SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN IN FAMILY COURT CASES

This article presents a conceptual framework for describing cases involving children with special needs that are increasingly being seen in family court. Three categories that represent the most common of such cases include (1) acute, life-threatening medical conditions; (2) chronic developmental disorders; and (3) psychological and behavioral syndromes. After detailing the nature of the disabilities in each category, perspectives from the bench are offered with specific recommendations and general strategies for effective case management. This is followed by a proposal of an innovative conceptual model—the Individualized Parenting Plan (IPP)—that organizes and integrates nine domains essential for a comprehensive parenting plan for special needs children. The article concludes with a list of sixteen strategic guidelines for servicing the families of these special needs children, in their best interests.     

氟化钠对奶山羊血清激素含量的影响

以奶山羊为试验动物 ,按体重灌服氟化钠 ,复制奶山羊氟病模型 ,通过甲状腺功能指标、骨代谢调节因子等一系列指标的测定 ,进一步探讨了氟病的发生机理。研究结果表明 ,氟引起甲状腺激素合成和分泌障碍及甲状腺调节因子紊乱 ,呈现甲状腺机能减退的症状 ,进而影响了机体的新陈代谢等过程 ;氟导致骨代谢调节因子骨钙素和降钙素含量升高 ,证明骨转换加速是氟骨症发生的机理之一     

Serial Domestic Abuse in Wales: An Exploratory Study Into its Definition,Prevalence, Correlates,and Management

Analysis of information held by police, probation, and third-sector organizations in Wales about 100 domestic abuse perpetrators, along with 16 practitioner interviews, provides the empirical context for a discussion of the problem of “serial domestic abuse.” Despite increased concern over the harm caused by serial abusers, different definitions and recording systems prevent a reliable estimation of the problem. This exploratory study suggests that the offending profiles of serial abusers are heterogeneous, and recommends that approaches aimed at reducing the harm caused by the “power few” domestic abusers incorporate information about serial alongside repeat and high-risk offending.     

When Public Protection Becomes Punishment? The UK Use of Civil Measures to Contain the Sex Offender

In keeping with many countries the UK has moved the problem of sexual offending up the political agenda. On the criminal justice side sentences have been increased and supervision periods extended. On the civil side a raft of new measures have been put in place to regulate the behaviour of sex offenders in the interest of community safety and child protection; this paper examines these measures and, in particular takes the sex offender ‘register’ as a case study to show how political imperatives have been brought to bear with little reference to the research or professional views of practitioners in this area. It is contended that under these political pressures, what starts life as a preventive, regulatory measure can easily become a more punitive measure in its own right; as such it may be liable to challenge by those subject to it for failing to fulfil its primary purpose and for straying across a line between the civil and criminal aspects of intervention.     

Assessing Stability and Change in Criminal Offending: A Comparison of Random Effects, Semiparametric, and Fixed Effects Modeling Strategies

An important theoretical problem for criminologists is an explanation forthe robust positive correlation between prior and future criminaloffending. Nagin and Paternoster (1991) have suggested that the correlationcould be due to time-stable population differences in the underlyingproneness to commit crimes (population heterogeneity) and/or thecriminogenic effect that crime has on social bonds, conventionalattachments, and the like (state dependence). Because of data andmeasurement limitations, the disentangling of population heterogeneityand state dependence requires that researchers control for unmeasuredpersistent heterogeneity. Frequently, random effects probit models havebeen employed, which, while user-friendly, make a strong parametricassumption that the unobserved heterogeneity in the population follows anormal distribution. Although semiparametric alternatives to the randomeffects probit model have recently appeared in the literature to avoid thisproblem, in this paper we return to reconsider the fully parametric model. Viasimulation evidence, we first show that the random effects probit modelproduces biased estimates as the departure of heterogeneity from normalitybecomes more substantial. Using the 1958 Philadelphia cohort data, we thencompare the results from a random effects probit model with a semiparametricprobit model and a fixed effects logit model that makes no assumptions aboutthe distribution of unobserved heterogeneity. We found that with this dataset all three models converged on the same substantive result—evenafter controlling for unobserved persistent heterogeneity, with models thattreat the unobserved heterogeneity very differently, prior conduct had apronounced effect on subsequent offending. These results are inconsistentwith a model that attributes all of the positive correlation between priorand future offending to differences in criminal propensity. Sinceresearchers will often be completely blind with respect to the tenabilityof the normality assumption, we conclude that different estimationstrategies should be brought to bear on the data.     

Analyzing Multiple-Item Measures of Crime and Deviance I: Item Response Theory Scaling

Multiple-item measures of self-reported offending typically provide the principal outcome measures for individual level research on the causes of crime and deviance. This article directs attention to the substantial problems presented by the task of forming composite scores for these measures, and it presents a possible solution to those problems. We consider scaling by means of the graded response model from item response theory (IRT) as a potential means of overcoming the shortcomings of traditional summative scaling and of obtaining valuable information about the strengths and weaknesses of our measures. We illustrate this strategy through a scale analysis of a fourteen-item, self-report measure of delinquency, using three years of data from the Monitoring the Future study, an annual national survey of high school seniors. The graded response model proves to be consistent with the data, and it provides results that address important substantive questions about self-report measures. The findings are informative about the strengths and weaknesses of alternative strategies for developing self-report instruments, indicating that there is little to be gained by making fine distinctions in the frequency of individual delinquent acts.     

Trends in the management of registered sexual offenders across England and Wales: a geographical approach to the study of sexual offending

Abstract

Social scientists, and geographers in particular, have long been interested in examining spatial patterns of offending in order to generate a “geography” of crime and criminality. This paper examines what value, if any, a geographical approach to the study of sexual offending might offer. Utilising published official data from England and Wales it presents for the first time geographical analyses of the registration, risk assessment and management of Registered Sexual Offenders (RSOs) across 42 Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement (MAPPA) areas. In doing so it considers and evaluates the methodological issues pertaining to the use of such data and such a geographical approach. We conclude that geographical interpretations of both the incidence of RSOs and the rates of risk allocations between MAPPA areas provide valuable insights and raise new questions about the way in which RSOs are managed nationally and are thus worthy of further exploration.     

GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM FOR EXPLAINING CRIME

General assessments refer to individuals’ overall judgment of their standing on broad dimensions that have special relevance for the explanation of crime, such as their overall bond to society or their prospects for success. These assessments are partly a function of the independent variables that are commonly considered in contemporary crime theories and quantitative research. But these standard etiological variables are far from fully determinative of general assessments because individuals differ in how they interpret, weigh, and combine their standing along these variables. The social–psychological factors that affect the subjective judgments underlying general assessments have yet to be theorized in any comprehensive, systematic manner. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that the incorporation of general assessments in models of offending will greatly enhance their explanatory power because these assessments are the most proximate, comprehensive, and personally relevant causes of crime. Moreover, we anticipate that once these assessments reach certain threshold levels, such as the view that bonds to society are severed irreparably or success is beyond reach, they result in a nonlinear jump in the frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending (i.e., chronic offending). A consideration of general assessments and their associated thresholds should therefore substantially improve efforts to explain crime.     

MENTORS AND CRIMINAL ACHIEVEMENT*

Much of the research focusing on conventional occupations concludes that mentored individuals are more successful in their careers than those who are not mentored. Early research in criminology made a similar claim. Yet contemporary criminology has all but ignored mentors. We investigate this oversight, drawing on Sutherland's insights on tutelage and criminal maturation and incorporating ideas on human and social capital. We argue that mentors play a key role in their protégés' criminal achievements and examine this hypothesis with data from a recent survey of incarcerated adult male offenders in the Canadian province of Quebec. In this sample, a substantial proportion of respondents reported the presence of an influential individual in their lives who introduced them to a criminal milieu and whom they explicitly regarded as a mentor. After studying the attributes of offenders and their mentors, we develop a causal framework that positions criminal mentor presence within a pathway that leads to greater benefits and lower costs from crime.