Lost in the translation.

Aggression in Adolescent Dating Relationships: Prevalence, Justification, and Health Consequences

The desirability of incorporative environmental variation into research designs has often been pointed out, but few procedures for doing so have been developed. Attempts to operationalize the concept of «organizational climate» in studies of organizational behavior provide a number of methods for assessing environmental variation, and yield data relevant to hypotheses regarding the interaction of persons and environments. Methods for observing climate variation include field studies, assessments of participant’s perceptions, observations of objective indices, and experimental control of organizational variables. Conditions may affect behavior by determining stimuli, by restraining freedom of response, and by rewarding and punishing bebavior. Illustrative of the organizational properties meriting further study are size, structure, systems complexity, leadership pattern, and goal directions. Selected bibliography of 104 titles indicates how studies of organizations make possibie the variation of both person and climate variables.

Environmental variation in studies of organizational behavior

Study objective: The acceptability of domestic violence against women (DVAW) plays an important part in shaping the social environment in which the victims are embedded, which in turn may contribute either to perpetuate or to reduce the levels of DVAW in our societies. This study analyses correlates of the acceptability of DVAW in the European Union (EU). Design: Three level ordinal logistic regression of 13 457 people nested within 212 localities (cities), nested within 15 countries of the EU. Sampling is multistage with random probability. All interviews were face to face in people's homes. The outcome variable was acceptability of DVAW. Multiple correlates at the individual, locality, and country level were analysed. Setting: European Union, 1999. Participants: National data were used of residents 15 years old and above of all member states in 1999 (n = 13 457). Average response rate was 47%, although it varied across countries (23%-73%). Main results: Higher levels of acceptability were reported by those who perceived DVAW as less severe and less frequent. Acceptability is higher among men who know a perpetrator and lower among men who know a victim. Victim blaming attitude is associated with higher levels of acceptability. In countries with higher gender empowerment measure the difference in acceptability among those who blame and those who do not blame the victim is greater. Conclusions: There are still widespread attitudes in the EU such as victim blaming that condone DVAW, contributing to a climate of social acceptability of DVAW. Further efforts to reduce the acceptability of DVAW are still needed.

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Acceptability of domestic violence against women in the European Union: a multilevel analysis

This paper offers a multicultural understanding of trauma and resilience as experienced in the lives of individuals from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. The research and clinical literature on resilience has focused largely if not exclusively on individual personality traits and coping styles, and has neglected to explore all possible sources and expressions of resilience in individuals and groups. For many ethnic minorities, traditional notions of resilience, shaped largely by middle class European and North American values, may not capture culturally more familiar modes of positive adaptation to adverse and traumatic experience. This paper explores the concept of resilience as a multidetermined phenomenon, and considers the implications of this perspective for clinical research and intervention with ethnic minorities.

Conceptualizing Trauma and Resilience Across Diverse Contexts: A Multicultural Perspective

This article reviews current victim studies on family violence in Europe and attempts to interpret the variation in the prevalence rates. Methodological shortcomings contribute in part to different rates across countries. The prevalence rates are also linked to preventive and causative factors. Three factors appear to explain the differing prevalence rates in European countries: deprived economic living conditions, traditional attitudes toward women and children, and a general tolerance of violent behavior in a given society. In addition, personal coping may influence whether a family member will act violently against another family member.

The Extent of Family Violence in Europe A Comparison of National Surveys

Despite meta-analytic evidence on the effectiveness of offender treatment programs, little is known about how therapeutic changes to dynamic risk factors contribute to this effect. The present study explores the relationship between prison climate, changes in dynamic risk factors, and recidivism in a sample of 185 male violent and sexual offenders. Participants completed psychometric tests on dynamic risk factors (procriminal attitudes, antisocial personality patterns, empathy, anxiety/neuroticism) and perceived prison climate before and after correctional treatment (length: M = 32 months) in a social-therapeutic facility. Recidivism data were available for 92 participants with a follow-up of M = 4 years. Medium-sized prosocial changes to the dynamic risk factors of procriminal attitudes and anxiety/neuroticism in all offenders were found, while antisocial personality patterns only decreased among violent offenders. Positive ratings of different aspects of prison climate significantly correlated with pros...

CorreCtional treatment of Sexual and Violent offenderS: therapeutiC Change, priSon Climate, and reCidiViSm

BACKGROUND: Research on the role of self-esteem and self-control among violent offenders has so far yielded inconsistent findings. Certain factors, such as an adverse upbringing, foster development of delinquent behaviour, but it is less clear how this is mediated. Little is known about the interrelationship between self-control and self-esteem or factors that influence them. AIM AND HYPOTHESIS: This study aimed to examine the relevance of self-esteem and self-control as distinct characteristics of violent offenders, and of their interrelationship with biographical risk factors for violence. METHOD: Data were obtained from interviews and psychological testing with 101 incarcerated violent male offenders. RESULTS: These violent men showed higher body-related self-esteem compared with a general population sample. There were no offence-specific differences for self-control. Self-esteem was associated with self-control on binary testing, but, when entered into a regression analysis with attention and cognitive factors together with established early childhood risk factors, only the variable 'family problems' was independently related to self-control. CONCLUSION: The findings stress the complex interrelation between self-control, self-esteem and early childhood risk factors for antisocial behaviour. The combination of low social self-esteem, high body-related self-esteem and history of parenting problems characterising the violent offenders raises testable questions about whether high body-related self-esteem and violence are means of compensating for low social self-esteem with origins in parental neglect, inconsistent or harsh discipline. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Language: en

The role of self-control and self-esteem and the impact of early risk factors among violent offenders.

Although recidivism is lower among sexual offenders who have received treatment than those who have not, evaluation and treatment studies reach different numbers on recidivism rates and effectiveness. The question still remains as to what exactly works for whom; that is, does one kind of treatment work for all sexual offenders? This empirical study attempts to develop a sex offender typology that refers to treatment-relevant factors and characteristics to generate a framework for developing specific treatment approaches. In a first step the authors conduct a survey of experts to identify treatment-relevant factors for the later typology. In the main part of the study, 199 sexual offenders incarcerated in German prison and forensic facilities are examined according to the identified characteristics. A cluster analysis results in five subtypes of sexual offenders. In this article, the clusters are presented with regard to their criminologically relevant characteristics, and implications for type-related interventions are discussed.

Classifying Sexual Offenders: An Empirical Model for Generating Type-Specific Approaches to Intervention

As one of many fields of application, electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders can be used-in conjunction with other measures-for release preparation. Using such measures, policymakers expect an alleviation of the negative effects of imprisonment and the promotion of positive rehabilitative effects by adding structure and social support. At the same time, policymakers are willing to maintain community safety through the close supervision provided by EM. The present study examines participants' psychological and psychosocial changes during two measures of electronically monitored release preparation, namely, home detention and early work release. These findings are compared with a randomized group of participants who remained in custody. In sum, we found no distinctive positive effects of the tested measures. Because most participants already displayed functional psychological characteristics at pretest, there was only a small margin for improvement through electronically monitored release preparation. We conclude that if rehabilitation is sought by the use of such measures, it is important to select a target group that is actually in need of rehabilitative support and equally important to conduct further research on the rehabilitative potential of EM measures.

Gunda Woessner

Papers

The Extent of Family Violence in Europe A Comparison of National Surveys

CorreCtional treatment of Sexual and Violent offenderS: therapeutiC Change, priSon Climate, and reCidiViSm

The role of self-control and self-esteem and the impact of early risk factors among violent offenders.

Classifying Sexual Offenders: An Empirical Model for Generating Type-Specific Approaches to Intervention

Identifying the Rehabilitative Potential of Electronically Monitored Release Preparation: A Randomized Controlled Study in Germany: