Thinking Critically About Rural Gender Relations: Toward a Rural Masculinity Crisis/Male Peer Support Model of Separation/Divorce Sexual Assault

After decades of neglect, a growing number of scholars have turned their attention to issues of crime and criminal justice in the rural context. Despite this improvement, rural crime research is underdeveloped theoretically, and is little informed by critical criminological perspectives. In this article, we introduce the broad tenets of a multi-level theory that links social and economic change to the reinforcement of rural patriarchy and male peer support, and in turn, how they are linked to separation/divorce sexual assault. We begin by addressing a series of misconceptions about what is rural, rural homogeneity and commonly held presumptions about the relationship of rurality, collective efficacy (and related concepts) and crime. We conclude by recommending more focused research, both qualitative and quantitative, to uncover specific link between the rural transformation and violence against women. This paper was presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Los Angeles, California. Some of the research reported here was supported by National Institute of Justice Grant 2002-WG-BX-0004 and financial assistance provided by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Vice President for Research at Ohio University. Arguments and findings included in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the US Department of Justice or Ohio University. Please send all correspondence to Walter S. DeKeseredy, e-mail: walter.dekeseredy@uoit.ca. All of the names of the women who participated in DeKeseredy and colleagues’ rural Ohio study and who are quoted have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

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North Korea’s parallel economies: Systemic disaggregation following the Soviet collapse

This article aims to introduce the concept of parallel economies to explain the transformation of North Korea’s command economy during the 1990s. The article summarises North Korea’s pre-1991 command economy, before identifying the collapse of the Soviet Union and the great famine (1994-1998) as causes for the splintering of the old command system into parallel economies—the official, military, illicit, court and entrepreneurial economies—separated from the central planning matrix. It concludes that the existence of parallel economies makes system-wide economic reform unlikely and increases the importance of foreign aid in maintaining the viability of the regime’s political architecture.     

Specialist domestic violence courts for child arrangement cases:safer courtrooms and safer outcomes?

ABSTRACT

Child arrangement cases in England and Wales are dealt with in the ordinary family courts. Whilst a special practice direction is applicable to child arrangement proceedings where there are allegations of domestic abuse, there is no specialist domestic violence court in the family justice setting. However, court specialisation is a feature of the criminal justice system and has been demonstrated to have success in domestic violence cases. Some of the potential benefits of specialisation, such as the provision of safer courtrooms, might be transferable to the family justice setting. Given the well documented problems of ordinary courts dealing with child arrangements in domestic violence cases, this article considers whether court specialisation could provide victims with safer courtrooms and safer outcomes in child arrangement cases.     

A critical review of published competency-to-confess measures

The development of standardized assessments for competency-to-confess evaluations has remained largely neglected for the last several decades. Groundbreaking research was conducted on Miranda waivers during the late 1970s, but researchers have failed to sustain programmatic research. This critical review focuses on four published Miranda measures (Comprehension of Miranda Rights, Comprehension of Miranda Rights-Recognition, Comprehension of Miranda Vocabulary, and Function of Rights in Interrogation). When evaluated by contemporary standards, the validation of these measures is very limited. Major improvements are needed for interrater reliability, test-retest reliability, content validity, construct validity, and criterion-related validity.     

Sentencing Domestic Homicide Upon Provocation: Still `Getting Away with Murder

Sentencing practices in cases of domestic homicide have been the object of critical scrutiny on previous occasions across a number of jurisdictions. It has been suggested by some that these practices reveal judges to be taking a more lenient approach to women who kill their violent male partners than to men who kill allegedly unfaithful female partners. This note evaluates claims of gender bias in sentencing practices in UK cases of domestic homicide following the Court of Appeal sentencing decision in R. v. Suratan, R. v.Humes and R.v. Wilkinson (Attorney General's Reference No.74, No. 95 and No. 118 of 2002) [2002]E.W.C.A. 2982 concerning three men who killed their female partners. It will argue that in the wake of this decision current proposals to review both the substantive law of provocation and sentencing practices are to be welcomed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Complex Histories and Complex Presentations: Implementation of a Manually-Guided Group Treatment for Traumatized Adolescents

It is consistently recognized that children and adolescents who have repeatedly experienced or witnessed violence are at significant risk for a multitude of lasting difficulties across many domains of functioning. Adolescents in residential settings often have extensive trauma histories and experience profound behavioral, emotional, and interpersonal difficulties. Unfortunately, there are few structured trauma-informed treatments that have been implemented in residential settings, and even fewer that have been evaluated. This article describes the core components of Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS), a manually-guided trauma-informed group treatment, and provides clinical examples within residential facilities for adolescents with emotional and behavioral difficulties and extensive victimization histories. Preliminary data on self-reported emotional, behavioral, and posttraumatic stress symptoms are presented.     

Globalization, marginalization and contemporary social movements in South Africa

The objective of this article is to provide a broad frameworkfor situating social movements in post-apartheid South Africa.The discussion begins with a brief review of approaches to thestudy of social movements and then turns to the challenges presentedby globalization. South African democratization coincided withits increasing economic, social and political engagement withthe rest of the world. One of the key effects of this has beenmassive job losses and resultant increases in poverty and inequality.Finally, the article reviews key features of movements in postapartheidSouth Africa. Overwhelmingly, these movements are driven byworsening poverty, with struggles addressing both labour issuesand consumption issues. In addition, some movements confrontquestions of social exclusion in terms of gender, sexualityand citizenship which sit at the intersection of recognitionand redistribution. Given the failure of the post-apartheidparty political system to generate opposition to the left ofthe African National Congress (ANC), social movements providea vital counterbalance to promote the needs of the poor in politicalagendas.