Violent Life Events and Social Disadvantage: A Systematic Study of the Social Background of Various Kinds of Lethal Violence,Other Violent Crime,Suicide, and Suicide Attempts1

ABSTRACT

Open sanctions and changes in conceptions of rehabilitation are changing qualification requirements in the field of prison and probation services. In particular, the significance of social interaction between employees and offenders has emphasized. This study examines this issue from the viewpoints of social constructionism and discourse analysis. Research material was collected by interviewing 11 Finnish Criminal Sanction Agency employees who prepared and enforced supervised probationary freedom. According to the results, social interaction was structured from different points of view and linked to differently constructed identities in the interviewees’ speech. Professional interaction and a confidential employee–offender relationship were viewed as a means to create occupational safety and prevent security risks, and also to support offender’s rehabilitation. In addition, employees used a discourse of daily interaction and support which emphasized the significance of everyday encounters with the offender. Employees were able to overcome the tension between support and control by flexibly combining the discourse of supervision with the discourse of daily interaction and support, which enabled them to support the offender without being a rehabilitation professional. The study reveals the central role of social interaction, which creates challenges for education, and the development of an organizational culture in prison and probation services.     

PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM SEX OFFENDERS: HAVE WE GONE TOO FAR?

On July 27, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. This federal statute was created to serve as a tougher, more modern improvement of its predecessor in the ongoing effort to protect children from dangerous sexual predators. However, the Act did not amend the controversial federal mandate that all 50 states include the crimes of kidnapping and false imprisonment against a minor, committed by a nonparent, and without any sexual motivation or misconduct, as a crime requiring a wrongdoer to register as a sex offender. This Note demonstrates how the kidnapping and false imprisonment requirements of the Adam Walsh Act have led to a misuse of state sex offender registries to the detriment of the children they claim to protect. The solution that this Note proposes will provide each individual state with the freedom to decide how, if at all, these contentious offenses will fit into its sex offender registry, taking into consideration the state's unique statutory language, available child protective resources, and constitutional limitations. As a result, petty criminals who do not pose any real or specific threat to children will no longer be grouped with the most dangerous and violent sexual predators, child protective funds will be better utilized, and the public's attention will be refocused on the real threats to children, thereby satisfying the spirit and purpose of the Adam Walsh Act.     

和谐警民关系视野下的“杭州飙车撞人事件”分析——一个危机传播的视角

在和谐警民关系视野下,“危机”和“危机传播”是绕不开的议题。依据危机传播的立场与价值观进行判断,杭州警方在处理2009年5月7日发生的飙车撞人事件中存在明显缺陷,主要体现在：对外发布信息内容不足、组织发言人选择不当、从公众利益和民意的角度处理危机力度不够。结合危机传播的意义、原则和基本观念分析,公安机关在危机中应保持开放性、快速反应、加强与传媒沟通、正确落实新闻发言人制度、坚持公众利益至上。     

Depressed but not legally mentally impaired

This article examines the mental impairment (insanity) defense in the Australian state of Victoria and argues that the defense is successful only when offenders suffer from psychotic mental illnesses. This raises the question about how non-psychotic offenders are dealt with by the courts when they claim ‘mental impairment’ for serious acts of violence such as homicide, particularly when a relatively large number of perpetrators involved in homicide suffer from non-psychotic illnesses like depression. The analysis shows that depressive illnesses do not reach the threshold for mental impairment (legal insanity) such that they mitigate violent criminal behavior, although they can, arguably, diminish culpability. This article draws upon existing literature, qualitative analysis of two court cases and semi-structured interviews with four legal representatives to make its conclusions.     

What factors increase the probability of Chinese interventions in intrastate wars?

This study examines the question: What are the factors that increase the probability of Chinese interference in intrastate wars? Chinese behaviour concerning intrastate wars was examined using multivariate logistic regressions. The analyses included the general behaviour of China regarding interference in intrastate wars, Chinese support of violent non-governmental organizations and of state governments. Both were also studied separately for the Cold War and the post-Cold War eras. Among the covariates that were examined, several emerged as possible explanations for China's behaviour: geographic contiguity, adversary regime type, and China's relative military capabilities. Furthermore, differences were found between Chinese support of violent non-governmental organizations and of governments in intrastate wars. Different results were also obtained for Cold War and post-Cold War eras.     

Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis

This article presents conceptual and empirical analyses of several of the “best practices” of learning and instruction, and demonstrates how violent video games use them effectively to motivate learners to persevere in acquiring and mastering a number of skills, to navigate through complex problems and changing environments, and to experiment with different identities until success is achieved. These educational principles allow for the generation of several testable hypotheses, two of which are tested with samples of 430 elementary school children (mean age 10 years), 607 young adolescents (mean age 14 years), and 1,441 older adolescents (mean age 19 years). Participants were surveyed about their video game habits and their aggressive cognitions and behaviors. The first hypothesis is based on the principle that curricula that teach the same underlying concepts across contexts should have the highest transfer. Therefore, students who play multiple violent video games should be more likely to learn aggressive cognitions and behaviors than those who play fewer. The second hypothesis is based on the principle that long-term learning is improved the more practice is distributed across time. Therefore, students who play violent video games more frequently across time should be more likely to learn aggressive cognitions and behaviors than those who play the same types of games for equivalent amounts of time but less frequently. Both hypotheses were supported. We conclude by describing what educators can learn from the successful instructional and curriculum design features of video games.

The violent reconvictions of sexual offenders

The violent reconvictions of a sample of sexual offenders discharged from prison between 1992 and 1996 (who had not been reconvicted of a sexual offence) were examined. The hypothesis was that a proportion of these violent reconvictions would have a sexual motivation. The sample consisted of 104 adult male sexual offenders for whom detailed information regarding their violent reconviction was available. The sample was categorized according to the motivation of the violent reconviction. It was found that a proportion of the violent reconvictions were sexually motivated (12%) and that some of these had resulted from an original charge for a sexual offence. Significant differences were found between the sexual motivation and violent motivation group on the number of criminal history and victim characteristic variables. It was concluded that, in the case of sexual offenders, violent convictions might mask the true motivation of the offence.     

Homicide Trends in Finland and Estonia in 1880–1940: Consequences of the Demographic,Social and Political Effects of Industrialization

While in western Europe and Scandinavia homicide rates reached their all time low during the period of industrialization, in Finland and Estonia they increased considerably. The rapid growth of criminal violence during the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s in these two countries seems to have been the result of interaction of several factors, partly non-simultaneous and unrelated. They do not seem to have been identical either, although the underlying equation was the same: the quick social and economic change following industrialization, and the modernisation of agriculture, the pressures it put especially on the youth in the form of uncertain prospects for the future and a new competition-oriented set of values, connected with the authoritarian political system of Russian Empire, which prevented necessary political reforms and left behind a legacy of social thinking idealizing violence as a political and social instrument. A legacy, which affected large parts of Finnish and Estonian population still for years after the czarist system itself already passed into history. The criminal violence arisen from the equation, however, had quite a different face on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland from that on the southern one. In Finland the violence was centered in the new forest industrial communities, in Estonia again among the landless population of the countryside.     

Testosterone reactivity and identification with a perpetrator or a victim in a story are associated with attraction to violence-related cues

Background

Recent field research has demonstrated that an attraction to aggressive behavior and cruelty is common among combatants and perpetrators involved in organized violence. The biological basis of this appetitive perception of aggression in humans has to date not been studied.

Aims

We examined testosterone as a potential hormonal moderator during induction of specifically appetitive aggressive behavior in the laboratory.

Method

To activate physiological responding related to appetitive aggression, 145 university students (72 women) listened to tape recordings of variants of a violent story. The perspective of the listener in the story was randomized between subjects. Participants were required to either identify as perpetrator, neutral observer, or victim. We assessed changes in saliva testosterone in response to the story. Subsequently, a series of pictorial stimuli (IAPS) with different valence ratings was presented and participants determined the length of viewing time with a button click. This viewing time for negative IAPS was assessed as a dependent variable indicating level of interest in violent scenes.

Results

Men identified themselves with the perpetrator more than women irrespective of the particular perspective presented by the story. Men who responded with an increase in saliva testosterone when adopting the perpetrator perspective chose to view the negative IAPS pictures for longer intervals than participants in other conditions or those who did not exhibit a release in testosterone.

Conclusions

Testosterone moderates attraction to cruel and violent cues in men, as indicated by extended deliberate viewing of violence cues.     

当前我国暴力恐怖犯罪的处置与预防

随着全球恐怖主义活动的逐渐升温,新疆分裂主义乘机在我国连续制造了多起严重暴力恐怖袭击案件,云南昆明"3.1"事件是继2013年10月28日北京"金水桥"事件之后的又一起恐怖分子在疆外实施的暴力恐怖袭击案件,我国面临着严峻的暴力恐怖主义犯罪威胁。从当前恐怖主义犯罪的主要特征来看,虽然我国暴力恐怖主义犯罪保持在恐怖主义犯罪的初级阶段,但恐怖犯罪从局部性、区域性逐渐向全国蔓延和外流的趋势明显,并伴有手段多样化和残忍程度升级等特点,暴力恐怖犯罪的多发使得社会各界包括公安机关不得不重新思考如何更好地应对与处置之。本文通过对我国现存的暴力恐怖犯罪的现状剖析,提出了与之相对应的处置对策,供实务部门参考借鉴。