The link between recurrent maltreatment and offending behaviour

This article considers recurrent maltreatment and offending behaviour. The sample was 60 males and 19 females (11 to 18 years) resident within a secure institution in England and considered a risk to themselves and/or others. Overall, 20.8% had not experienced maltreatment, 6.5% had experienced a single incident, 11.7% were repeat victims (same perpetrator), 6.5% were revictimised (different perpetrators), and more than half (54.5%) had suffered both repeat and revictimisation. Of those who had committed a violent and/or sexual crime, 74% had experienced some form of revictimisation, compared to 33% of those who committed nonviolent offences. Those young people most likely to have committed violent and/or sexual crimes were those who had been victims of recurrent extrafamilial maltreatment (many of whom had also experienced recurrent intrafamilial maltreatment). Thus, in this sample, revictimisation was associated with serious crimes. However, these findings are preliminary, and prospective research with a larger sample is needed.     

A systematic review on the relationship between self-esteem and interrogative suggestibility

Some factors, such as age, learning disability and mental health difficulties, have been identified as making police suspects more vulnerable to suggestibility and false confessions during interview. However, there has been no systematic review on the association between self-esteem and suggestibility. Seven electronic bibliographic databases and reference lists of previous literature reviews of suggestibility in children were searched. Selected studies were quality assessed using pre-defined criteria before data were extracted. Electronic searches yielded 1914 hits. Of these, 685 duplicates, 1181 irrelevant references and 39 references that did not meet the inclusion criteria were removed. Nine publications were included in the review. Significant correlations between self-esteem and suggestibility, most notably on the Yield 1 subscale of the GSS, were found but four of the nine studies found no significant correlation. The prevalent use of self-report measures and lack of clarity in defining self-esteem limit the validity of those studies.     

Resisting LGBT Rights Where “We Have Won”: Canada and Great Britain

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) human rights are often assumed to travel from the core to the periphery, namely from the Global North to the Global South. However, these rights flows and resistances are more complex than a unidirectional model might suggest. Using a transnational perspective, we consider resistances to LGBT rights in places where LGBT rights are supposedly assured. In Canada and Great Britain, where various forms of equities legislation for LGBT people have been enacted, there is an increasing opposition to LGBT gains. The transnational circulation of these oppositional discourses can be seen in how Canadian and British organizations talk to, and about, each other and illustrate transnational networks that create resistances in the places where “we have won.” This questions a sole focus on resistances in places that do not have LGBT equalities legislation, usually those outside the Global North and associated with “less developed others.”     

The water and the fish: Public opinion and the provisional IRA in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The methods and goals of the Provisional IRA make it difficult to categorize it simply as a “terrorist” group. Its longevity and its affinity to Irish political culture suggest that it will not be defeated by force but by being rendered irrelevant. This is likely to come about as a result of the state demonstrating its own legitimacy among those sections of the Catholic community which have been understandably reluctant to give the state their full allegiance in the past. Survey evidence supports the contention that the Provisional IRA's goals and grievances are shared by many who would spurn their tactics.     

The effectiveness of relapse prevention training in a group of incarcerated child molesters

Abstract

A sample of child molesters participating in the U.K. prison sex offender treatment programme (SOTP) were required to complete a relapse prevention questionnaire before and after treatment. Results indicated that there were significant improvements in both awareness of risk situations and coping strategies, as measured by this instrument, through treatment. Nine months after the end of treatment most agreed to complete the questionnaire again. Those who had shown significant changes in terms of reduction of pro-offending attitudes through treatment maintained their RP skills. Men whose attitudes had not changed, although evidencing good RP skills at the end of treatment, were found to have lost these. This was most noticeable among men who had been released into the community and who had undergone a relatively short amount of therapy on the original SOTP (80 hours). These results indicate that RP training is only really useful where individuals have genuinely changed through treatment; and that the RP training should only be undertaken as part of an extensive treatment programme covering all areas of offending behaviour.     

When Identifying Health Disparities as a Problem Is a Problem: Pedagogical Strategies for Examining Racialized Contexts

The current study presents a critical discussion on community responses to health disparity research and the need for utilizing pedagogical strategies to prepare students to understand and address health disparities in racialized contexts. Qualitative research methods were used to examine community responses to media stories on two health disparity research projects, and four themes emerged: naming health disparities is a tool for dividing, structural racism does not exist, naming of health disparities is a political act, and health disparities exist because of individual-level deficiencies. The implications for teaching students about racial health disparities are presented and discussed.     

Understanding the new context of the male sex work industry

The article reviews past and recent research on male sex work to offer a context to understand violence in the industry. It provides a critical review of research to show, first, the assumptions made about male sex workers and violence and, second, how such discourses have shaped thinking on the topic. The article presents a case study and original findings from two studies conducted by the authors in Australia and Argentina on violence in the male sex industry. Finally, the article reviews examples of legislative reforms to show how the sex industry is being regulated.     

The state human trafficking and human rights issues in Africa

Internal factors in Africa which include limited autonomy of African states, the states’ various degrees of lack of capacity, as well as inept and parasitic leadership make human trafficking and human rights abuses in Africa inevitable. Regardless of the connections suggested to exist between globalization and human trafficking, internal factors in Africa are more fundamental than globalization in explaining human trafficking and the associated human rights violations. Corruption and misrule brought about wars and crises, unemployment, poverty, and diseases, all of which acted as push factors in disposing victims to be trafficked. Internal factors were exacerbated by the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and were only deepened by the impacts of globalization. Any meaningful resolve to combat human trafficking and fight human rights abuses in Africa necessarily has to address the nature of state and the character of the leadership in the region.