Sentencing in child sexual assault cases: factors influencing judicial decision-making

Abstract

To date, there has been limited examination of variables that influence sentencing in child sexual abuse cases. This study examines the extent to which offence characteristics (such as the number of offences, number and age of victims), the behaviour and perceived credibility of the victim impact upon both sentence length and the setting of earliest parole dates. Analyses conducted using data from 66 adjudicated cases of child sexual assault from the County Court of Victoria, Australia revealed that longer sentences were handed down to offenders who had perpetrated multiple offences, or who had committed offences against younger children. Lower levels of victim credibility were associated with shorter sentences and earlier parole dates for offenders, which were also associated with the presence of more harmful behavioural indicators of abuse. The findings are discussed regarding the importance of presenting evidence about the behaviour of victims following sexual abuse in criminal trials.     

Is homelessness a housing problem?

Abstract

Homeless people have been found to exhibit high levels of personal disability (mental illness, substance abuse), extreme degrees of social estrangement, and deep poverty. Each of these conditions poses unique housing problems, which are discussed here. In the 1980s, the number of poor people has increased and the supply of low‐income housing has dwindled; these trends provide the background against which the homelessness problem has unfolded. Homelessness is indeed a housing problem, first and foremost, but the characteristics of the homeless are such as to make their housing problems atypical.     

The Projection of Development: Cinematic Representation as A(nother) Source of Authoritative Knowledge?

Popular representations of development need to be taken seriously (though not uncritically) as sources of authoritative knowledge, not least because this is how most people in the global North (and elsewhere) ‘encounter’ development issues. To this end, and building on the broader agenda presented in a previous article exploring the usefulness of literary representations of development, we consider three different types of cinematic representations of development: films providing uniquely instructive insights, those unhelpfully eliding and simplifying complex processes, and those that, with the benefit of historical hindsight, usefully convey a sense of the prevailing assumptions that guided and interpreted the efficacy of development-related interventions at a particular time and place. We argue that the commercial and technical imperatives governing the production of contemporary films, and ‘popular’ films in particular, generate a highly variable capacity to ‘accurately’ render key issues in development, and thereby heighten their potential to both illuminate and obscure those issues.     

Fair Trade-Organic Coffee Cooperatives,Migration, and Secondary Schooling in Southern Mexico

We explore three trends in rural southern Mexico (Fair Trade coffee, migration, and conditional cash transfers) that could explain the rapid rise in education from 1995–2005 using survey data from 845 coffee farming households in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. Results from a household fixed-effects model show that household participation in a Fair Trade-organic cooperative contributed to about a 0.7 year increase in schooling for girls. US migration opportunities appear to have even stronger positive impacts on schooling for females. Although participation in Fair Trade-organic cooperatives appears also to have increased male schooling, increased migration opportunities have had an indeterminate effect for males.     

The Institutional Foundations of Inequality and Growth

After a decade of research, the effect of inequality on long-run economic growth remains unresolved, in part because researchers have treated omitted variable bias as an estimation problem rather than a deeper question of causality. In this article we argue that the key omitted variable is the quality of economic institutions. Using both cross-country and panel data specifications, we find no direct effect of inequality on growth in the long-run. Rather, the protection of property rights simultaneously raises growth rates and reduces income inequality. We interpret these findings as evidence that insecure property rights disproportionately disadvantage the poor.     

Books received

Dependency under Challenge: The Political Economy of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Edited by Anthony Payne and Paul Sutton. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. Pp.xii + 294. £25. ISBN 0 7190 0970 7.

The International Crisis in the Caribbean. By Anthony Payne. London: Croom Helm, 1984. Pp.iii + 177. £14.95. ISBN 0 7099 2052 0.

Grenada: Revolution and Invasion. By Anthony Payne, Paul Sutton and Tony Thorndike. London: Croom Helm, 1984. Pp.x + 233. £17.95. ISBN 0 7099 2080 6.

The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development. By Peter Worsley. London: Weidenfeld &; Nicolson, 1984. Pp.xiv + 409. £16.95 and £8.95. ISBN 0 297 783467 and 78356 4.

Agriculture, Poverty and Freedom in Developing Countries. By Eric Clayton. London: Macmillan, 1984. Pp.x + 277. £15 and £6.95. ISBN 0 333 36100 8 and 36101 6.

Understanding Green Revolutions: Agrarian Change and Development Planning in South Asia. Edited by Tim P. Bayliss‐Smith and Sudhir Wanmali. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. x + 384. £30/$59.50. ISBN 0 521 24942 2.

Kritsman and the Agrarian Marxists. Edited by Terry Cox and Gary Littlejohn. London: Frank Cass, 1984. Pp. 149. £18.50. ISBN 0 7146 3237 6.

The Defense of Community in Peru's Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1860–1940. By Florencia E. Mallon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp. xiv + 384. £28.20 and £12.60. ISBN 0 691 07647 2 and 10140; X.

Miners, Peasants and Entrepreneurs: Regional Development in the Central Highlands of Peru. By Norman Long and Bryan Roberts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp.x + 288. £25. ISBN 0 521 24809 4.

The New Bourgeoisie and the Limits of Dependency: Mining, Class and Power in ‘Revolutionary’ Peru. By David G. Becker. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp.xxviii + 368. £30.20 and £8.60. ISBN 0 691 07645 6 and 0 691 02213 5.

The Pharmaceutical Industry and Dependency in the Third World. By Gary Gereffi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp.xiii + 292. £21.60 and £8.65. IBSN 0 691 09401 2 and 02828 1.

Law and Policy of Producers’ Associations. By D.E. Pollard. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Pp.xii + 372. £30. ISBN 0 19 825480 6.

Inequalising Trade? A Study of Traditional North/South Specialisation in the Context of Terms of Trade Concepts. By John Spraos. Oxford: Clarendon Press in cooperation with UNCTAD, 1983. Pp.ix + 169. £15. ISBN 0 19 828458 6.

Reality and Rhetoric: Studies in the Economics of Development. By P. T. Bauer. London: Weidenfeld &; Nicolson, 1984. Pp.viii + 184. £11.95. ISBN 0 297 78335 1.

Critique and Anti‐Critique: Essays on Dependence and Reformism. By Andre Gunder Frank. London: Macmillan, 1984. Pp.xiii + 336. £20 and £7.95. ISBN 0333 37122 4 and 37123 2.

Participation of the Poor in Development. Edited by Benno Galjart and Dieke Buijs. Leiden: Leiden Development Studies No.2, 1982. Pp.325. NP.

Studies in Rural Participation. Edited by Amit Bhaduri and Md. Anisur Rahman. New Delhi: Oxford &; IBH Publishing Co., 1982. Pp. vii + 229. Rs.85.

Evaluating Population Programs: International Experience with Cost‐effective Analysis and Cost‐benefit Analysis. Edited by Ismail Sirageldin, David Salkever and Richard W. Osborn. London: Croom Helm; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. Pp.xxxi + 534. £19.95. ISBN 0 7099 2393 7.

Development Planning Models. Edited by S. Bhagwan Dahiya. 2 vols. New Delhi: Inter‐India Publications, 1982. Pp.xxiv + 392 + xxiv + 270. $60 the set.

Appropriate Products, Employment and Technology: Case‐Studies on Consumer Choice and Basic Needs in Developing Countries. Edited by Wouter van Ginneken and Christopher Baron. London: Macmillan, 1984. Pp. xi + 260. £25. ISBN 0 333 35302 1.

Education and Income Determination in Kenya. By Arne Bigsten. Aldershot, Hants: Gower, 1984. Pp.vii + 156. £14.50. ISBN 0 566 00703 7.

The Impending Crisis in Kenya: The Case for Land Reform. By Diana Hunt. Aldershot, Hants: Gower, 1984. Pp.viii + 314. £17.50. ISBN 0 566 00713 4.

Ibn Khaldun: The Birth of History and the Past of the Third World. By Yves Lacoste. London: New Left Books and Verso, 1984. Pp. 214. £20 and £5.95. ISBN 0 86091 084 9 and 789 4.     

Positive Youth Development Among African American Adolescents: Examining Single Parents as a Factor

Over the past few decades researchers have begun to examine the importance of understanding positive youth development and the many contexts in which youth find themselves. The social contexts in which adolescent development occurs are varied and complex, particularly the development among African American youth. African American youth are faced with a number of challenges including living in single-parent homes, high teen pregnancy rates, and poor neighborhoods, yet many of these youth continue to thrive. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between family structure (single-parenting) and adolescent outcomes such as educational aspirations and sexual activity among African American adolescent youth aged 12–17. Approximately 462 African American youth were surveyed. A number of positive results emerged; for instance, there was a negative correlation between family structure and educational aspirations. The number of parents in the home did not interfere with youth wanting to complete high school and go on to college (r = ? .218, r² = .04, p < .05). The results also showed that as educational aspirations increased, the number of sexual partners decreased (r = ? .141, meaning that the more adolescents reported a desire to complete high school, they were less likely to report having sexual intercourse. These positive results should be promoted among African American youth so that those faced with these challenges will note that others have overcome and accomplished their goals. In this population educational aspirations were important. Limitations and future research are discussed.     

Assessing the Health Behaviors of African American Emerging Adults

The purpose of this article was to assess the overall health behaviors of African American emerging adults who live in a Midwestern city. Two hundred participants, ages 18–25, completed a 129-item survey. Results indicate that African American emerging adults are engaged in relatively healthy behaviors (i.e., physical activity, low substance use). The results also showed that within the emerging adult developmental period, there are differences in behavior for those who are in the younger (18–20) versus those that are older (21–25) in the developmental period. Limitations, future research, and implications for practice will also be discussed.     

‘Flexicurity’ as a policy strategy: the implications for gender equality

Abstract

The ‘flexicurity’ strategy reached the top of the European Union's policy agenda in the mid-2000s. The strategy assumes an adult worker model family and aims to promote better, as well as more, jobs and to ensure that policies should further both flexibility in the labour market and security for workers. The article explores, first, the meaning of internal and external flexibility, and of employment-based security and the different implications for men and women. While the policy documents assume that flexicurity will increase gender equality, the mechanisms have not been specified. In fact, as the article shows, women are often more ‘flexible’ workers than men, particularly regarding their contractual arrangements and hours of employment. However, they tend not to be economically autonomous and, we argue, the supply-side policies advocated on the security side of the flexicurity matrix are insufficient to improve their position, which is strongly related to the gendered divisions of paid and unpaid work.