Self-Reports of Traumatic Events in a Random Sample of Incarcerated Women

Abstract

As the number of incarcerated women increases, in-depth knowledge about women's life experiences is needed to direct treatment, pre-release planning, and supervision. This study describes the nature, scope, and socioeconomic correlates of traumatic life events in a random sample of 403 women entering a state correctional facility. Ninety-nine percent of the sample reported having experienced at least one traumatic life event; 81% experienced five or more. Reports of several experiences differed by age, race, and marital status. The most compelling findings were related to the experience of homelessness. Women who had been without a place to live for at least seven days were between 2.19 and 5.62 times more likely to have experienced 14 of 21 traumatic events. Most of these events were defined by interpersonal violence. Implications for correctional policy are discussed, particularly the potential for incarceration to replicate or ameliorate symptoms of traumatic stress through the structure and routine of the prison environment.     

Adapting Critical Incident Stress Management to the Schools

Abstract

The need for school-appropriate applications of critical incident stress management (CISM) is noted in the literature on school crisis response. This paper presents preliminary data suggesting a School Crisis Response Team's (SCRT) usage and team needs. The SCRT was dispatched for a variety of critical incidents. Self-dispatch, followed by dispatches from Student Support Services, and a central Team Dispatcher accounted for the most frequent modes of mobilization. Team members dispatched centrally were more likely to be offered and to use post-incident team support services than were those who were self-dispatched. The paper also describes protocol changes with community partners and the evolving role of the school-based SCRT consultant.     

‘It’s Not OK’, but ‘It’ never happened: parental alienation accusations undermine children’s safety in the New Zealand Family Court

ABSTRACT

While the public campaign slogan in New Zealand when referring to family violence, is ‘It’s Not OK’, many women in New Zealand report that the Family Court prefers the catchphrase ‘It never happened’. When women and children escaping violence and abuse reach out to the New Zealand Family Court for protection believing the justice system will help them, they often enter an alternative reality where they are not believed and are subsequently made less safe. This is particularly so for those women whose well-founded fears for their children’s safety get reinterpreted as evidence of a deliberate attempt to alienate the children from their fathers. The Backbone Collective, an independent organisation, surveyed New Zealand women about their experiences in the Family Court, finding that many women reported being accused of parental alienation. This paper investigates the sources of these allegations of parental alienation and how they impact mothers and their children. We argue that the use of parental alienation in the New Zealand Family Court is undermining the international rights of children.     

Gun Carrying and Gun Victimization Among American Adolescents: A Fresh Look at a Nationally Representative Sample

A scant literature has identified gun carrying as a potential risk factor for victimization at the individual level. To date, however, research has generally focused on high-risk individuals rather than samples drawn from the general population. Additionally, prior studies have not often enough included controls robust enough to feel strongly that the relationship between gun carrying and victimization, gun victimization in particular, is not simply the spurious outcome of factors that influence both variables. The current study uses data from Add Health participants (N = 13,568) to look at the effect of gun carrying on gun victimization among adolescents. Results suggest that even when robust controls are considered, a measure of gun carrying significantly and positively correlates with gun victimization. The results support a model of the gun carrying-gun victimization relationship wherein gun carrying increases risks for gun victimization independent of factors that may influence both risky behaviors and victimization. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.     

Prédation et violence au Mali: élites statutaires peules et logiques de domination dans la région de Mopti

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article analyse la construction historique des tensions politiques dans la région de Mopti en insistant sur les dynamiques conflictuelles qui s’articulent autour de la hiérarchie entre groupes statutaires peuls et les transformations de l’économie politique du monde rural. La formation de groupes armés à vocation religieuse, aux contours flous, a notamment permis d’inverser les rapports de forces avec certaines élites locales, désormais moins capables d’imposer leur autorité. Par ailleurs, l’article montre le blocage de la représentation démocratique inapte à apaiser les tensions. Les élites peules issues des groupes statutaires dominants ont su se redéployer dans la nouvelle arène électorale depuis la mise en place du processus de démocratisation initié dans les années 1990 et ainsi prendre contrôle des postes électifs, souvent au détriment des catégories subalternes. Enfin, l’article montre que le rôle de l’État dans la région est largement perçu de manière négative.     

国家干预家庭暴力的限度研究

鉴于家庭自治的局限性和私权与公共利益保护的迫切需要,国家干预家庭暴力有其必要性和正当性。目前国家干预家庭暴力的态度积极,但是部分干预方式差强人意。国家干预家庭暴力必须保证婚姻家庭内部规则的有效运行,应当秉承切忌法律万能论、尊重家庭自治和适当注意的基本原则,其具体干预方式包括但不限于维持家庭内部秩序、建立家庭自治的约束机制和适当增加强制性措施等。作为国家干预家庭暴力的典型例证,《反家庭暴力法》必须尊重家庭内部规则,建立家庭自治的约束机制,确保国家干预家庭暴力的适时性和有限性,这是《反家庭暴力法》有效运行的基本途径。     

Gendering the border effect: the double impact of Colombian insecurity and the Venezuelan refugee crisis

Abstract

In the Colombian–Venezuelan borderlands, the reconfiguration of armed group presence and mass migration create and reinforce conditions of high violence and risk. Against this backdrop, we ask: What are the gendered security implications of the double crisis in the borderlands? Based on fieldwork in four regions along the border, this article argues that the border effect is gendered; the very factors that coalesce to produce this effect exacerbate existing gendered power dynamics, particularly as these relate to gender-based violence. Accordingly, this article demonstrates the specific ways in which the border – as a facilitator, deterrent, magnet and/or disguise – reinforces experiences of gendered insecurity in this region. The article finishes by outlining the implications for other international borderland settings.     

The subversive potential of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘defamiliarisation’: a case study in drawing on the imagination to denounce violence

ABSTRACT

In his later years, Leo Tolstoy wrote numerous books, essays and pamphlets expounding his newly-articulated denunciations of all political violence, whether by dissidents or ostensibly legitimate states. If these writings have inspired many later pacifists and anarchists, it is partly thanks to his masterful deployment of the literary technique of ‘defamiliarisation’ – or looking at the familiar as if new – to shake readers into recognising the absurdity of common justifications of violence, admitting their implicit complicity in it, and noticing the process which numbed them into accepting such complicity. This paper discusses Tolstoy’s use of the imagination to defamiliarise and denounce violence, first by citing several typical examples, then by reflecting on four of its subversive characteristics: its disruption of automated perception, its implicit concession of some recognition, its corrosion of conventional respect for traditional hierarchies, and its encouragement of empathy.     

Fighting terrorism with nonviolence: an ideological perspective

ABSTRACT

This article explores the potential of using nonviolence as a counter-ideology against terrorism. I analyse the current scholarship on nonviolence and terrorism, highlighting that terrorist ideology is crucial but is not directly addressed by nonviolent scholars. I outline a different approach to nonviolence, one which interprets the latter as an ideology of praxis centred on the interrelatedness of life, freedom and plurality. This ideology shares with terrorist ideologies the emphasis on action and conflict to overcome a grievance, but it offers a completely different path centred on diverse citizenship, building alternative social mechanisms (going beyond the focus on institutions), and omnicracy.     

Analizando la violencia después del conflicto: el caso de Guatemala en un estudio sub-nacional

This article conceptualizes post-conflict violence by developing its definition, analyzing the factors which can explain it and constructing a typology of eight forms of violence. A central concern of this analysis is that there are different degrees of relation between the violence of conflicts and post-conflict violence given that some forms are fully related, while others are only partially related, and still others are completely independent of armed conflict. While general conditions of peace define post-conflict violence in a weak sense, direct legacies of war define post-conflict violence in a strong sense. The Guatemalan case study allows to identify patterns related to each form of violence at a sub-national level of analysis.