While there is an evident trend towards increasing legal responses to wife assault in North America, any change that has occurred has met with controversy, and the challenge remains to improve the circumstances of battered women. This book offers in-depth coverage of four major themes that address this issue: the historical framework of legal responses to wife assault; police attitudes and action; prosecution, mediation and treatment within the court system; and victims as defendants and participants in the legal system. Each chapter examines past and present policies of a specific branch of the legal system, and discusses their merits and demerits.
Presents the findings of two important research projects in which men who admitted to a sexual interest in children were interviewed. The attitudes of these volunteer subjects differed from apprehensive paedophile offenders, challenging some of the generalisations advanced by professionals.
Rape is probably the most misunderstood of violent crimes. The dynamics related to both rapists and rape victims are explored in this volume, which dispels many mistaken beliefs about rape by synthesizing current research from a psychological perspective. Among the topics explored are: that only a very small proportion of rapists are ever convicted; that when an accusation of rape is made, it is the victim who too often becomes the focus of attention; and that while the stereotype of the rapist as a madman, a stranger to the victim, is still prevalent, most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim.
This book discusses the role of American police chiefs in contemporary urban settings, using institutional theory as a framework for analysis. From this perspective, the authors review long-term tendencies toward the rationalist modernization of American police agencies. Ongoing `professionalization', unionization and bureaucratization of police work are major themes in the transformations occurring in the modern role of a police chief. The internal and external conflicts and power struggles of police organization are highlighted and the authors argue that the fundamental definition of police work is the root of this conflict. It is necessary for policing paradigms to move away from rule-based, law-enforcement models towards service alternatives that emphasize the situational imperatives and discretionary essence of police work.
`I found this both remarkably informative (the book provides an excellent synthesis of current literature on child abuse research) and liberating when thinking about past and present clients. Briere has a special talent for making sense of the internal experience of child abuse survivors... An excellent book which should be on the bookshelf of counsellors or therapists working with adolescents or adults' - Counselling and Psychotherapy, The Journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychothreapy This volume considers the unique and overlapping long-term effects of all major forms of child maltreatment. The author integrates information on seven types of child abuse and neglect - ranging from sexual and physical abuse to mistreatment by alcoholic or drug-addicted parents - and outlines the complex ways in which abuse impacts on later psychosocial functioning. Briere reframes traditional notions of psychopathology and describes treatment approaches to abuse-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, interpersonal dysfunction, self-destructive behaviour, impaired self-reference and borderline personality disorder. Child Abuse Trauma will be an invaluable resource for abuse specialists and for general therapists who want to understand the connection between many forms of psychological distress and the lasting impacts of child maltreatment.
Hauser was a physically stunted adult with the mind of a child, who was abandoned at the city gate of Nuremburg in 1828. The notoriety of his case gave the impetus to many arguments regarding the significance of nature versus nurture. This work shows that deprivation drastically impairs the normal functioning of growth hormones.
This powerful book portrays the trauma of anti-gay violence and will stimulate thought, research and action on the problem. Developed from a special issue of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, it presents an overview of the problem, discusses the context of anti-gay violence, focuses on both victims and perpetrators and concludes with coverage of a variety of community responses across the nation. Topics covered include the social psychology of bigotry, treatment and service interventions and mental health consequences. Each section opens with a survivor's actual story - first person accounts - to give the reader insight into the reality of this serious social problem.
What kind of choices does a hardened criminal make? What belief systems are these choices based on? The Criminal Lifestyle approaches these questions by examining how various biological, sociological and psychological factors interact to bring about criminal behaviour. Walters develops a model of crime as a lifestyle and shows that this concept is historically, cross-nationally and empirically valid. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to psychologists and sociologists as well as criminologists.
The contributors to this book assess the state of the debate on the privatization of justice. Key aspects of the arguments are examined and compared, as the authors clarify both the theoretical issues and the practical problems involved in the privatization of justice. The nature of the state and its relation to a monopoly of violence constitutes the main theoretical issue. Other debates which are covered include the existing role of private security firms in policing, the historical precedents for private justice and the experience of private prisons, particularly in North America. This book will be of interest to academics and professionals in criminology and criminal justice.
