Examining the Reciprocal Nature of the Health-Violence Relationship: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample

The correlation between health and offending is typically regarded as the result of confounding factors such as socioeconomic status and drug use, with little consideration given to the plausibility of reciprocal effects. Using two waves of data collected on 14,738 adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a simultaneous structural equations modeling approach was used to determine whether there is a symbiotic relationship between health and violence. Findings indicate that minor health problems have delayed effects on violence and that involvement in violence also negatively affects future health. Discussion centers on this reciprocal relationship, implications for future research, and public health and delinquency prevention policy.     

The Acute and Enduring Consequences of Exposure to Violence on Youth Mental Health and Aggression

The bulk of “neighborhood effects” research examines the impact of neighborhood conditions cross-sectionally. However, it is critical to understand whether the effects of neighborhood context are situational and whether they endure over time. In this study, we take seriously the notion that there are enduring consequences of exposure to deleterious neighborhood conditions. Using a rich set of longitudinal data on adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we estimate the effect of exposure to violence on both internalizing (depression and anxiety) and externalizing problems (aggression). We find that exposure to violence has both an acute and enduring effect on aggression, yet no effect on anxiety-depression, net of individual, family, peer, and neighborhood influences. Part of the enduring effect of violence exposure is explained by changes in social cognitions brought on by the exposure, yet much of the relationship remains to be explained by other causal mechanisms.     

Static screening instruments for risk of minor and major violence

Background: Screens for violent convictions that are simple, accessible and parsimonious are needed, as a first stage in identifying those at high risk for further assessment. Aims: To construct and validate screening tools for minor and major violence convictions for released prisoners. Methods: Internal validation sample of 1647 serious offenders and an external validation of 46,704 general prisoners. The outcomes were binary indicators for having at least one conviction for minor and major violence. Risk factors were convictions for violence and age. Results: In the external validation sample, the instrument for risk of minor violence (PMIV) identified correctly 60.8% of male and 66.2% of female general prisoners. For risk of major violence, the instrument (PMAV) identified correctly 68.0% of male and 79.3% of female prisoners. Conclusions: The PMIV and PMAV will efficiently assist practitioners in a first stage of screening before in-depth clinical assessment of risk for future violent convictions.     

At the end of a fairy tale: romantic relationships in female juvenile offenders

This study explores romantic relationships among female juvenile offenders. The entire female population of a juvenile detention center at the moment of the study participated in a semi-structured interview. Using a semi-structured interview, the girls answered questions on four main topics: (a) available dating partners before entering the detention center; (b) dating partner preferences; (c) intimate relationships within the center; and (d) romantic relationships. A 34-item scale was also used to assess their dating partner preferences. Most girls depicted dysfunctional families and a reduced range of dating options, many involving male offenders. Most participants had also been precocious in their relationships and experienced victimization at the hands of their intimate partners. Implications to prevent female involvement with criminal and violent men are discussed.     

A dimension of private life in Wallachia: violence between parents and children (1830–1860)

Violence was present and had different forms in every family during nineteenth-century Wallachia, either rich or poor, in rural or urban areas. Remaining in the shadow, almost never discussed between its members or even in public, this social act shocked the penal courts when it reached a critical point. But, during the century, violence between parents and children knew a constant evolution, visible in normative texts and in any written evidence left behind by the contemporaries. Thus, violence became a dynamic element in defining childhood and parent–child relationships.     

Aggressive,Delinquent, and Violent Outcomes of School Bullying: Do Family and Individual Factors Have a Protective Function?

Bullying perpetration at school is a long-term predictor of aggression, delinquency, and violence. Most research concentrates on risk factors for such developments, whereas protective factors have been rarely addressed. Therefore, the present study investigates potentially protective effects of family and child characteristics in a prospective longitudinal design. The sample contained 519 youngsters (253 boys and 266 girls) from the Erlangen-Nuremberg Development and Prevention Study. Bullying perpetration was measured at age 9.0 years, mothers’ and children's reports on family and individual characteristics were collected at age 10.6, and outcomes in self-reported aggressive/violent offending and mother-reported aggressive and delinquent behavior were collected at age 13.7. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed main effects and interactions. The latter suggest buffering protective effects of consistent discipline in parenting and children's intelligence, positive attitude to school, prosocial behavior skills, low hyperactivity/inattention, and an anxious/depressive mood. The findings varied across the two outcome measures and with regard to gender. Implications for further research and prevention practice are discussed.     

论民间巫术信仰的符号象征

象征是人类的一种重要思维方式,特别是原始先民的一种重要思维方式.中国民间巫术中的符号象征,往往是通过作为符号的各种物体、事象、图像等来隐喻某种概念或某种思想感情,而且主要是运用图案、数字、色彩、方位等各种比较简单的符号来隐喻某种象征意义.     

Bodies in abolition: broken hearts and open wounds

This paper explores some of connections between bodies and slavery in the antislavery discourses of the late eighteenth and the early twenty-first centuries. It focuses on representations of violence and cruelty, and on the discourses of blood, sweat and tears in the eighteenth century to interrogate the bases of the humanitarianism discourses and what it meant to ‘compassionate’ the suffering of others. It argues that the connections between slavery, the body and citizenship lie in the socialization of sentience, the ‘complicated stings’ of social death and the idea of having a secure property in the person. Some of these connections were broken by the de-historicizing move towards focusing on the vulnerability of the slave and the power of the consumer. Using the slave sugar boycotts of 1791–1792 as a particular example, the paper argues that these more complicated stories are ‘leached out’ by discourses that treat slaves only as bodies, moralize consumption and rely on a neat split between public and private at the expense of a layered understanding of citizenship and empire, and of inequality, subordination, marginalization and social conflict. The article then traces some of the ways in which this emphasis on moralized consumption and disposable bodies resurfaces in current antislavery campaigns in the twenty-first century in the rhetoric of ethical consumption, risking the same ‘leaching out’ of political analysis, hollowing out our understanding of the link between slavery and citizenship.