PTSD compromises battered women's future safety

Intimate partner violence continues to be a social crisis that results in a complex array of physical and mental health problems. Although resources to counteract the effects of the violence are sometimes available, the posttrauma sequelae may prevent access by those in need. Using the Chicago Women's Health Risk Study, a naturalistic longitudinal study of 320 abused women, the current study examined the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression on battered women's safety at follow-up. Participants completed both a baseline and follow-up interview, including data on abuse experiences. Results suggest symptoms of PTSD predict severity of violence at follow-up over the impact of help-seeking behaviors, perceived helpfulness of these behaviors, and social support. Implications of results are discussed.     

Community violence victimization and depressed mood: the moderating effects of coping and social support

The objectives of the current study were to (a) determine how lifetime community violence (CV) victimization, coping behavior, social support (SS), and depressed mood are related in young adults, and (b) assess whether the relationship between CV victimization and depressive reactions is moderated by perceived SS and coping style. Five hundred fifty college students (160 men, 355 women) completed questionnaires measuring lifetime experiences with violence, current depressed mood, perceptions of SS from family and friends, and general coping styles. Results of a series of hierarchical regressions indicated a positive relationship between frequency of CV victimization and depressed mood. Low levels of perceived SS and problem-focused coping and high levels of disengagement coping were associated with increased depression scores overall, but there was an interaction effect such that high disengagement coping strengthened the relationship between CV and depressed mood. Moreover, when controlling for the effect of posttraumatic stress, high-perceived friend support and low disengagement coping served as protective factors for depressed mood. These results were particularly strong in individuals whose last CV experience occurred within the previous 2 years. Findings suggest that perceptions of support and ability to actively cope with stressors are very important in the adjustment to CV victimization.     

The Origins of the Redemption in Occupied Suburbia? The Jewish-American Makings of the West Bank Settlement of Efrat, 1973–87

Founded primarily by Jewish-American immigrants after the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, Efrat has emerged as one of the most highly recognizable settlements in the occupied territories. Drawing on archival materials, the periodical press, and interviews never before brought to light, this article both explores the untold history of this ‘city on a hilltop’ as the product of a quadrilateral relationship between American–Israelis, the Israeli government, the native Israeli settler movement, and local Palestinian communities, as well as reconstructing the discourses in the making of Efrat, which combine religio-political imperatives alongside a deeply Americanized vision of building new, utopian, suburbanized communities in the occupied territories, during its formative years between 1973 and 1987.     

Rights,women, and the state of Pakistan

Violence against women is a problem around the world. Addressing the issues of physical and sexual violence against women has been a complicated endeavor for criminologists. Much of the traditional criminological research on violence against women has frequently focused on rape as a crime of power between individuals. However, this framework has been expanded to incorporate the analysis of rape during times of war and rape as a state crime. In these cases, rape serves a broader purpose within the military and social structure. By focusing on the specific case of the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, the goal of this paper was to demonstrate and analyze the role of the state in many of these crimes. Mukhtar Mai’s case should not be understood in isolation, but as a way to illuminate the role of the state in these numerous crimes.     

Learning to be A Peacemaking Lawyer: Law Student Perspectives on Building Peacemaking into Law School Curricula,Building Paths to Practice for New Lawyers,and Interdisciplinary Training

From our perspectives as students, we reflect on the teachings of Lawyer as Peacemaker, a Winter 2015 course taught at UCLA School of Law — the school's course devoted to peacemaking lawyering. Utilizing our newfound peacemaking worldview, we share our collective reactions to the Lawyer as Peacemaker course and the ten articles in the Family Court Review Special Issue on Peacemaking for Divorcing Families. We then advocate for integrating peacemaking into law school curricula and experiential learning offerings and make recommendations on how law schools today can prepare students to practice peace.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• This article is a collaborative work product of three students who come from an array of work experience, backgrounds and interests and from their newly founded peacemaking worldview, the three students collaboratively analyzed ideas presented in the Lawyer as Peacemaker course and the articles from this issue.
• The peacemaking mediation allows the parties more control over their legal disputes and allows the control of the costs that come with litigation.
• Peacemaking involves a holistic and collaborative method, involving mental health professionals to financial advisors as well as legal professionals.
• However, peacemaking skill courses are not readily available to many law students while studying in law school.
• This valuable asset should be made available more extensively to law students interested in family law.

     

Bullying in Context: An Analysis of Psychosomatic Complaints Among Adolescents in Stockholm

Using multilevel modeling, this study examined how different types of bullying, involving both peers and teachers, relate to psychosomatic health complaints. Data were obtained via the Stockholm School Survey from 41,032 ninth- and eleventh-grade students in the years 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010. Results showed that students involved in bullying as either a bully, a victim, or both a bully and a victim displayed poorer psychosomatic health than those not involved in bullying. Victims of peer-bullying also reported significantly poorer health than perpetrators. Two class-aggregated measures of bullying remained positively associated with ninth-grade student health complaints even when their individual-level analogues were taken into account. Thus, both the proportion of victims of teacher-bullying and peer-bullying in the school class appeared to generate health problems that go beyond the directly exposed students. However, an interaction revealed that the latter association was confined to female students only.     

A logistic growth theory of public expenditures: A study of five countries over 100 years

This paper offers a new theory and empirical testing of long-term trends of public expenditures for five countries. While Wagner’s Law would imply an exponential growth process of the ratio between public expenditures and national income (G/Y), the law should be rejected both on theoretical and empirical grounds, because it disregards the role of ever increasing distortionary taxation. However, under some conditions, the combination of Wagner’s Law and the Pigou’s conjecture that the excess burden of taxation constrains the growth of public expenditures can be captured by a non-linear first order differential equation. The equation is the Verhulst’s logistic, originally invented to model Malthusian predictions on population growth. The integration of a Verhulst equation generates an S-shaped curve. This analytical framework combines intuitions from a welfare economics and a public choice perspective, and potentially offers a new research strategy on the dynamics of government expenditures. We offer preliminary econometric estimates on long run trends (around 1870–1990) of G/Y in U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy. These estimates confirm a pattern of similar trajectories, in spite of different national parameters, and suggest that the logistic view of growth of government is consistent with observed data.     

Redundant or Essential? How Politics Shaped the Outcome of the 1967 Protocol

The 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees has beendescribed as an unnecessary addendum to the 1951 ConventionRelating to the Status of Refugees. However, if the 1967 Protocolwas superfluous, why did the United Nations High Commissionerfor Refugees in the early 1960s insist on its development? Thisarticle seeks to establish that the 1967 Protocol was originallyintended to encompass the broader concerns of African and Asianstates concerning refugee populations in their region. However,the political influence upon the development of internationalrefugee law radically altered the UNHCR's endeavour to makethe 1951 Convention universally accessible.