People with special needs and sexual behaviour problems: balancing community and client interests while ensuring effective risk management

Abstract

Deinstitutionalisation movements of the mid-1900s led to changes in policy and practice in the management of people with special needs (defined for this article as people with severe and persistent mental illness, intellectual disabilities and high levels of personality factors that interfere with treatment participation). Although the majority of clients with special needs receive care in community settings and interact more with family, friends and others in the community, some such clients require more rigorous case management. For clients who have offended, especially sexually, community-based services are scarce, and concerns regarding reoffence potential often supersede traditional understandings of diminished capacity. Recent reports suggest that jails and prisons have replaced hospitals as the institutions-of-choice for clients with special needs who engage in inappropriate conduct. This paper examines policies and practices regarding community risk management of people with special needs who have sexually offended. Vignettes are provided to illustrate how some clients and agencies have been affected, and suggestions are made to ensure best practices in risk management and public safety.     

Blood and bone: body mass,gender and health inequality in nineteenth-century British families

In mid-nineteenth-century Britain, a new institution emerged: the modern prison. Some prisons invested in scales. Upon entry, prisoners were measured and personal details documented. These meticulously compiled records afford a new vantage point from which we can peer into the dynamics of the household. Body measurements – height, weight, and body mass (weight adjusted for height) – connect to both patterns of consumption and health risk. Prison data thus speak to both gender and health inequality in the past. The paper juxtaposes a service economy (Wandsworth near London) with a modern manufacturing sector (Paisley near Glasgow) in order to contrast how economic form and opportunities in the market sector shaped relations and outcomes in the household sector. We find that families bargained over the allocation of resources; that bargaining position was influenced by economic value, mediated by maternal sacrifice; that this was an earner bias rather than gender bias; and that new industrial work for women and children supported a more egalitarian distribution that improved everyone's health status via superior heights and heavier weights. We examine Irish immigrants to assess cultural differences in family behaviour. Finally, the paper offers, for the first time, a detailed interpolation of Waaler's health risk for women.     

Self-expression and collaborative ‘pro-sumption’ in the digital brandscape

ABSTRACT

The evolution of the global economy has seen the emergence of a digital market space. The collaborative and expressive nature of interactive media and technology allows users to participate in the production and publication of branded content within digital communities of affinity. This presents increased possibilities for self-expression, as well as unlimited opportunities for participation in determining and influencing brand narratives. The digital brandscape has therefore become a collaborative space where surplus brand value is produced, but also where struggles in terms of power and counter power between brands and brand consumers evolve. Against this background, this conceptual article explores the brand challenges the notion of consumer brand self-expression poses in a collaborative open-source context where brand identity is constantly challenged, and brand narratives are continuously written and rewritten by multiple brand authors. The article concludes that it is important that brands do not navigate these risks by adopting defensive stances, but rather boldly seize the opportunities that these technologies offer for creating new market linkages and for developing customer insights that create innovative brand value and impact, by tapping into opportunities for creative self-expression.     

消费者对互联网银行的可接受度问题研究

互联网银行能否取得成功很大程度上取决于消费者对其的接受程度。西方互联网银行的发展早于中国,所以对其研究也早于中国,但这些早期研究对中国仍有启发意义。本文在借鉴西方学者研究基础上,综述了研究消费者是否接受互联网银行的相关理论,分析了影响消费者对互联网银行可接受度的相关因素,并着重从消费者的风险感知视角研究了影响消费者接受互联网银行的风险,最后就如何发展中国互联网银行提出了政策建议。     

Intervention at Risk: The Vicious Cycle of Distance and Danger in Mali and Afghanistan

In crisis-hit countries, intensive risk management increasingly characterizes the presence of international interveners, with measures ranging from fortified compounds to ‘remote programming’. This article investigates the global drive for ‘security’ from an ethnographic perspective, focusing on Afghanistan and Mali. By deploying the concepts of distance and proximity, the article shows how frontline ‘outsourcing’ and bunkering have generated an unequal ‘risk economy’ while distancing interveners from local society in a trend that itself generates novel risks. To conclude, the article asks whether alternative forms of proximity may help to break the vicious cycle of danger and distance at work in today’s crisis zones.     

Vigilantes,gangsters, and alcohol: clashing citizenship regimes in postwar Guatemala

In this volatile moment in Latin America, when relations between the state and citizens are in flux, people at the margins of society draw on various notions of citizenship in social conflicts over proper behavior and the common good. I examine an intergenerational conflict over the legality of alcohol in an indigenous village in Guatemala to show how its protagonists creatively recombine different aspects of the various citizenship regimes that they have encountered. Elders have formed vigilante justice groups to combat the youth they consider gangsters. While the vigilantes draw upon a discourse of obligation to justify their actions, the generation below them counters with a language of rights. Some argue that citizenship is less meaningful in contexts where state power is ambiguous and extralegal violence is commonplace. I argue that in such contexts, it is not that citizenship does not have meaning, but rather that its meaning is intensely contested.     

“万能制造机”背后的冷思考--3D打印技术安全风险及法律规制研究

3D打印作为一种快速成型技术,近年来发展迅速,有着良好的发展前景与应用空间。然而技术革新的背后潜在隐藏着知识产权、刑事犯罪以及人类伦理等多方面的安全风险,利用法律、政策规制3D打印技术迅猛发展可能带来的安全风险,既是保障社会治安管理秩序的关键,更是3D打印技术进一步发展与革新的前提与基础。     

论我国保险业的诚信缺失风险与防范

近年来,在我国保险业经营实践中,诚信缺失风险是影响保险业健康发展的重要因素。诚信问题已经成为业内人士关注的焦点,已成为中国保险业面临的严峻挑战。诚信缺失风险的成因主要是保险合同双方的道德风险和逆向选择。它对保险公司的营利活动构成巨大威胁并产生诸多影响。为此,应建立与完善被保险人信息库与信用评级制度,加强金融企业之间的联系,促进“银保”深化合作;推进保险经营电子化与网络化进程,防范诚信缺失风险。     

浅析经济全球化背景下的政府职能转变

随着我国进一步融入到经济全球化浪潮中,如何在这一过程中进一步转变政府职能,积极应对挑战,已成为当前迫切需要解决的课题。本文提出了经济全球化中政府职能定位的要义,并通过分析当前我国政府职能转变中存在的问题和面临的困难,从宏观上提出了相关应对措施。