Examining the effectiveness of a UK community-based sexual offender treatment programme for child abusers

Abstract

An analysis of psychometric data from a sample of 341 UK child abusers who had completed a probation-based sex offender treatment programme was carried out in order to assess the effectiveness of therapeutic treatment. A cluster analysis was also undertaken to examine the pattern of pre-treatment problems. Three clusters of offenders, with distinctly different psychometric profiles, were identified depending upon the number and extent of their offence-specific and social adequacy problems. These were labelled Low need, Medium need and High need. Pre–post analyses revealed clinically significant treatment effects for the entire sample, with differing effects found across the clusters as follows: 50–81% of the Low need group scored within the cut-off (or normative range) at the post stage, while between 3% and 26% had shifted to a clinically significant degree; 34–75% of the Medium need group scored within the cut-off range after treatment, while between 9% and 100% had shifted to a clinically significant degree; 16–52% of the High need sample scored within the cut-off at the post-treatment stage, and between 15% and 80% had shifted to a clinically significant degree.     

Beyond Rational Choice: the Hot/Cool Perspective of Criminal Decision Making

This paper proposes a general framework of criminal decision making that assumes both ‘cool’ cognition and ‘hot’ affect, i.e. feelings, to influence criminal choice. Drawing from judgment and decision making research and social psychology, the hot/cool perspective extends rational choice and deterrence theories by explaining how affect is likely to influence criminal decisions alongside cognitive considerations, such as the perceived costs and benefits of crime. It is shown how the hot/cool perspective offers a more realistic account of criminal decision making processes than existing decision models and approaches and also allows for the explanation of criminal behaviors that are difficult to explain in terms of rational choice.     

Fertility and migration in the heart of the industrial revolution

Using research into the formation of industrial populations in the nineteenth century, this article examines the relationships between immigration and natality in Tilleur, an exemplary locality for studying the industrial revolution in Belgium. The main purpose is to test the general hypothesis positing a distinction between a foundation phase and a maturation phase in the process through which an industrial population is formed. The results are a contribution to the debate about the beginning of the fertility transition in industrial cities, and its relations to differential nuptiality and fertility in light of spatial origins.     

Costly,Regressive, and Ineffective: How Sensitive Is Public Support for the Mortgage Interest Deduction in the United States?

ABSTRACT

Although the mortgage interest deduction enjoys broad public support, critics argue that the policy disproportionately benefits wealthy households, fails to expand homeownership opportunities to households on the margins, and costs the federal government an extraordinary amount of money in foregone tax revenue. Drawing on data collected through an online experiment, this analysis tests the sensitivity of public support to these critiques. The findings reveal that support for the mortgage interest deduction declines when respondents are presented with information about the cost, effectiveness, or distribution of benefits associated with the deduction. Support among renters is more sensitive to framing effects than that among homeowners. Republicans are less sensitive to framing effects than Democrats when the deduction is framed as distributing benefits unequally, but more sensitive to these effects when the issue is framed as costly. However, all groups register their lowest level of support when told that the mortgage interest deduction is not an effective tool for expanding ownership opportunities.     

Collective and Private Resources and the Inequalities of Non-violent Political Protest in European Countries

Abstract

Political participation is deemed to be a fundamental component of democratic regimes. The literature on political participation has shown that some social groups of citizens tend to be less involved in politics than other social groups, and the consequence is that the interests of these specific groups of less involved citizens are underrepresented in the political process. Given the increasing popularity of non-violent protest in contemporary democracies, it is important to understand whether political inequalities are present in this form of political engagement. In this article, we argue that non-violent protest may present inequalities, that examining the consequences of public social spending can help in understanding the cross-national differences in the levels of non-violent political protest, and that political inequalities in non-violent protest may vary according to public social spending. We test our argument using sources that include the European Values Study (1980–2009), multilevel models, and contextual data provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.     

Economic models as devices of policy change: Policy paradigms,paradigm shift,and performativity

Can the emergence of a new policy model be a catalyst for a paradigm shift in the overall interpretative framework of how economic policy is conducted within a society? This paper claims that models are understudied as devices used by actors to induce policy change. This paper explores the role of models in Danish economic policy, where, from the 1970s onwards, executive public servants in this area have exclusively been specialists in model design. To understand changes in economic policy, this paper starts with a discussion of whether the notion of paradigm shift is adequate. It then examines the extent to which the performativity approach can help identify macroscopic changes in policy from seemingly microscopic changes in policy models. The concept of performativity is explored as a means of thinking about the constitution of agency directed at policy change. The paper brings this concept into play by arguing that the “performative” embedding of models in institutions is an important aspect of how paradigm shifts unfold that the current literature has neglected.     

互联网电视商业模式的著作权困境与反思

互联网电视刚面世就遭遇了不断的知识产权纠纷,其商业模式的性质各不相同,并引发了不同的侵权行为。利益平衡是知识产权法的基础性原则,司法实践中法院应当按照利益平衡的要求做出合理的判决。为了促进互联网电视制造商和著作权人之间利益的平衡,满足公众的合理需要,应理性地寻求维系利益平衡的作品管理机制和新的商业模式。     

Structural Convergence in Manufacturing Industries between Leaders and Latecomers

This article uses cross-country panel data on three-digit manufacturing to test for progressive structural convergence in industrial output mix between industrialising and industrialised economies. Regressions based on Logistic and Almost-Ideal models show that industrial deepening entails share losses for light and selected heavy manufacturing, and share gains for engineering and consumer durables. While semi-industrial economies manage to shift into petrochemical and engineering industries, the least industrialised nurture a broad spectrum of non-traditional manufacturing. Diversity in factor endowments and policy notwithstanding, growing similarity in demand and technological diffusion appear to produce weak convergence of industrial structures between developing and developed countries.     

Intramedia Mediation: The Cumulative and Complementary Effects of News Media Use

This study focuses on one often overlooked political communication-based media effect, intramedia mediation, and the indirect effects that stem from relationships that exist among various forms of media use. Data from a 2000 national Annenberg election panel survey are used to assess a series of relationships between television and newspaper public affairs use and how these forms of media consumption affect citizens' knowledge of presidential campaign endorsements. The indirect effects that stem from the relationships that exist among these two forms of media use reflect the cumulative and complementary functions of mass communication consumption across time. An analysis of intramedia mediation in coordination with the study of the direct effects of public affairs media use on this study's outcome variable produces substantially larger overall effects for both forms of news use. Thus, the study of intramedia mediation contributes to a better understanding of the full range of media influences on a given outcome variable over the course of a political campaign. Ramifications of these findings are outlined and future lines of research summarized.     

Briefly Noted

The argument is commonly made that television has changed the character of parliamentary elections. Its ever more central role in election campaigns outside the United States is held to have “presidentialized” parliamentary elections because it is a medium that projects personalities more effectively than ideas or policies. A comparison of the electoral roles of the Australian prime minister and the U.S. president indicates that both leaders are held personally accountable for government performance. However, such “presidentialism” appears to have little to do with television in Australia or in the United States. Television‐dependent citizens in both countries are less susceptible to the campaign appeals of chief executives than the rest of the voting public. Both leaders, but especially the president, do have an electoral impact. Counter to expectations, however, this impact makes itself felt in both cases among those voters who are not dependent on television for their political information and cues. Party identification seems to insulate the television‐dependent more successfully against leader effects.