Nonsex offenses committed by child molesters: findings from a longitudinal study

This study, which used a prospective as well as a retrospective methodology, examined the criminal records of 30 child molesters prior to, and up to 10 years after an index event of sexual abuse for which they were convicted: 73% had convictions for other offenses, 60% had convictions for offenses other than sex offenses, 50% had convictions for property offenses, 27% had convictions for offenses involving violence, and 23% had convictions for drug offenses. Offending levels for nonsex offenses were significantly higher than the general adult male population. Any theory concerning the dynamics of sex offending against children needs to account for the level of nonsex offenses committed by child molesters.     

The Creeping Politicisation of the World Bank: The Case of Corruption

This paper looks at the increasing politicisation of the World Bank through its work on corruption. Historically, the Bank's Articles of Agreement, which forbid it from involving itself in the politics of its recipient countries, have excluded work on corruption. In the 1990s, internal and external demands grew for the Bank to address the problem of corruption, despite earlier reticence. Much research done over the past decade, often commissioned by the Bank or done in-house, has worked to turn corruption into an economic and social issue, rather than a political one, in order to conduct anti-corruption work while evading accusations that it is violating this non-political mandate. Now this pretence is gradually slipping away and the Bank is becoming overtly political, despite its Articles and a lack of international consensus that this is the direction in which it should be heading.     

Arab Identity and Ideology in Sudan: The Politics of Language, Ethnicity, and Race

In what is now Sudan there occurred over the centuries a processof ta'rib, or Arabization, entailing the gradual spread of bothArab identity and the Arabic language among northern peoples.After the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of 1898, British colonialpolicies favoured a narrow elite from within these ‘Arab’communities. Members of this elite went on to develop a conceptionof a self-consciously Sudanese Arabic national identity, inthe process adapting the term ‘Sudanese’ (sudani),which derived from an Arabic word for blackness and previouslyhad servile connotations. At decolonization in the 1950s, thesenationalists turned ta'rib, into an official policy that soughtto propagate Arabic quickly throughout a territory where scoresof languages were spoken. This article considers the historicaldiffusion of Sudanese Arabic-language culture and Arab identity,contrasts this with the post-colonial policy of Arabization,and analyses the relevance of the latter for civil conflictsin Southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and, more recently, Darfur.Far from spreading Arabness, Arabization policy sharpened non-Araband, in some cases, self-consciously ‘African’ (implyingculturally pluralist) identities. Arabization policy also accompanied,in some quarters, the growth of an ideology of Arab culturaland racial supremacy that is now most evident in Darfur. This publication was made possible in part by grants from theCarnegie Corporation of New York (Carnegie Scholars Program,2006) and the University Research Foundation of the Universityof Pennsylvania, but the statements made and views expressedare solely the responsibility of the author. The author wouldalso like to thank Benjamin F. Soares, Karin Willemse, VijayBalasubramanian, and two anonymous referees for their feedbackon earlier drafts of this article; the African Studies Centreat the University of Leiden for hosting the seminar (April 2007)where this work was first presented; and Tukufu Zuberi, EveTroutt Powell and the Africana Studies Center of the Universityof Pennsylvania for organizing a symposium on Darfur (1 March2007) that helped to bring ideas into focus.     

Cross-National Adolescent Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Reports: Analyses of Mean Scores and Response Style Differences

Although numerous cross-national studies have assessed life satisfaction among adults, similar studies using adolescent samples have been rare. To address this shortage of research, a total of 1338 youth adolescents from two individualistic nations (Ireland, USA) and two collectivistic nations (China, South Korea) were administered the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS: Huebner, 1994) to assesses general life satisfaction and satisfaction with family, friends, school, self, and living environment. Responses were analyzed to assess potential cross-national differences in (a) mean levels of life satisfaction, and (b) response styles, specifically acquiescence and extreme responding. Mean scores revealed positive ratings by adolescents from all four nations across all domains, with the exceptions of satisfaction with school experiences (Ireland, South Korean, USA), living environment (China, South Korea), self (South Korea), and general life satisfaction (South Korea). Results also revealed significant response style differences across all MSLSS domains. Significant gender and gender-by-nation effects were observed for both mean score and response style differences, although the effect sizes were small. The implications of these findings were discussed, particularly with respect to “individualistic” vs. “collectivistic” cultural differences. Rich Gilman is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology at the University of Kentucky. His research interests include positive well-being among youth, perfectionism, and socially ostracized adolescents. Scott Huebner is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. His research interests involve the conceptualization, measurement, and implications of positive psychological well-being constructs among youth. He is a fellow of Division 16 of the APA and the International Society for Quality of Life Studies. Lili Tian is Associate Professor at South China Normal University. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from Beijing Normal University. Her major research interests include adolescent's school well-being, acculturation of immigrant children and personality assessment. Nansook Park is Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island. She received her Ph.D. from University of South Carolina. Her major research interests among youth include character strengths and virtues, positive experience and life satisfaction and how they are related to well-being, family functioning, health and education. Jenny O’Byrne received her BA in the Department of Counselling & Psychotherapy from the Dublin Business School. Recent research interests focus on child and adolescent development, and she recently completed her pre-clinical training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with the Lincoln Centre in London. Dina Sverko is a research assistant at the University of Zagreb (Croatia). She received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Triest (Italy). Her major research interests include personality assessment and health psychology. Miriam Schiff is lecturer (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at the Hebrew University School of Social Work and Social Welfare in Jerusalem. Her major research interests include trauma and substance use, and general mental health among adolescents in clinic settings. Heather Langknecht received her Ed.S. from the University of Kentucky in 2004. She currently works as a school psychologist at Virginia Beach Public Schools (Virginia). Her primary research interests are cross-national quality of life issues among children and youth.     

External validity and assignment of experimental vs. control treatment providers within small work groups: a research note

Journal of Experimental Criminology - When offenders or victims are randomly assigned to receive experimental vs. current treatments, the external validity of results may depend on whether...