Psychological distress and severity of personality disorder symptomatology in prisoners convicted of violent and sexual offences

Abstract

Background: There have been recent proposals in England and Wales to develop services aimed at reducing the risk to the public posed by offenders with so-called “severe personality disorder”. The emphasis of the proposals is on risk. However, prisoners with personality disorder may have psychiatric treatment needs other than those purely relating to public protection. The aim of the study was to examine the association between severity of self reported personality disorder pathology and psychological distress in serious offenders.

Method: All male prisoners in two prisons, convicted of violent or sexual offences, were sent the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire 4+(PDQ?4+) and the Symptom Checklist 90-R (SCL-90-R).

Results: High levels of self reported personality pathology were associated with high levels of psychological distress.

Conclusions: Offenders with the most severe self reported personality disorder pathology experience distress that may be clinically significant. Services for offenders with personality disorder will need to address their associated psychiatric symptoms.     

Methodological challenges in doing ethnomathematical research

Abstract

Researchers in ethnomathematics are confronted by a variety of methodological questions when they carry out ethnomathematical research. These have to deal with: participants and knowledge holders; language used in research; interviews and observations; familiarity (or lack thereof) with the knowledge holders; mathematical analysis of cultural artefacts; etc. Knowledge in this field engages with indigenous knowledge systems. This article primarily deals with indigenous games which the author researched. He proceeds to explore questions which arose and to provide possible solutions. The author also reflects on and analyses other studies that have grappled with the questions and draws on the implications and insights of these studies in constructing the suggested answers. The article therefore demonstrates that ethnomathematical research contributes to the demystification of the historical false projection by colonialism that Africa and Africans were and are not culturally embedded in mathematics – especially applied mathematics.     

‘We're not like that’: Denial of racism in the Afrikaans press in South Africa

Abstract

While the South African media on the whole underwent significant shifts after the demise of apartheid, repositioning was especially acute on the part of the Afrikaans-language press, which during the apartheid years largely served as legitimising institutions for apartheid and now had to adapt to the changing democratic political and social environment. This repositioning coincided with a liberal consensus in the news media in general, in terms of which individual rights, independence of the media and freedom of speech were emphasised. What complicated matters for the Afrikaans media was the need to retain the loyalty of primarily white Afrikaans readers, who remained attractive to advertisers, while having to orientate itself in relation to the new centres of political power in the country. The precarious balance between the liberal consensus of individual rights and freedom of expression on the one hand, and the imperative to carry a torch for Afrikaans cultural identity in the new dispensation, comes to light in news coverage of a recent racist incident at a historically white, Afrikaans university. This article will seek to explore editorial comment on the incident in selected Afrikaans media, to indicate how the event was interpreted and presented as an individual transgression, rather than a systemic and historically determined problem.     

Experimental Effects of a Call-Center Disclaimer Regarding Confidentiality on Callers’ Willingness to Make Disclosures Related to Terrorism

ABSTRACT

Utilizing a sample drawn to represent the general U.S. population, the present study experimentally tested whether a call-center’s disclaimer regarding limits to caller confidentiality (i.e., that operators would be required to refer calls to law enforcement if callers were to discuss anyone who was a danger to themselves or others) affected disclosures related to a third party’s involvement with terrorist groups, gangs, or such party’s commission of assault and/or non-violent crimes.

Disclaimer type did not significantly affect the number of terrorism-related disclosures. Furthermore, it did not significantly affect either the number of gang-related disclosures or reports of assault. However, the law enforcement referral disclaimer/condition reduced the number of disclosures of non-violent crimes that were not directly related to terrorism, gangs, or assault, though its effect accounted for less than one percent of the variance between conditions. Additionally, disclaimer type did not significantly affect willingness to recommend the call-center, nor did that effect vary significantly by age or sex. Implications for the call-center’s role in addressing ideologically motivated violence (terrorism, violent extremism), as a form of secondary/targeted prevention, are discussed.     

Fueling the Fire: Violent Metaphors,Trait Aggression,and Support for Political Violence

The recent concurrence of violent political rhetoric and violence against political targets in the U.S. and abroad has raised public concern about the effects of language on citizens. Building from theoretical foundations in aggression research, I fielded two nationally representative survey experiments and a third local experiment preceding the 2010 midterm elections to investigate support for violence against political authority. Subjects were randomly assigned to view one of two forms of the same political advertisements. Across all three experiments, mild violent metaphors multiply support for political violence among aggressive citizens, especially among young adults. Aggressive personality traits also predict support for political violence in both national studies. This work identifies dynamic roots of violent political orientations and reveals for the first time surprising interactions between this elite discourse and personality traits in citizens.     

Interpreting “Percent Black”

Abstract

Time series analysis is employed to assess the relationship between “percent Black” and violent crime in Washington D.C. over a 40-year period. Race-disaggregated violent crime arrest data are also examined. It is concluded that while there is some indication of a positive relationship between violent crime and “percent Black” over time, that relationship is not robust when disaggregated by race and crime type and may be limited to Black robbery offending. Further, it appears that “percent Black” may be serving as a proxy for other social problems. An exploration of possible correlates of racial disparity in violent arrests suggests that they are associated with a variety of factors, including social problems and their disparities.     

从边疆暴力事件看公安机关的预警与应急机制

我国目前正处在社会转型时期,近些年来发生的一系列严重打砸抢烧暴力犯罪事件和西藏、新疆少数民族分裂主义分子、极端非法宗教和恐怖势力制造的系列暴力犯罪活动,都在提醒我们应该重视公安机关的预警和应急机制。这是稳定社会治安,关系民族、民生和保护来之不易的改革开放大好局面的大是大非问题。公安机关是国家的一支武装力量,是维护社会稳定的主力军。因此公安机关建立一套完备有效的预警应急机制,充分分析预测各种可能存在的不安全因素,采取相应措施予以控制,对处置这类暴力事件和维护社会稳定具有重要作用。这在很大程度上可以化解矛盾冲突,减少暴力犯罪事件给人民生活和社会带来的严重危害,维护国家法律秩序,维护各民族团结,保护人民群众的根本利益。     

New Technology Meets an Old Teaching Challenge: Using Digital Video Recordings, Annotation Software, and Deliberate Practice Techniques to Improve Student Negotiation Skills

There is a world of difference between teaching negotiation theory, which pertains to conceptual understanding, and teaching negotiation skills, which pertain to actual behavior in real‐world situations. The principle of reflective practice is widely used for theoretical instruction. Deliberate practice, however, is a more powerful model for skills training. Cognitive scientists have discovered that subjects will learn skills best when they perform well‐defined tasks at appropriate levels of difficulty, and when they are given immediate feedback, an opportunity to correct their errors, and an opportunity to practice until the tasks become routine. To satisfy the deliberate practice conditions for large graduate‐level negotiation courses (some as large as seventy students), students were assigned to use webcams with their laptop computers to video record their negotiation exercises. Before each exercise, students were assigned to prepare for and to concentrate on performing two or three well‐defined tasks. Students reviewed these recordings and commented on their performances in a journal before uploading the videos and journals to an assigned network folder. The instructor and teaching assistants then reviewed the journals and specified portions of the videos and provided individual written feedback to the students. The instructors found that student negotiating skills have improved significantly using this new system. In comparison with earlier semesters, students also felt they were involved in a more intense and personal learning experience. A majority of students reported they intend to apply the principles of deliberate practice in their professional lives after graduation. The authors have found this method continues to challenge their ability to identify and describe the skills used by expert negotiators. As an addition to this new methodology, two of the authors have spearheaded the development of video annotation software, known as “MediaNotes,” to help students and instructors review, comment upon, and learn from video recordings of negotiations. Based on their experiences using the software to support deliberate practice, the authors expect this tool to initiate a significant advance in our ability to recognize and describe expert negotiation behavior and in students’ ability to improve their negotiating skills.