The association between the offender–victim relationship,severity of offence and attribution of blame in mentally disordered offenders

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the association between the offender–victim relationship, severity of violence and attribution of blame for a violent act. Data were collected from 65 male psychiatric inpatients from two secure units. Participants were divided into three groups according to how well they knew their victim: victim well-known, victim acquaintance and victim stranger. Violent acts were further ranked according to offence severity. Participants were administered the Quick Test (QT) and the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory (GBAI). Although there was a trend towards higher guilt attributions when the victim was well-known to the perpetrator, this relationship was complicated by the severity of the violent act. The most severe ranking of offence (i.e. murder/manslaughter) was most common in the offender group who knew their victim well. Furthermore, guilt-feeling attributions were highest in the most severe ranking of offence. The implications of these findings for assessment and intervention programmes are considered.     

A systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of European drug treatment programmes on reoffending

This article presents the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of treatment programmes for drug abusing offenders in Europe, using stringent eligibility criteria to control for threats to internal validity. A literature search of approximately 37,000 titles revealed 15 sound evaluations from six countries, containing 3953 participants. There were significant positive overall effects of treatment on crime (d=0.47) and illicit drug use (d=0.38). Most evaluations originated from the UK and evaluated primarily substitution therapy-based treatment. Evaluations of other interventions were a minority. Our findings support the use of treatment programmes among substance-abusing offenders. However, these results are limited to a small set of programmes from very few countries. Therefore, sound evaluations on a range of treatments across Europe are needed.     

Determination of efficacy of fingermark enhancement reagents; the use of propyl chloroformate for the derivatization of fingerprint amino acids extracted from paper

The analysis of the constituents of fingerprints has been described numerous times, mainly with the purpose of determining the aging effect on fingerprints or showing the differences between donors or groups of donors. In this paper we describe the use of derivatized amino acids to determine the efficacy of the visualization reagents 1,8-diazafluoren-9-one (DFO) and ninhydrin. At present certain conditions are used for the application of these reagents, as determined by trial-and-error investigations, to the effect on fingerprints. The recovery of amino acids from a porous surface can be used as a measure for the efficacy of a visualization agent.In this paper we describe a method for the determination of the amount of amino acid left after reaction with well known fingerprint visualization reagents. This will allow a more scientific approach to method development for fingermark enhancement techniques. Furthermore, investigations on the influence of the concentration of fingermark amino acids, the order of application of and exposure time to reagents and the influence of age of the amino acids were carried out. These studies have resulted in a broader understanding of the mechanism involved in visualization of fingermarks using DFO and ninhydrin.     

Evaluation of the composition of street cocaine seized in two regions of Brazil

This work evaluates cocaine purity and the concentration ranges of adulterants and inorganic constituents for 31 street cocaine samples seized in two different regions of Brazil from July 2008 to May 2010. Cocaine and adulterants, such as caffeine, lidocaine and benzocaine, were quantified by Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), and the inorganic constituents were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and ion chromatography (IC). The cocaine concentrations in the samples seized in the Amazonas state (AM samples) ranged from 154 to 978 mg g^? 1, and these samples did not contain any of the adulterants studied. The cocaine concentrations in the samples seized in the Minas Gerais state (MG samples) ranged from 63.9 to 753 mg g^? 1. Caffeine was the main adulterant found in 76% of the MG samples, ranging in concentration from 5.5 to 645.3 mg g^? 1. Lidocaine was found in 66.7% of the MG samples, with concentrations ranging from 16.3 to 576.7 mg g^? 1. Benzocaine was found in only one MG sample, at a concentration of 84.8 mg g^? 1. Fourteen elements were identified by ICP-OES, and a wide variation was observed in the concentrations of Ca, Mg, Na, P, Al, Fe, Mn and Zn. Pearson Product–moment Correlations between the analytes allowed the constituents to be associated with the chemicals used in the manufacturing of cocaine and with some common diluents. The study of the purity of cocaine and the presence and concentration of adulterants and inorganic constituents is important because the latter can have deleterious effects on health.     

Epistemological practice and the social sciences

The object of this article is to examine the proposals for a new sociology of education set out in the work of M. F. D. Young. In particular it examines his discussion of 'knowledge', 'radicalism' and 'politics' and demonstrates that his project for a sociology of the politics of educational knowledge based on the 'phenomenological' sociology of Alfred Schutz is unsuccessful. It is argued that the 'radical' attack on the political character of contemporary education cannot be sustained. It is demonstrated that the concepts in the work of Freire, Illich, Schutz and others to which Young refers do not provide the guidelines for any theoretical advance in the sociology of education, and further, that this 'new' sociology can provide no rigorous theoretical basis for education policy formulation.     

Brand response analysis: a Peircean semiotic approach

The purpose of this article is to organise and simplify the concept of brand response. It is a development of the authors' semiotic approach to the concept of brand, which uses a triadic model based on the Peircean levels of analysis of the sign. The original model distinguishes three levels: identity, object and response. This article briefly describes the first two levels and goes into more depth with regard to brand response. From the theoretical point of view, the authors' approach inverts the survey method used to ascertain positioning, image and value of the brand. Firstly, brand response is associations occurring in the minds of the reporting agent. Associations create awareness, and not the other way round, which is the concept underlying the current theory of brand equity. From the point of view of practice, it is the authors' belief that the main contribution made by the triadic semiotic model applied to brand response is that of the importance of “firstness”, i.e. the most immediate response possible. It is with a concern for ease of application that this article hopes to contribute by making brand analysis and assessment more intelligible. This article should be seen as an exploration into the possibility of simplifying the analysis of brand response. Its originality lies in the effort to return to the very reason for the existence of branding. The authors are convinced that by choosing differentiation as the guiding principle of their approach they have valorised what is essential, which is sometimes lost in more complex modelling.     

Social redistribution in federalised Belgium

The federalisation of Belgium has led to a fragmentation of competences in the field of social policy. Only social security has remained an exclusive federal responsibility. However, there have been calls for further federalisation in this policy area. The prominence of interregional financial transfers fuels such calls, while its opponents point out that, among other things, federalisation would result in greater poverty and inequality in Wallonia, a Region that is already disadvantaged in economic terms. In this contribution we first outline the territorial organisation of social policy in a federalised Belgium. We then analyse social transfers between Flanders and Wallonia, focusing on their size and determinants. We demonstrate that these transfers have a considerable equalising and anti-poverty effect. Next, we explore the theoretical arguments for and against federalising social policy, supplemented with examples from the Belgian case. We conclude with an overview of the discussion and indicate some future policy directions.     

The Making of a European Public Sphere: Media Discourse and Political Contention

Territorial autonomy is one aspect of power-sharing in multi-ethnic societies. Nevertheless, the multi-ethnic countries of Central and Eastern Europe are still among the most centralised in the European Union. This article analyses the failure of any attempts to establish (symmetric) federalism or (asymmetric) autonomy, creating self-governed regions by the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia. The analysis focuses on the positions of the main parties of the ethnic majorities and the Hungarian minority parties in the two countries. In both cases, the parties representing the Hungarian minorities have favoured territorial autonomy along ethnic lines, but this demand has been rejected by the parties of the ethnic majority. Against the historical legacy of unstable borders, the parties of the ethnic majority argue that territorial autonomy or federalisation might be a first step for a revisionist agenda and separatism. Instead, supported by the European integration, the parties have been able to agree on decentralisation as a half-hearted compromise.