Field of Assistive Technology

The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer (T²RERC) hosted a “State of the Science” conference in November, 2001. The conference reviewed technology transfer work within the field of assistive technology, and summarized related work in public, private and academic sectors. Invited speakers prepared papers on various topics concerning technology transfer, and related their findings to the field of assistive technology during the ensuing discussion sessions. This paper provides an overview of the material presented by the participants, and explores the implications of their findings for one particular field of application—assistive technology for people with disabilities.     

GRANDPARENT VISITATION RIGHTS

In recent years, legislators in all fifty states have given grandparents rights to petition for visitation privileges with grandchildren that can be enforced over parental objections. Grandparent visitation rights reflect an effort to protect meaningful relationships children enjoy with nonparental caregivers, enlist the assistance of extended family when the child's nuclear family is disrupted, and defend the interests of grandparents themselves. This psycholegal analysis explores the direct and indirect consequences of grandparent visitation statutes for family functioning. Statutory provisions are summarized, and the effects of these statutes are evaluated in light of what is known about the role of grandparents in child development, how courts evaluate children's "best interests" in grandparent visitation disputes, and how these statutes can alter family functioning in informal ways. The authors conclude that there are risks as well as benefits to children and families in grandparent visitation statutes, and suggest directions for procedural and statutory reform.     

DEVELOPMENTAL AND LIFE‐COURSE CRIMINOLOGY: KEY THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ISSUES‐THE 2002 SUTHERLAND AWARD ADDRESS*

The main aim of this paper is to advance knowledge and (especially) theories about developmental and life‐course criminology (DLC). First, I review the widely accepted DLC findings that all DLC theories have been designed to explain. Second, I review more contentious and unresolved empirical DLC issues that might present challenges to DLC theories. Third, I describe my own DLC theory and specify how it addresses key empirical and theoretical questions. Fourth, I summarize five important DLC theories, by Catalano and Hawkins, Sampson and Laub, Moffitt, LeBlanc, and Thornberry and Krohn. Fifth, I identify differences in assumptions and predictions between my theory and the other five theories. Finally, I recommend a detailed comparison of the key features of all DLC theories, of their answers to key empirical and theoretical questions, and of their predictions regarding key unresolved empirical DLC issues.     

The Australian Welfare State: Has Federalism Made a Difference?

This paper examines the historical development of the Australian welfare state with a view to identifying the role that Australia's federal constitutional arrangements have played in shaping that development. Theoretical paradigms have been unanimous in their prognoses: that federal states are likely to be slow in developing welfare state programmes and typically spend less on them than unitary states. But recently it has been argued that federal institutions may have a “ratchet effect” of slowing down the pace of change, irrespective of its direction. The purpose of this chronological account of significant stages in the development of the Australian welfare state is to use the unfolding of historical events — far too rich in nuance and detail to be captured in quantitative modelling — as a test‐bed for establishing whether, and, if so, to what extent, federalism has impacted on the trajectory of Australian welfare state development.     

Radiographic demonstration of esophageal and tracheal fistulas at autopsy using a contrasting medium that vulcanizes at room temperature

Esophageal and tracheal fistulas, which occur in 0.05% of medicolegal autopsies, were demonstrated in three cases by a postmortem radiographic technique using silicone rubber/lead oxide as a contrasting medium that vulcanizes at room temperature. In one 83-year-old male, a tracheoesophageal fistula was detected, which had developed after surgical repair of an esophageal rupture caused by a flexible fiberoptic endoscope. In a second case, carcinoma of the esophagus in a 78-year-old male had eroded the trachea and arcus of the aorta creating a fatal tracheoesophagoaortic fistula. In a third case, 55-year-old female developed a tracheobrachicephalic artery fistula as a result of an infiltrating cystic adenocarcinoma of the trachea, resulting in a fatal hemorrhage into the trachea. The results of this study indicate that diagnostic radiologic methods using a vulcanized contrasting medium are useful in supplementing normal dissection in autopsy cases with suspected fistulas of the esophagus or trachea.     

The view from below: Local government and Putin's reforms

Local government reforms in contemporary Russia are placed in the broader contexts of political reform under Putin and the historical relationship between local administration and the state. Reforms of local government thus help illuminate the architecture of contemporary state building in Russia and the degree to which contemporary Russia perpetuates political traditions. This study reviews the antecedent action in local government prior to the Putin era. It then examines the Kozak Commission and the new law on local government, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of these reforms. Finally, this study examines the challenges of implementing the reforms and what these challenges tell us about devolution and centralisation under Putin.