In Person

Shane Smyth is a popular and well-known personality in internationaltrade mark circles, where his friendly face and amicable demeanourprovide the frontage for a mordant     

Risk assessment in offenders with mental disorders: relative efficacy of personal demographic, criminal history, and clinical variables

Following the meta-analysis by Bonta, Law, and Hanson, (1998) this study examined the ability of personal demographic, criminal history, and clinical variables to predict reoffending in offenders in the United Kingdom who had mental disorders. The efficacy of each variable in predicting rate of general reoffending and violent reoffending was investigated. Age on admission, number of days hospitalized, and number of previous offenses were the most effective variables in predicting re-offending, with number of previous offenses being the strongest predictor. Clinical diagnosis was not predictive of reoffending when the variance attributable to these other predictors was controlled for. None of the variables were able to discriminate between general offenders and violent offenders indicating that the same variables predict both types of reoffending. The results showed that reconviction in offenders with mental disorders can be predicted using the same criminogenic variables that are predictive in offenders without mental disorders.     

Developing Principles for Best Practice in Expanded School Mental Health

On the basis of activities of a federally funded national center for school mental health, review of literature on principles for best practice in child and adolescent mental health and school health, and consultation with national experts and family members, a set of 10 principles for best practice in school mental health was developed. A survey was developed enabling 1–6 point Likert ratings (clearly unimportant to clearly important) for each of the 10 principles. With an original sample of 426 people involved in education, school health or mental health, all 10 principles were strongly endorsed, receiving mean ratings ranging between 5.10 and 5.75. On the basis of qualitative feedback from this survey and interactive forums, language for 9 of the 10 principles was revised and a survey reflecting these changes was developed and administered to a validation sample of 86 respondents. As with the original sample, endorsements of the principles were strong, with mean ratings ranging between 5.45 and 5.79. Findings are discussed in relation to advancing interconnected agendas related to quality assessment and improvement and empirically supported practice in school mental health.     

Reading the hermeneutics of violence: The literary turn and Chechnya

The primary aim of this paper is to draw together a set of theoretical questions in order better to explore a case of contemporary violence. The case of Chechnya has, in the main, been ignored by Anglo-American academics. Therefore, as this paper will demonstrate, the use of hermeneutics—and more specifically literature—may provide theorists with a further critical theoretical tool for interpreting the complexity of contemporary violence in Chechnya. Still further, it will be argued that literature can be used to identify some of the cultural and symbolic forces that condition violence. The first part of the paper will explore aesthetic, hermeneutic and literary international relations. This section will outline and establish a hermeneutic interpretation of contemporary violence, drawing upon the primacy of ontology, agency and inter-subjectivity. The second part of the paper will demonstrate the role that literature plays in guiding representational readings of contemporary Russo-Chechen violence.     

Ethnic and Religious Hostilities in Early Modern Port Cities

An analysis of ethnic and religious conflict in early modern port cities, such as Amsterdam, Genoa, and several Islamic cities in the Ottoman Empire including Constantinople. The essay reflects on the connection between maritime trade and the freedom of conscience that promotes tolerance, civility, and a lessening of violence toward outsiders. It examines ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism, and the institution of slavery in early modern port cities, as well as milieux that fostered pluralism such as the Exchange, gambling dens, military units, and the harem. Most important, it explores the decisive role of merchant oligarchies, relatively open elites, in promoting tolerance.