Connecting restorative justice with gender-responsive programming

Despite the encouraging results of public opinion assessments on restorative justice, people are not likely to spontaneously suggest restorative measures after a crime. Restorative justice thus seems in need of a public relations strategy. This paper discusses the strategy labeling victims as the universal remedy to promote restorative justice, and the proposal of promoting restorative justice through the media by foregrounding crime victims in media reports on crime. This strategy stems from a belief that the most appealing aspect of restorative justice to the public is its thoughtfulness to victims. However, I will argue that there are three problems with this approach. These concern: (1) the victim’s position in both restorative justice theory and practice; (2) the characteristics of media reporting on crime in general and victims in particular; and (3) the risk of attaining a result opposite to the initial objective (i.e. increasing punitive attitudes instead of promoting restorative justice).     

Cultural Policy and Values: Intrinsic versus Instrumental? The Case of Romania

This article addresses cultural policy in post-Communist Romania, focusing on the justifications for support of culture and the arts. The objectives are to clarify values legitimizing public support and to determine their effect on the meaning and impact of cultural policy. The author argues that justifications of public funding—instrumental or intrinsic—depend on how successive governments represent the roles conferred to culture and the arts, as well as on the particular ideas of culture and art they promote. Policy discourse after 1989 has been characterized by its nourishment of a persistent instrumental ideology that gradually connected to the international debate and has been dominated by a traditional, narrow conception of culture and art, which conflicts with a modern conception. Until recently, the fluctuations and conflicts between different values and ideas of culture and art have worked to constrain cultural policy, disrupting its implementation and altering its effects.     

Understanding Victim Support as Crime Prevention Work: The Construction of Young Victims and Villains in the Dominant Crime Victim Discourse in Sweden

Starting from the observation that a new victim category has emerged in the form of the ‘young crime victim’, this article explores the notion of support to young crime victims as crime prevention work, considering it as an important constituent of the dominant crime victim discourse among support professionals. In the context of the support work, the (young) ‘victim’ and the (young) ‘villain’ provide mutually necessary counterparts constructed in relation to each other. Corresponding to this division, two approaches in criminal and crime prevention policy and practice are then analysed using Garland's notions of ‘the criminology of the self’ and ‘the criminology of the other’. The first of these strategies is generally associated with rehabilitative measures (with the resulting normalization of the crime, its victims, and villains), while in the second punitive measures remain the norm (with the crime, its victims, and villains becoming ‘Otherized’). Yet, as shown within the context of rehabilitation organized as support to young crime victims, both of these (at first glance mutually contradictory) discourses are drawn upon and operationalized by the professional support staff constructing images of young victims and villains in their daily work. Help-seeking youths resistant to identifying as victims remain represented as (possible future) villains.     

高职毕业生创办微小企业的立体支持体系构建

我国每年的高职毕业生中,选择自主创业的人数占总毕业生人数的比例较少,并且创业成功率较低。导致高职学生创业率低和创业成功率低的原因较为复杂,亟须构建包括高职院校、政府、社会、高职学生在内的创办微小企业的立体支持体系。     

Steven Chaffee and the Future of Political Communication Research

This article discusses four basic characteristics of Steven Chaffee's research: going beyond the "common research wisdom," careful explication of concepts, avoiding unsubstantiated charges against the media, and investigation of the social aspects of communication. The evolution of political socialization research is used as an example of how these characteristics have strengthened Chaffee's contribution to that area and to the larger field of political communication. It is argued that the future of this field would benefit from emulation of these characteristics. Continuing problems of political communication research are noted, and various emerging problems are discussed.     

International support for action on climate change and democracy: exploring complementarities

International support for democracy and climate action (mitigation; adaptation; addressing climate loss and restoring damage) are two distinct spheres: motivations, purposes, activities and the relevant literatures exist independently of one another. This article challenges this separation by investigating the scope for policy complementarities that potentially could further both democracy support’s objectives and climate action. Findings that address possible future scenarios where global warming exceeds safe limits or where democracy and democratisation are threatened by climate change impacts are worth exploring. The article’s provisional findings are mixed but provide grounds for believing that democracy support and democratisation potentially could gain from taking support for climate action into consideration and that climate action might benefit too.     

Public support for democracy in hong kong

Hong Kong witnessed a large-scale public rally and extensive support for democracy in mid-2003. This article explains the support by means of variables extracted from cultural, instrumental and sociological approaches. Drawn from the cultural approach, ‘post-materialistic activism’ and low levels of ‘respect for authority’ are found to be most powerful in explaining mass support, among all explanatory variables. Since culture seldom changes overnight, popular support for democracy may be sustained in the short and medium term. The calculation of the economic consequences for democracy, a variable drawn from the instrumental approach, has no effect on mass support. Thus, any attempt to suppress popular demand for democracy by offering economic sweeteners alone may prove futile. The most important instrumental factor among the public is ‘their confidence in political parties’. Whether pan-democratic parties can elevate such confidence becomes pivotal to boosting and sustaining this support. The lack of relatively stronger support among the younger and more educated stratum of people in Hong Kong does not bode well for prospects of increased mass support in the future. Finally, the article offers a small footnote on the implications for the ‘Asian values’ debate.     

从无锡尚德破产看政府对企业扶持应当注意的问题

大多数文章认为无锡政府的扶持和支持在无锡尚德的破产中起了重要的作用,但是考察尚德电力的发展过程以及与政府的关系,我们发现尚德的破产更多地是企业管理中的经营不善而造成的,政府的扶持和支持在这个过程中只起到了间接作用。这提醒政府在企业扶持中要注意扶持的出发点、扶持过程中应当严守企业和政府的界限、扶持的过程要遵守经济规律、扶持要注意市场变化、扶持不能把所有的资源都放在一家企业上。     

Two Ecological Models of Academic Achievement Among Diverse Students With and Without Disabilities in Transition

School experiences can have positive effects on student academic achievement, yet less is known about intermediary processes that contribute to these positive effects. We examined pathways between school experiences and academic achievement among 117 low-income urban students of color, many with disabilities, who transitioned to other schools following a school closure. Using structural equation modeling, we tested two ecological models that examined the relationships among self-reported school experiences, school support, academic self-efficacy, and school-reported academic achievement. The model in which the relationship between school experiences and academic achievement is mediated by both school support and academic self-efficacy, and that takes previous academic achievement into account, was an excellent fit with the data. The roles of contextual and individual factors as they relate to academic achievement, and the implications of these findings, are discussed.     

Stressful Life Experiences and Peer Externalizing Behaviors Mediate the Relation Between Reduced Family Support and Externalizing Symptoms in Low-Income Urban Youth

Family support, urban stressors, and peer behavior were examined in relation to externalizing symptoms in 605 predominantly low-income urban sixth through eighth grade adolescents. Mother and father support were each associated with lower levels of externalizing symptoms in both males and females. For males, father absence was associated with increased peer externalizing behavior and heightened rates of youth externalizing symptoms. Stress (in the form of major life events, daily hassles, and exposure to violence) and peer externalizing behavior were examined as mediators of the relation between parent support and youth externalizing symptoms. Increased stress exposure mediated the relation between weak mother and father support and youth externalizing symptoms. Additionally, for females, peer externalizing behavior mediated the relation between weak mother support and youth externalizing symptoms.