Aggression and rule-breaking: Heritability and stability of antisocial behavior problems in childhood and adolescence

Purpose

This twin study examined the structure of genetic and environmental influences on aggression and rule-breaking in order to examine change and stability across the span of childhood to mid-adolescence.

Methods

Behavioral assessments were conducted at two time points: age 9–10 years and 14–15 years. Using behavioral genetics biometric modeling, the longitudinal structure of influences was investigated.

Results

Aggression and rule-breaking were found to be influenced by a latent common factor of antisocial behavior (ASB) within each wave of data collection. The variance in the childhood-age common factor of ASB was influenced by 41% genetics, 40% shared environment and 19% nonshared environment. In adolescence, 41% of variance in the common factor were novel and entirely genetic, while the remainder of variance was stable across time. Additionally, both aggression and rule-breaking within each wave were found to have unique influences not common across subscales or across waves, highlighting specificity of genetic and environmental effects on different problem behaviors at both ages.

Conclusions

This research sheds light on the commonality of influences on different forms of antisocial behavior. Future research into interventions for antisocial behavior problems in youth could focus on adolescence-specific environmental influences.     

The Significance of Shame in the Lives of Women Who Experience Male Violence

Recently there has been recognition of the cultural politics of emotion, that is, the ways in which emotions impact upon individual life experiences. Significantly, it has been shown how emotions can produce effects of power on and through the bodies of individuals. Despite this knowledge, the law and legal responses tend to minimise, obscure and deny the ways in which emotions, and in particular shame, impacts upon individuals. This article therefore argues that the lives of women who experience male violence cannot be fully understood without reference to the ways in which shame affects those experiences. It explores how shame operates as a gendered set of self-regulatory practices, which are also practices of male power in individual womens’ lives. In order to do this findings from a small scale qualitative study which used semi-structured interviews with women who have experienced violence are utilised, together with a Foucauldian theoretical framework. The article contends that an awareness and understanding of how shame affects the lives of women experience male violence can improve law and social policy responses to male violence against women.     

Exploring how teenage boys are constructed in relation to parent abuse

Historically, the impact of domestic violence on children and young people has been relatively neglected in comparison to its effects upon adult women. Recently however, there has been increasing awareness of its effects upon this vulnerable group, with a recognition that they can and are profoundly affected by domestic violence (Hester et al., 2007). This growing awareness has been part of a broader trend of increased understanding of the many forms which domestic violence can take and its effects.     

Decision Making in a Hybrid Organization: A Case Study of a Southwestern Drug Court Treatment Program

This article presents a case study of decision making in a drug court located the southwestern United States. This study seeks to fill a gap in research on decision making by attending to the ways that drug court officials navigate the demands of a court that is dedicated to both therapy and criminal justice. This analysis differs from previous research by viewing the drug court as a “hybrid organization” and asking how the staff members interact in the decision‐making process. Additionally, this research provides an opportunity to investigate the concerns over collaborative decision making raised by critics. The data from this case study reveal that as a hybrid organization, the drug court staff often divides along institutional lines by allowing the counseling staff to manage treatment and the judge to manage punishment. When tensions arise, they are resolved by the structure of the court, which is hierarchical rather than collaborative.     

Twilight of impunity for Africa's presidential criminals

This article tracks the fate of six former African tyrants all accused of crimes against humanity: Charles Taylor; Mengistu Haile Mariam; Hissène Habré; Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Seko and Jean‐Bédel Bokassa. It examines the politics that have determined their fate and finds that, despite changes in international law and opinion since the Cold War, impunity still prevails. Western governments are still willing to trump justice with politics; and African presidents still offer solidarity to club members. For recent tyrants, life is only a little more difficult than it was for older ones. Yet their future may be tougher as the globalisation of justice begins to bite. None will be comfortable with the powers granted the International Criminal Court; nor with western disregard of state sovereignty as it targets heads of government still in office who are deemed guilty of international crime. Even the new African Union has abandoned the doctrine of non‐interference.     

Insuring morality

This article describes and compares two forms of moral regulation employed in connection with insurance institutions. The first governs through moralized personal attributes or pressures like 'temptation' and 'character'. The second governs through moralized institutional or system attributes and processes described in terms of 'efficiency'. The article traces these forms of moral regulation from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, arguing that both continue to inform popular and specialized discourses of risk.