Institutionalizing gender in UK NGOs

Drawing on recent research, it has been explored how far and in what ways UK NGOs have tried to incorporate gender into the policies and procedures of their international development work, and how far a formal recognition of gender issues is shaping the way each organization functions. The strengths and weaknesses of different strategies are assessed (such as specialist staff or units, formal gender policies, gender training, equal opportunity recruitment policies, and mainstreaming) for transforming organizational practice.     

Assessing the Influence of Familial Paternalism on Child Neglect Sentencing Decisions

Familial responsibilities have been found to significantly reduce the severity of sentencing outcomes of defendants in the criminal court. Additional research also has suggested that this leniency might be contingent on the type of offense, with defendants who commit crimes which imply that they are unfit parents (e.g., drug offenses) not receiving a significant reduction in their likelihood of incarceration. Utilizing familial paternalism as the theoretical basis, the current study examines whether having children influences the sentences of defendants charged with forms of criminal child neglect. The findings indicate that having children does result in significantly reduced odds of incarceration for defendants charged with child neglect. These findings support the arguments set forth by familial paternalism. However, they do not support the inference that defendants convicted of child neglect are presumed to be unfit parents. Implication of these results and directions for future research are discussed.     

Solution or Smokescreen? Evaluating Industry Self-Regulation of Televised Food Marketing to Children

It is well established that children's exposure to television advertising for unhealthy food products contributes to the epidemic of childhood obesity. Given this finding, public health officials recommended that the government restrict unhealthy food marketing to children if the industry does not accomplish that goal voluntarily. Food marketers responded by adopting industry self-regulation several years ago, but this study finds that it has produced only marginal improvements in the overall nutritional quality of foods advertised to youth. Unless federal policy-makers intervene, it appears that unhealthy food marketing to children will continue to contribute to childhood obesity in the future.     

Rule of law and the democratization process: the case of Albania

This article will explore the dilemmas that Albania has been experiencing in implementing the rule of law during the past two decades with particular attention to the political institutional obstacles, including the difficulties of establishing an independent judiciary and the pervasiveness of corruption. The concept of the rule of law will be the lens through which the difficulties of the democratization process will be examined. The lack of transparency in the legislature and more broadly in the political decision-making process, and the divisive and leader-dominated political party system are two additional obstacles that Albania is facing in consolidating democracy. Since its first post-communist election in 1991, Albania has experienced challenges in conducting legitimate elections that meet international standards. The political and cultural environment where these political institutions operate and from which they have been constructed will provide the backdrop for analysis.     

Surviving the Trenches: The Personal Impact of the Job on Probation Officers

The purpose of this study was to assess traumatic stress and burnout in probation officers who work with criminal offenders. Adult probation officers from five departments in three states (Arizona, California, and Texas) participated in this study (N?=?309). Officers completed several survey instruments including the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (Weiss & Marmar, 1997), the Compassion Satisfaction/Fatigue Self-Test for Helpers (Steed & Bicknell, 2001), and the Probation Personal Impact Scale (PPI). The results indicated officers who reported violent and sexual recidivism on their caseloads, offender suicide, and threats and/or assaults in the line of duty scored significantly higher on measures of traumatic stress and burnout than officers who did not experience these caseload events. Assessments, education, training, and stress management programs are discussed as options to mitigate negative impacts, enhance the resiliency of officers, and improve the quality of evidence-based practices.     

Prosecutorial discretion for domestic violence cases: an examination of the effects of offender race,ethnicity, gender,and age

Much of the existing literature on courts and sentencing has focused on judicial decision-making. Prior research on prosecutorial decision-making is more limited, with even less attention paid to the prosecution of domestic violence cases. The research that has been conducted has produced inconsistent results regarding the effects of legal and extralegal variables. The current study focuses on the effects of extralegal suspect characteristics on the decision to dismiss domestic violence cases in a large Midwestern county from June 2009 to December 2009. The findings demonstrate that gender and race have a strong influence on prosecutors’ decisions to dismiss charges in domestic violence cases. Contrary to the focal concerns perspective, however, the results indicate that males and Black and Hispanic offenders are more likely to have their cases dismissed. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Sudden death from saccular laryngeal cyst

Laryngeal cysts are benign, uncommon lesions of the larynx that have been reported on rare occasions to cause sudden death in infants and adults by acute airways obstruction. In this report, we document the sudden death of a 36-year-old woman from a previously undiagnosed, asymptomatic laryngeal saccular cyst that presented with acute, and consequent fatal, airway obstruction. Difficulty during intubation, both in theater and in emergency settings, is a frequent presenting problem. This can have significant medicolegal implications in determining possible negligence. The diagnosis, classification, and management of such cysts, and their importance to both the forensic pathologist and clinicians are discussed.     

Differences in the predictive validity of actuarial risk assessments in relation to sex offender type

This study seeks to expand on the previously reported validity of the Static-99, RRASOR, MnSOST-R, and SORAG in predicting sexual recidivism utilizing a regional sample of offenders. The predictive validity of each test was determined utilizing subgroups of the sample based on each offender's known offense history. The effectiveness of each instrument varied depending on offender type. The Static-99 and SORAG were both significantly predictive of sexual, violent, and any recidivism for extra-familial child molesters, and all four tests were predictive of violent or any recidivism in this subgroup. For incest offenders, all four tests were at least moderately predictive of sexual recidivism, whereas the Static-99 and the SORAG were highly predictive of violent or any recidivism. None of the four tests established consistent predictive validity across recidivism categories in regard to rapists or hands-off offenders, however, the Static-99 and the SORAG were significant in terms of sexual recidivism.     

Conduct Problem Trajectories Between Age 4 and 17 and Their Association with Behavioral Adjustment in Emerging Adulthood

Individual heterogeneity exists in the onset and development of conduct problems, but theoretical claims about predictors and prognosis are often not consistent with the empirical findings. This study examined shape and outcomes of conduct problem trajectories in a Belgian population-based sample (N = 682; 49.5 % boys). Mothers reported on children’s conduct problems across six waves (age 4–17) and emerging adults reported on their behavioral adjustment (age 17–20). Applying mixture modeling, we found four gender-invariant trajectories (labeled life-course-persistent, adolescence-onset, childhood-limited, and low). The life-course-persistent group was least favorably adjusted, but the adolescence-onset group was similarly maladjusted in externalizing problems and may be less normative (15 % of the sample) than previously believed. The childhood-limited group was at heightened risk for specifically internalizing problems, being more worrisome than its label suggests. Interventions should not only be aimed at early detection of conduct problems, but also at adolescents to avoid future maladjustment.     

‘There is no racism here’: public discourses on racism,immigrants and integration in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Jensen, Weibel and Vitus's article critically discusses contemporary Danish policies aimed at the elimination of ethnoracial discrimination, drawing on policy analyses and qualitative interviews with local and national authorities in Denmark. It illustrates how questions of discrimination and racism are marginalized and de-legitimized within the dominant integration discourse, resulting in the marginalization of anti-racism in policymaking. The side-stepping of racism is being naturalized in public policies through strategies of denial and by addressing discrimination as a product of ignorance and individual prejudice rather than as embedded in social structures. The authors examine how immigration, integration and (anti-)racism as concepts and phenomena are understood and addressed in Danish public policies and discourses. Despite denials of racism in Denmark, Jensen, Weibel and Vitus show that, based on re-definitions of identities and relations, it continues to exist and is evident in public debates and policies on immigration and integration.