‘You May Kiss the Bride,But You May Not Open Your Mouth When You Do So’: Policies Concerning Sex,Marriage and Relationships in English Forensic Psychiatric Facilities

In 1996, the Royal College of Psychiatrists recommended that all psychiatric facilities in the UK develop policies concerning sexuality and sexual expression for persons contained in those facilities. This paper analyses the prevalence and content of such policies in English forensic psychiatric facilities. While the College recommends an individualised approach to sexual and emotional relationships, most hospitals in fact either prohibit or actively discourage such expression as a matter of policy. The paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of that approach. The paper also considers the legal issues surrounding these policies, and in particular the legal authority for governing the sexual and emotional expression of hospital residents and the relevant human rights implications.     

Images of illness: how causal claims and racial associations influence public preferences toward diabetes research spending

Despite the salience of health disparities in media and policy discourse, little previous research has investigated if imagery associating an illness with a certain racial group influences public perceptions. This study evaluated the influence of the media's presentation of the causes of type 2 diabetes and its implicit racial associations on attitudes toward people with diabetes and preferences toward research spending. Survey participants who viewed an article on genetic causation or social determinants of diabetes were more likely to support increased government spending on research than those viewing an article with no causal language, while participants viewing an article on behavioral choices were more likely to attribute negative stereotypes to people with diabetes. Participants who viewed a photo of a black woman accompanying the article were less likely to endorse negative stereotypes than those viewing a photo of a white woman, but those who viewed a photo of a glucose-testing device expressed the lowest negative stereotypes. The effect of social determinants language was significantly different for blacks and whites, lowering stereotypes only among blacks. Emphasizing the behavioral causes of diabetes, as is common in media coverage, may perpetuate negative stereotypes. While drawing attention to the social determinants that shape these behaviors could mitigate stereotypes, this strategy is unlikely to influence the public uniformly.     

From clean up to FICAC: Anti-corruption in Fiji’s post coup politics

The leaders of Fiji’s 2006 military coup launched a ‘cleanup campaign’ and set up an Independent Commission Against Corruption. So far it has brought court cases against about 24 people. Among them is the former Prime Minister, who was charged with corruption for his role in institutions designed to promote the economic interests of indigenous Fijians (who constitute about 56% of the population). The article considers what counts as ‘corruption’ in these Affirmative Action policies: a so-called ‘Agriculture Scam’, which distributed farm implements free to Fijian farmers; a company called Fijian Holdings, which received concessional finance from the government; and a Native Land Trust Board, which collects rent on behalf of indigenous landowners. It concludes that army and popular opinion in Fiji hold conceptions of corruption that are much broader than the offences set out in the country’s penal code, and which the new ICAC is attempting to enforce.     

The practice of birth control and historical fertility change: Introduction

This introduction discusses the contributions in the special issue. The articles present results concerning the practice of birth control, mainly at the family level. They represent different analytical approaches where both interviews, letters, surveys and micro-level data have been used. The European fertility decline has made a fundamental change to the societies in the 20th and 21st centuries. Birth control spreads rapidly. Research in this field requires both qualitative and quantitative studies, where both approaches contribute to different perspectives on the transition. The articles in the issue discuss several themes in relation to birth control, of which three are developed in the introduction. These are gender and fertility, gender and health and finally how to control fertility. The presented results demonstrate the importance of including gender in the analyses of the fertility decline. A gender perspective makes it natural to consider historical persons as agents. It is also necessary to acknowledge that we should not treat the married couple as a single unit. They may have conflicting interests, something that several of the articles illustrate. One aspect we would like to emphasize is how health problems can influence the will to have more children and this affects birth control. This is a theme that in different forms is taken up by several of the authors. Finally, families practiced birth control with several different methods that also changed throughout the married years, thus demonstrating a flexibility that is often overlooked in conventional methods for the analysis of fertility.     

Client privilege,compliance and the rule of law: Swedish lawyers and money laundering prevention

Can, and will, lawyers police their clients? This article aims to shed light on the private front-line workers of the Financial Action Task Force on money laundering (FATF). The analysis is based on a study of how Swedish lawyers perceive and handle obligations to police clients within FATF style risk-based anti-money laundering/counter terrorism (AML/CTF) regulation. We find that the lawyers were reluctant to taking on the responsibility for AML/CTF, and that their front-line work was directed towards being compliant enough. Relatedly, we identify several practices of separation that serve to mediate between the conflicting aims and interests in the everyday of this form of private policing. Another finding is that the lawyers by and large position themselves as knowledgeable actors, and view risks of AML/CTF as knowable. Nevertheless, lawyers experienced a principle clash between being ‘not banks’, and being front-line workers for FATF. In particular, the lawyers perceived their role as front-line workers to be more complex due to their professional norms and ethics on client privilege, and what they saw as the proper role of lawyers, being in conflict with the obligation to report clients and their transactions. In concluding, we suggest that paying more attention to the everyday experience of front-line workers when devising regulatory tools may be a way to promote engagement in ‘true’ crime prevention on their part.     

Protecting victims of intimate partner violence: Swedish prosecutors’ experiences of decision-making regarding restraining orders

Restraining orders can be used as a risk management strategy to reduce the likelihood of intimate partner violence (IPV) re-victimisation. The aim of this study was to examine how prosecutors work with cases of IPV, with a focus on their collaboration with police, use of violence risk assessment and implementation of restraining orders. A qualitative analysis was conducted based on semi-structured interviews with five prosecutors operating in two northern police districts in Sweden in 2016. Data were analysed using latent content analysis. Three overarching themes arose: The case, Organization of resources and Interpretation of the law. Each theme was discussed in the context of the prosecutors’ work with IPV. Prosecutors pointed to several inadequacies in the legislation and offered potential solutions that would ameliorate their work. Results also showed that prosecutors seldom used violence risk assessments conducted by police as a basis for issuing restraining orders. The primary reason for this was a lack of clear routines governing cooperation between police and prosecutors in the application process. The results from this study can be used when training criminal justice personnel in order to obtain a better understanding of the difficulties that prosecutors face when trying to protect victims of IPV.     

Voluntary policing in Sweden: media reports of contemporary forms of police–citizen partnerships

Many Western-style democracies have witnessed a general shift in the distribution of crime prevention responsibility, away from the state and increasingly to citizens themselves. Civil society is today more and more often called upon as an additional policing resource. This article explores the phenomenon of voluntary citizen participation in policing in Sweden, based on an analysis of 9280 news-media articles. One state-sanctioned (the Volunteers of the Police) and one autonomous civic (Missing People Sweden) initiative were examined, from their respective start until 2017, to understand the role played by police–citizen partnerships in the establishment and legitimation of voluntary policing forms in Sweden. A high degree of integration between police and volunteer work was found, enabling not only effective citizen participation, but also having an influence on police operations. The more effective and publicly visible the voluntary policing bodies were, the more pressure there was on the police to defend its legitimacy, ally itself with the volunteers and regulate the latter’s activities while holding them responsible for their actions. Arguably, however, with the police–citizen relationship being one of integration and mutual dependence, the division of labour and the accountability of both parties risk becoming blurred or even confused.