Characteristics of Medical Examiner/Coroner Offices Accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners

The National Association of Medical Examiners accredits medical examiner and coroner offices. Approximately 60 offices were fully or provisionally accredited as of late 2011, and these offices serve one‐quarter of the U.S. population. The calculated average population served was 1.6M but ranged from 0.3 to 10.5M. The calculated mean death rate was 794 deaths/100K population, and the mean homicide rate was 7.2 homicides/100K population. The calculated mean budget was $4.35M, but budgets ranged from $0.67 to $26.8M. The calculated mean budget/capita was $3.02 but ranged from $0.62 to $10.22. The average size of the facility was under 30,000 sq. ft. The calculated average staffing was found to include five forensic pathologists, four and a half autopsy technicians, and nine investigators. The mean forensic pathologists/1M population was 3.7. Calculated workload indices included 222 autopsies/pathologist and an autopsy rate of 77.6/100K population. These results show that offices of every size can achieve accreditation.     

Complex Histories and Complex Presentations: Implementation of a Manually-Guided Group Treatment for Traumatized Adolescents

It is consistently recognized that children and adolescents who have repeatedly experienced or witnessed violence are at significant risk for a multitude of lasting difficulties across many domains of functioning. Adolescents in residential settings often have extensive trauma histories and experience profound behavioral, emotional, and interpersonal difficulties. Unfortunately, there are few structured trauma-informed treatments that have been implemented in residential settings, and even fewer that have been evaluated. This article describes the core components of Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS), a manually-guided trauma-informed group treatment, and provides clinical examples within residential facilities for adolescents with emotional and behavioral difficulties and extensive victimization histories. Preliminary data on self-reported emotional, behavioral, and posttraumatic stress symptoms are presented.     

The Subjects of Socialism: Politicizing Honneth’s Idea of Socialism

ABSTRACT

This paper criticizes Axel Honneth’s Idea of Socialism from a post-Marxist but nevertheless Marxian perspective. It focuses on the importance of particular political subjectivities for bringing about emancipatory transformations. Honneth’s decoupling of his revived conception of socialism from any kind of partisan subjectivity is not only overhasty. It also loses sight of the emergence of socialism as an idea in a proper Hegelian sense. Whilst Honneth contradictorily assumes that contemporary ethical life is already infused with a comprehensive normativity of social freedom that points towards its further realization, such a tendency of normative and social universality has been largely eliminated by the regressions of neoliberal hegemony. In this historical situation, the becoming-hegemonic of social freedom depends on the polemical initiative of those kinds of political subjectivities which are theoretically excluded from Honneth’s conception of socialism.     

Do economic conditions influence how theorists view adolescents?

Eighty-nine articles in thePedagogical Seminary and theJournal of Genetic Psychology appearing during two economic depressions and the two world wars were analyzed for their adolescent ideologies. A systematic, ideological bias in the content of these articles was found to be statistically significant. In times of economic depression theories of adolescence emerge that portray teenagers as immature, psychologically unstable, and in need of prolonged participation in the educational system. During wartime, the psychological competence of youth is emphasized and the duration of education is recommended to be more retracted than in depression. The objective, scientific nature of theory building is questioned and discussed.Received Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota. Research interests: adolescent social development, moral development.Received M.S. in Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Research interests: adolescent development, cognitive development.Received Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Research interests: quantitative methods.Research interests: adolescent social development, cognitive development.     

The Rise of a More Punitive State: On the Attenuation of Norwegian Penal Exceptionalism in an Era of Welfare State Transformation

While sociologists of punishment have been interested in the notion of Nordic penal exceptionalism, rapid changes are taking place in the penal policies of one of the members of the Nordic zone. Norway’s penal state is growing increasingly punitive, and penal exceptionalism appears to be on the wane, evidenced by a growing incarceration rate, increasingly punitive sentiments in the population, moral panics over street crime, raised sentencing levels, the forcible detention and extradition of asylum seekers, punitive drug policies, and the creation of segregated correctional facilities for stigmatized foreign offenders. Penal transformation should be understood as the outcome of symbolic contestation between politicians eager to present themselves as “tough on crime,” increasing differentiation of the social structure that has led to the declining fortunes of rehabilitationism, and a nascent neoliberalization of the welfare state. As a consequence, Europe’s penal landscape may be growing more homogeneous.     

Is It Ideology or Desperation: Why Do Organizations Deploy Women in Violent Terrorist Attacks?

Why do some terrorist organizations deploy women on the front lines and in violent attacks? This study explores the social conditions, economic factors, and organizational characteristics that might explain women's participation in violent terrorist activity. With a new data set of 395 terrorist organizations, women's participation in terrorist attacks was quantified and coded. The logistic regression analysis results suggest that women's educational attainment, social rights, terrorist organization's age and size, and the level of a country's economic development are important predictors of the deployment of women in terrorist violence while a terrorist group's ideological or religious orientation and the level of democracy do not significantly influence the likelihood of women's participation.     

Revisiting the trade and unemployment nexus: Empirical evidence from the Nigerian economy

The recent exacerbation of unemployment crisis in Nigeria stands to be a serious threat to both socio‐economic stability and progress of the country just as the report from the Bureau of Statistics shows that at least over 8.5 million people had no gainful employment at all as at the last quarter of the year 2017. It is on the above premise, that the present study explores the link between trade and unemployment for the case of Nigeria with the intention of exploring how the unemployment crisis has been impacted within the dynamics of the country's trade performance. The empirical evidence shows that the nation's terms of trade were insignificant to unemployment rate, while trade openness and domestic investment, on the other hand, have significant opposing impacts on unemployment in Nigeria over the period of the study. Further breakdowns from the empirical analysis also revealed that the Philips curves proposition is valid within the Nigerian economic context, while the evidences for the validity of Okun's law only exist in the short‐run scenario. Based on the empirical results, we recommend that concerted effort should be geared toward stimulating domestic investment by providing adequate financial and infrastructural facilities that will promote ease of doing business while utmost precautions are taken to ensure that unemployment crisis is not exacerbated when combating inflation in the economy in the wake of dynamic trade relations.     

Promoting good governance in Africa: The role of the civil society as a watchdog

Corruption, maladministration, nepotism, and poor accountability have reached unprecedented levels within the African continent. Consequently, this has impeded the successful and adequate provision of public services and by extension, hampered socio‐economic development and good governance. Undeniably, the entrenchment of civil society is vital for democratic purposes and the consolidation of good governance. For the purpose of this study, Africa is regarded as a unitary entity composed of synchronized autonomous states and governments. As a result, a strict examination of available and relevant literature on the provision of civil society in Africa was applied (were a systematic review of literature irtes was undertaken). The study was able to comprehensively understand the dynamics, challenges, and benefits related to the increasing rate at which is participating in Africa's governance related issues and their overall impact. The study was also able to understand how civil society in Africa has contributed to promoting good governance. It is, however, apparent that the increasing involvement of civil society in governance issues relates to transparency, upholding the rule of law, human rights, and the fight against corruption inter alia. The study also uncovered that the increase in the participation of civil society organizations will have a positive impact on governance as they will have the capacity to act as watchdogs to ensure that governments are effective and serving the needs of the public. Going forward, it will be imperative for civil society to work hand in hand with democratically elected governments in not only fighting corruption and promoting good governance but to also ensure that there is a socio‐economic and by extension political development within the African continent.