Do Retributive and Restorative Justice Processes Address Different Symbolic Concerns?

In support of a unitary conceptualization of retributive justice (justice through the imposition of punishment) and restorative justice (justice through dialogue aimed at consensus), three studies using hypothetical and recalled experiences of victimization found that people’s endorsement of, and satisfaction with, either justice notion depends on the symbolic meaning of the transgression. In Study 1, perceiving the transgression as a status/power violation was uniquely related to the endorsement of retributive justice, whereas perceiving it as a violation of shared values was uniquely related to restorative justice. In Study 2, motivation to restore status/power was related to retributive responses, whereas motivation to restore value consensus with the offender was uniquely related to restorative responses. In Study 3, a scenario experiment, respondents called for greater additional sanction when the applied justice process (retributive vs. restorative) did not fit the salient meaning of the transgressions compared to when it did (status/power vs. values).     

Spatial analysis of crime and region in the united states

The regionality of crime has been presented, debated, and questioned for over a centruy of this Nation’s history, usually involving a segmental approach to crime rates or treating the various crime rates separate from one another. This paper, using states as a real unit of analysis, develops two general crime dimensions using discriminant function analysis. These two dimensions, based upon complete estimation, demonstrate the discriminating power of crime profiles in assessing regionality. Also, region as an independent variable is shown to possess strong explanatory power regarding crime patterns. Although crime viewed at the state and regional level is highly generalized, it does draw attention to spatial and temporal consistencies in the general crime pattern. This level of analysis and this paper allows a greater understanding about the country and integrates available information on crime variations within our society. Finally, implications of this study for the current criminal justice system in the united States are discussed.     

Modernist discourse and the crisis of development theory

The field of Third World studies is thought once again to be in a state of crisis, thanks largely to disillusionment with the once-dominant dependency “paradigm.” Amidst renewed interest in developmentalism and the clamor for an alternative to dependency, this article argues, first, that the major achievements of dependency theory remain largely unrecognized because the approach has been so frequently misrepresented or misunderstood. Whatever the ultimate status of dependency’s theoretical claims, it contains elements of a countermodernist attitude which ought to be retained in any new approach to the study of Third World development. Second, the article argues that, despite these accomplishments, dependency remains trapped, along with developmentalism, within a modernist discourse which relies on the principles of nineteenth century liberal philosophy; that it treats the individual nation-state in the Third World as the sovereign subject of development; and that it accepts the Western model of national autonomy with growth as the appropriate one to emulate. The final section of the article discusses the efforts of a number of scholars to ground knowledge in local histories and experiences rather than building theory through the use of general conceptual categories and Western assumptions. Although these ideas currently remain on the margins of Third World studies, it is to be hoped that dependency’s loss of intellectual hegemony has at least opened up a space for them to be taken seriously, in the same way that dependency was itself taken seriously in the late 1960s. Kate Manzo is assistant professor of political science at Williams College in Williamstown, MA 01267. Her research and writing interests focus on theories of development and on the nature of South African change. She is currently at work on a book entitledAfrikanerdom and Race: The Nature of Ideology in a Changing Society.     

Adolescents' Willingness to Seek Psychological Help: Promoting and Preventing Factors

Although a relatively high percentage of Australian adolescents experience mental health problems, many disturbed adolescents do not receive the help they require, and only a small proportion of adolescents seek professional psychological help. The present study examined adolescents' willingness to seek help and investigated factors that promote and prevent adolescents from seeking help for a mental illness from both formal and informal sources. Secondary school students (254 in number) from schools in Brisbane, Australia completed a questionnaire that examined the relationship between demographic and psychological variables, attitudes toward mental illness, and willingness to seek help for a mental illness. Results suggest that adolescents with greater adaptive functioning, fewer perceived barriers to help seeking, and higher psychological distress were more willing to seek help from formal and informal sources for a mental illness. Greater social support also predicted willingness to seek help from informal sources. Although attitudes toward mental illness did not influence willingness to seek help, less stigmatising attitudes were related to higher knowledge of mental illness, being female, and higher levels of social support. Implications for the present study focus on enhancing the ability of mental health interventions to increase adolescents' willingness to seek psychological help.Received PhD from The University of Queensland     

Mixing Up

Increased interactions between groups of people through modernization may be embraced as mutually enriching or denounced as causing “negative social impacts.’ This paper is predicated on the assumption that people's perceptions of modernization projects influence their outcomes, because people resist rather than commit to negatively perceived projects. The nature of social contact brought about through modernization is a key factor in perceptions of modernization projects. Three types of social contact in a fishing joint venture between the Solomon Islands government and a Japanese company are explored in this paper: contact between men and women, between ethnic groups within Solomon Islands, and between Solomon Islanders and foreigners. Some of the criteria by which interviewees judged social contact included whether it was peaceful or caused friction, whether it caused cultural change, and whether it was hierarchical. The types of contact are discussed in terms of those criteria to reveal their varied effects on perceptions of modernization.