A Statewide Study of the Public's Knowledge of Child Abuse Reporting Laws

This study conducted telephone interviews with a random sample of adults (N = 509) in a state with a universal child abuse reporting law. A substantial proportion of the interviewees (39%) were not aware of this law. Findings indicated that the public's understanding was mixed. Most respondents knew that reports could be made anonymously and that their identity could be kept private. However, most believed that children are automatically removed from the home if there is maltreatment and more than 50% were not aware they could be charged with a misdemeanor for failing to report a suspicion of child abuse. The respondents who had ever made a report (19%), had a greater knowledge of the laws than those who had not made a report. Older adults and those with less education had the least accurate perception of child abuse reporting policies. When asked about barriers to reporting, respondents cited worries that reporting would not help the child. Findings suggest that efforts to increase the public's comfort with reporting may require strategies to increase their confidence that the benefits will outweigh the risks for the child.     

Reviews

Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Harvard University Press) Cambridge, MA, 1995.

Katie Holmes, Spaces in Her Day: Australian Women's Diaries 1920s‐1930s (Allen & Unwin) St Leonards, NSW, 1995.

Ros Pesman, Duty Free: Australian Women Abroad (Oxford University Press) Melbourne, 1996.

Frances Porter and Charlotte Macdonald (eds), ’My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates’ (Auckland University Press with Bridget Williams Books) Auckland, 1996.

Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: English Feminism & Sexual Morality 1885–1914 (Penguin) Harmondsworth, 1995.

Margaret Thornton, Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession (Oxford University Press) Melbourne, 1996.

Diane Bell and Renate Klein (eds), Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed (Spinifex Press) North Melbourne, 1996.

Rye Senjen and Jane Guthrey, The Internet for Women (Spinifex Press) North Melbourne, 1996.     

Police Charging Decisions in Child Maltreatment Investigations: Findings from the 2008 Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect

The objective of this study was to use logistic regression and examine factors that influence charging decisions by the police during child maltreatment investigations. An estimated 4,808 substantiated child maltreatment investigations that involved police were obtained from the 2008 Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. Of the 4,808 cases examined, police laid charges in about one-third of the cases. Controlling for all other factors, police were 1.6 times more likely to lay charges in physical abuse cases and 2.5 times more likely to lay charges in sexual abuse cases. Other factors associated with police charging decisions include: older victim, cases with multiple types of maltreatment, cases opened for ongoing services, and cases of the child living in a house known to have drugs or household hazards. The article discusses the results and their implications for child welfare policy and practice.     

The Timeline Followback Interview to Assess Children’s Exposure to Partner Violence: Reliability and Validity

This study evaluated psychometric properties of the Timeline Followback interview—Children’s Exposure to Partner Violence (TLFB-CEPV), an event history calendar interview designed to assess children’s exposure to daily patterns of intimate partner violence. Participants were men (N = 107) entering batterer’s treatment, their female partners, and a custodial child (6–16 years). The TLFB-CEPV asked about days of partner physical aggression and children’s exposure to these episodes, and was administered to partners at pretreatment, posttreatment, 6 and 12 months. At each assessment, the percentage of days of any child exposure (PAE) and of children’s direct exposure (PDE) to violence were calculated. Parents completed measures of partner aggression and social desirability; parents, teachers, and children completed measures of children’s adjustment. TLFB-CEPV scores had excellent temporal stability and strong evidence of concurrent, discriminant, and criterion validity. Interrater agreement for TLFB-CEPV scores was moderate at initial assessment, but high at subsequent follow-up interviews. This project was supported, in part, by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA12189, Fals-Stewart), the Alpha Foundation, and Old Dominion University.     

‘New managerialism’ in the news: media coverage of quangos in Britain

This paper presents findings from the first systematic appraisal of mainstream news reporting of the appointive government in Britain. Such a perspective is urgently needed in the light of the expanded role and influence of ‘Quasi‐Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations’ in public affairs. This paper provides an overview of long‐term trends in media reporting of general principles of quasi‐government and an examination of the routine coverage of public bodies that can be classified as quangos. These related exercises show that the ‘new managerialist’ ethos that fuelled the recent expansion of the appointive state finds little endorsement in general media discourses about the quango state, but is often implicitly reflected in journalists' treatment of specific organisations and their work. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Rough Terrain: Spatial Variation in Campaign Contributing and Volunteerism

We examine spatial patterns of mass political participation in the form of volunteering and donating to a major statewide election campaign. While these forms of participation are predictably associated with the political and socioeconomic characteristics of the precincts in which the participants reside, we find that these statistical relationships are spatially nonstationary. High-income neighborhoods, for example, are associated with stronger effects on participation at some locations more than at others. By using geographically weighted regression (GWR) to specify local regression parameters, we are able to capture the heterogeneity of contextual processes that generate the geographically uneven flow of volunteers and contributors into a political campaign. Since spatial nonstationarity may well be a rule rather than an exception in the study of many political phenomena, social scientific analyses should be mindful that relationships may vary by location.