The predictive value of childhood animal cruelty methods on later adult violence: examining demographic and situational correlates

The present study seeks to replicate Tallichet, Hensley, and Singer's research on childhood animal cruelty methods by using a sample of 180 male inmates surveyed at both medium- and maximum-security prisons in a southern state. The purpose of the current study was to first reexamine the relationship between demographic and situational factors and specific methods of childhood animal cruelty. Second, the correlation between an abuser's chosen method(s) of childhood animal cruelty on later recurrent acts of adult violent crimes was reinvestigated. Regression analyses revealed that respondents who engaged in frequent animal cruelty were more likely to have drowned, shot, kicked, or had sex with animals. Those who had grown up in urban areas and those who did not become upset after abusing animals were more likely to have kicked animals. Respondents who covered up their abuse were more likely to have had sex with animals. Sex with animals was the only method of childhood animal cruelty that predicted the later commission of adult violent crimes.     

Abbasid Panegyric: Badīʿ Poetry and the Invention of the Arab Golden Age

This study argues that the third AH/ninth CE century panegyrists (praise poets) of the Abbasid caliphal court at Baghdad (and briefly at Samarra) were responsible for constructing the image of a Golden Age of Arab-Islamic dominion that was subsequently adopted by the poets and thinkers of the Nah?a or ‘Arab Awakening’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Challenged to create a poetry that would serve as the linguistic correlative of the astounding and unprecedented might and dominion of the rulers of the Arab-Islamic state, the Abbasid Modernist Poets (al-shu?arā? al-mu?dathūn) invented a powerfully and radically innovative poetic style, termed badī?. The panegyric odes of poets such as Abū Tammām and al-Bu?turī were canonized so as to promote a vision of an Arab-Islamic Golden Age and, further, to serve as models for the expression of Arab-Islamic hegemony and the conferral and contestation of legitimate authority. In the Nah?a of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Neo-Classical poets such as A?mad Shawqī recouped the Abbasid master poets to both retroject and project a vision of an Arab-Islamic ‘Enlightenment’. Finally, this study examines the fraught relationship of the post-Naksa (1967) Arab poet, as exemplified in the modern Yemeni poet ?Abd Allāh al-Baradūnī, with the poets and poetry of the Golden Age.     

Collaborations between drug courts and service providers: Characteristics and challenges

Addressing the multiple treatment needs of drug-involved offenders can enhance outcomes including sobriety and recidivism. Meeting drug court offenders' needs requires collaborative linkages between courts and providers of treatment and other services; however, there has been limited research on linkages. Using semi-structured interview data collected from administrators of fourteen drug courts and providers of services to offenders in those drug courts, this study described collaborative linkages and the challenges involved in fostering them. Although results suggest a moderate to strong level of linkage as perceived by both drug court administrators and service providers, services other than substance abuse treatment were sparsely provided through the drug courts. Limitations in funding, management information systems, and staffing were perceived as barriers to linkage. Results offer directions for enhancing linkages between drug courts and service providers and should be of value in improving quality of drug court treatment and offender outcomes.