A Mixed Methods Exploratory Examination of Victim Injury and Death: Effect of Weapon Type and Victim Resistance During Sexual Assaults by Strangers

Extending prior research regarding victim injury during sexual assault, the current study employed mixed-methods sequential explanatory research design to identify predictors of victim injury and victim death in 361 attempted and completed sexual assaults committed by 72 repeat sex offenders who assaulted strangers. Results from multinomial path analysis indicated that being female and offender coercion increased the likelihood of victim resistance, which in turn elevated the likelihood of victim injury. Divergent from the predictors of victim injury, the risk of victim death increased with victim age, offender alcohol use, and offender weapon possession. Exploratory analyses suggest that certain weapons resulted in higher probability of victim injury or victim death within the context of victim resistance. Exploratory analysis of qualitative data indicated that crime event order was not uniform—in some cases victim resistance preceded victim injury and in some assaults victim injury occurred prior to or was unrelated to victim resistance. The study findings highlight the need for further investigation of victim survival strategies when offenders possess different types of weapons.     

Addressing the Needs of Survivors of Torture: A Pilot Test of the Psychosocial Well-Being Index

Survivors of torture experience numerous psychosocial stressors that threaten individual well-being in resettlement. This study reports findings from a pilot test that applied the newly developed Survivors of Torture Psychosocial Well-Being Index. The study used a case-level mixed design to assess survivor psychosocial well-being across 16 life domains from intake up to 18 months. Ecological systems theory grounds this study. Participants demonstrated increased well-being as evidenced by statistically significant change on the mean ratings of their total scores. Three case examples illustrate the instrument. Practice applications, lessons learned, study limitations, and future directions are presented.     

gendering creolisation: creolising affect

Drawing on (auto)ethnographic research—on the process of becoming a marathon swimmer, this paper argues that conventional characterisations of marathon swimming as being ‘80 per cent mental and 20 per cent physical’ reprise a mind–body split that at worst excludes women and at best holds them to a masculine standard. This in turn draws the focus towards sensory deprivation, bodily suffering and overcoming, to the exclusion of the pleasures of swimming, beyond the expected ones such as the challenge of swim completion. By exploring instead the ‘shifted sensorium’ of marathon swimming, and examples of the autotelic pleasures of swimming, this paper argues that training changes the way swimming body feels, and that it is these changes that enable a swimmer to feel ‘at home’ in an environment to which it does not naturally belong. This focus on the sensory aspects of swimming, and its unexpected pleasures, both highlights the ways in which those pleasures do not flow unproblematically to women, and brings to light alternative and politically provocative ways of experiencing the gendered sporting body. This highlights the contingency, however constrained, of even the most entrenched ways of thinking about bodies, both within and outside sport.     

Lydia Becker's ‘school for science’: a challenge to domesticity

Lydia Becker (1827-1890) is known as a leader of the Women's Suffrage Movement but little is known about her work to include women and girls in science. Before her energy was channelled into politics, she aimed to have a scientific career. Mid-Victorian Britain was a period in which women's intellect and potential were widely debated, and in which the dominant ideology was that their primary role in life was that of wife and mother. Science was widely regarded as a ‘masculine’ subject which women were deliberately discouraged from studying. The author concentrates on the two main areas in which important contributions were made, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Manchester School Board     

LEGAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT OF CASES WITH AN ALIENATED CHILD

Cases entering the family court with an alienated child require intensive and coordinated case management to intervene effectively. It is critical to link the authority of the court with the delivery of mental health services to address the complex systemic factors that may entrench a chilďs unwarranted rejection of a parent. This article provides principles of legal and psychological case management for families with an alienated child, followed by various structural interventions, including sample court orders, for managing these cases as they progress through the family court process. Finally, criteria for making custody recommendations in the most severe cases of child alienation are provided.     

Developmental Trajectories and Intentional Actions

The article turns a critical eye on problems arising from use of largesamples and complicated statistics to handle multilevel designs. I arguethat although these have a legitimate role to play in discovering causalrelations, valuable information can be lost or distorted in the processof their use. Exploratory classification and tree diagrams show howtransitional analyses can unpack effects of community, family, priormisbehavior, juvenile delinquency, and incarceration on adult criminalbehavior. The analyses showed that in the worst neighborhoods, disruptivebehavior had little discriminating power with regard to juveniledelinquency or adult crime. They showed also that good family interactionsserve as protection against crime in all types of neighborhoods. ConstructTheory, I suggest, is a way to understand the influences that seem toproduce criminal behavior.