Jugendliche Gewaltdelinquenz,psychosoziale Merkmale und Migrationsstatus

As part of the longitudinal study ?Chances and risks during the life course“, the emergence of deviant and delinquent behavior is studied. The data basis of the present study consists of self-reports of male ninth grade pupils from Dortmund and Nuremberg schools (n?=?726). Particularly, data applying to perpetration of an offence in the past year were analyzed, including dark-figures data for violent offences. The indices for violent crime were related to several psychosocial characteristics (e.g. violence-approving attitudes, self-centered personality traits and corporal punishment by parents), considering type of school and migration background. From a developmental psychopathology perspective, these psychosocial characteristics can contribute to juvenile delinquency and violence. Overall, the empirical findings suggest that juveniles with migration backgrounds show significantly more violence and peer delinquency than juveniles without migration backgrounds. Furthermore, there seems to be empirical evidence that there are significant differences between violent offenders and non-violent offenders or young people with migration backgrounds and young people without migration backgrounds, respectively, with regard to various psychosocial characteristics. Additional results refer to school type specific analyses. Limitations of the present study and implications of the findings for future research on juvenile violence are discussed focusing on violence prevention and interventional approaches.     

Content analysis of infanticide and neonaticide cases in the UK

Twenty cases, 14 infanticides and 6 neonaticides committed between 1989 and 2020 by biological mothers were analysed using Smallest Space Analysis for the presence of themes. Three themes associated with offender motivation were identified: Desperation, Disturbance and Rejection. Desperation theme included variables suggesting the mother committed the crime as a result of distress or perceived necessity. Disturbance suggested the motivation behind the offence to be as a result of the mother's caregiving role being disturbed; and the Rejection theme explained complete maternal rejection of the infant or new-born as the motivation behind the crime. Alongside the themes, three core variables were identified to be common for the crime regardless of motivation: the crime being committed at Home, the victim Female, and the crime being Denied by the mother. The implications of the findings are discussed including the potential for an investigative support tool and developing understandings of neonaticide and infanticide as separate crimes.     

Attributions toward violence of male juvenile delinquents: a concurrent mixed-methodological analysis

The authors investigated male juvenile delinquents' causal attributions about others' behavior and the salient pieces of information that the male juveniles used in arriving at their attributions. Participants were 82 male juvenile offenders whom the authors drew randomly from the population of juveniles who were incarcerated at a correctional facility. A concurrent mixed-methodological analysis revealed that the juvenile offenders committed attributional errors about violence nearly 53% of the time. Race and number of prior arrests predicted the number of attributional errors about violence. A phenomenological analysis revealed the following 7 themes stemming from juveniles' reasons for causal attributions: self-control, violation of rights, provocation, irresponsibility, poor judgment, fate, and conflict resolution. Some of these themes were related to age, ethnicity, and number of prior arrests. The authors discussed implications of all findings.     

Employee Perceptions of Perpetrators and Acts of Workplace Violence in Colleges and Universities

Workplace violence has captured the attention of both the popular press and the scholarly literature, leading to a greater awareness of its existence in society. One area that has been overlooked by the research is how employees perceive various types of workplace violence acts, as well as different types of perpetrators. This study examined employee perceptions of a variety of workplace violence acts and different perpetrators at a large, public university in the midwestern United States. The results indicate that employees perceive various types of workplace violence acts and different perpetrators in a variety of ways. Based on these findings, recommendations on how to improve awareness are suggested.     

Pathways in the offending process of sex offenders who target marginalised victims

Prior literature shows that although marginalised populations are at a high risk of severe violence and homicide, research has focused on their offenders as if they constituted a homogeneous group. On the basis of a sample of 213 sex offenders who targeted marginalised individuals (i.e., sex trade worker, homeless individual, and severe drug user), we investigate the different pathways that these offenders take both prior to and during the commission of their crimes. Results of 2‐step cluster analysis regarding the offender's development, criminal history, crime context, and modus operandi revealed 3 distinct pathways of the offending process. The coercive pathway was characterised by the amount of violence used against the victim. The explosive pathway was defined by offenders who were in a state of rage at the time of the offence. Finally, offenders in the situational pathway committed their crimes out of opportunity and used very little violence. Differences between pathways were investigated with regard to characteristics of the index offence.     

Modifications to basic functional analysis procedures in school settings: a selective review

This review describes applied behavioral research involving functional analyses conducted in public school settings. Functional analyses in public school settings often require added conditions. The modified conditions described herein include changes to experimental designs, antecedent changes that include task variation, tasks included, idiosyncratic variables, physiological conditions, and modified escape conditions. Finally, consequent modifications cover peer attention, tangibles, varied attention, and altered escape. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characterization and Prediction of Sexual and Nonsexual Recidivism Among Adjudicated Juvenile Sex Offenders

Estimating the risk of sexual recidivism for a juvenile sex offender is essential in order to protect public safety by identifying and evaluating high risk adolescents and to ensure the rights and welfare of juvenile offenders who will not likely reoffend. Empirically validated risk assessment methods are needed to aid in the classification and treatment of juvenile sex offenders. The present study utilized a dataset collected by Maricopa County, AZ, and aggregated by the National Juvenile Court Data Archive. The purpose of the study was to evaluate and characterize risk factors for juveniles who have been charged with a sexual offense in order to determine the predictive utility of these factors for subsequent offending, as well as offense trajectory, and to evaluate risk factors for nonsexual offenders who have committed crimes of various severities. The results of the present study show the strongest individual predictors of sexual recidivism to be prior nonsexual offending, prior sexual offending, hands‐off offending, offending against a child, younger school grade/age at time of initial offense, Asian or Hispanic ethnicity, and not attending school. A preliminary screening measure was developed from the seven positive risk factors, and ROC analysis produced an AUC indicating moderate predictive utility in discriminating between juvenile sex offenders who would sexually reoffend and those who would not. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Football hooliganism: comparing self‐awareness and social identity theory explanations

The emergence of research interest in group violence in general and football hooliganism in particular has been explained by various models generally relying on situational or individual differences accounts. Yet, these two research traditions have largely evolved independently, showing little or no interaction. In the present study (N = 109), we integrate measures of these two approaches and the results reveal that social identity was more predictive of self‐reported physical aggression than of loss of private and public self‐awareness. Moreover, attitudes towards violence were the most marked predictor variables of both physical and verbal aggression. In the discussion, the moderator effect of social identity and attitudes about violence on physical aggression is elaborated upon. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From marine ecology to crime analysis: Improving the detection of serial sexual offences using a taxonomic similarity measure

Jaccard has been the choice similarity metric in ecology and forensic psychology for comparison of sites or offences, by species or behaviour. This paper applies a more powerful hierarchical measure—taxonomic similarity (Δ_s), recently developed in marine ecology—to the task of behaviourally linking serial crime. Forensic case linkage attempts to identify behaviourally similar offences committed by the same unknown perpetrator (called linked offences). Δ_s considers progressively higher‐level taxa, such that two sites show some similarity even without shared species. We apply this index by analysing 55 specific offence behaviours classified hierarchically. The behaviours are taken from 16 sexual offences by seven juveniles where each offender committed two or more offences. We demonstrate that both Jaccard and Δ_s show linked offences to be significantly more similar than unlinked offences. With up to 20% of the specific behaviours removed in simulations, Δ_s is equally or more effective at distinguishing linked offences than where Jaccard uses a full data set. Moreover, Δ_s retains significant difference between linked and unlinked pairs, with up to 50% of the specific behaviours removed. As police decision‐making often depends upon incomplete data, Δ_s has clear advantages and its application may extend to other crime types. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reactions to youth crime: perceptions of accountability and competency

Recent changes in juvenile justice policies have stimulated debate among legal professionals and social scientists. As such, public opinion concerning juvenile offenders is an important and timely topic for empirical study. In the present study, respondents read a scenario about a juvenile who committed a crime, and then decided on a sentence and rated perceptions of the juvenile's accountability and legal competence. Four between-subject factors were manipulated: age of the defendant (11 versus 14 versus 17 years), type of crime (shooting versus arson), crime outcome (victim injured versus died), and time delay between the instigating incident and the crime (immediately versus one day). The type and outcome of the crime were major motivating factors in sentencing decisions and perceptions of legal competence, and, although younger offenders were seen as less accountable and less competent than older offenders, sentence allocation and attitudes towards punishment were not significantly affected by offender age.     

A qualitative and quantitative evaluation of an experiment for preventing violence in the workplace

No research has verified the effectiveness of measures for the prevention of workplace violence in the school setting. The present project includes several steps: administration of a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire, training of workers and implementation of an awareness program, distribution of prevention material and qualitative and quantitative evaluation. The aim is to verify if the awareness program had an effect on the level of prevention management undertaken by the school and if there was any effect of the intervention on the wokers’ perception of the safety level of the setting and if the number of victims of violent acts and behaviors was reduced. The results of the post-test show that less physical violence was reported by the experimental group and less psychological violence by the control group. These results are discussed in relation to the implementation of the intervention.     

IMAGES OF CRIME: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN CRIME PERCEPTION

Implicit cognitive representations of crime were studied using a multidimensional scaling procedure, in order to determine (a) the dimensions underlying crime perception, (b) the relationship between such subjective dimensions and the objective seriousness and frequency of crimes, (c) the extent to which a priori crime categories such as offences against persons, property or public order are separated in cognitive space, and (d) the relationship between the judges' demographic, attitudinal, cognitive and personality characteristics and crime perception. Four dimensions, concern, violence, commonness and intentionality were found to underlie perceptions of crime. Objective crime characteristics such as seriousness were only loosely related to subjective representations and a priori crime categories were significantly differentiated in this cognitive space. The subjects' sex, political orientation and personality were significantly related to crime perception. The results are discussed in terms of the applicability of these techniques to the study of natural cognitions of crime by such groups are juries, judges, policemen, victims and criminals.     

The Coincidence of Depression and High Ability in Delinquent Youth

We describe the incidence and coincidence of depression and high ability in a sample of Virginia's incarcerated delinquent youth population. Specifically, 207 incarcerated juveniles were assessed with the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices and the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). The data indicated there were as many high ability juveniles in detention settings as would be expected in a regular population. Results from the CDI identified 37% as at risk for clinical depression. Cross-tabulation of the data indicated a significant relationship between high ability and depression in the delinquent population. In addition, the findings indicated that the presence of depression is related to the ability level of the juvenile. That high ability delinquents may be more vulnerable to depression argues that the coincidence of these conditions requires consideration. Based upon these findings, and given the high correlation suicide has with depression, we suggest that screening for depression should be mandatory for incarcerated delinquents.     

Risk and resilience: The moderating role of social coping for maternal mental health in a setting of political conflict

Violence can threaten individual wellbeing and tear at the social fabric of communities. At the same time, suffering can mobilize social coping and mutual support. Thus, the backdrop of political violence increases risk factors and stimulates resilience. The current study examined the moderating role of social coping as reflective of risk and resiliency in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted conflict. Specifically, structural equation modeling was used to investigate whether social coping protects from or exacerbates the negative impact of sectarian crime and nonsectarian crime on maternal mental health (N = 631). Nonsectarian crime predicted greater psychological distress for mothers in Belfast. Mixed support was found for the buffering and depletion moderation hypotheses; social coping functioned differently for nonsectarian crime and sectarian crime. Greater social coping buffered mothers’ psychological distress from the negative effects of nonsectarian crime, but exacerbated maternal mental health problems when facing sectarian crime. Results suggest that social coping is a complex phenomenon, particularly in settings of protracted political violence. Implications for interventions aimed at alleviating psychological distress by enhancing mothers’ social coping in contexts of intergroup conflict are discussed.     

Dark Fandoms: An Introduction and Case Study

ABSTRACT

There is a deep and persistent cultural fascination with the macabre – public executions, true crime books, slasher films, and sites of violence attract large audiences. Although serial and mass murderers increasingly achieve fame, little attention has focused on their fans. Thus, this paper introduces the concept of dark fandoms, or communities of fans of those who have perpetrated heinous acts, and draws attention to Columbiners as one example of a dark fandom. An analysis of more than 700 threaded discussion posts from an online Reddit community reveals that the Columbiner dark fandom discussed their favorite characters from the shooting, proposed fan theories about the incident, and considered the Columbine shooting’s legacy. The implications of these findings for studies of other dark fandoms is discussed.     

Lifetime Acts of Violence Assessment (LAVA) predictors of laboratory aggression

While self-report data warrants interpretive caution in applied settings, these indices serve an important role in exploratory research. The Lifetime Assessment of Violent Acts (LAVA) inventory is a brief, reliable, face-valid questionnaire for estimating the frequency, triggers, and consequences (including injuries to others) of prior acts of aggression. The LAVA also identifies the situational contexts in which prior violence was triggered and provides a basis for risk classifications based on past reactive, intimate partner, alcohol-related, and/or weapon-related violence. Scores on the LAVA indices have been linked to a range of developmental and maladjustment indicators. Associations were found between lab-provoked (Taylor Aggression Paradigm) responding and both dimensional and risk classification scores in this sample (N = 92) of college men. Participants “competed” with a fictional opponent using electric shock as a retaliatory measure for perceived provocation. The total LAVA dimensional score predicted mean shock intensity ( d = .87), baseline responding ( d = 0.90), and past sexual aggression ( d = 1.01). Shock intensities in response to high provocation were predicted ( M d = 0.57) by all but one LAVA index. Participants who reported inflicting one or more injuries on another showed more intense escalations of aggression ( d = 0.46) in response to provocation than normative counterparts. Prior injuries to another ( RR = 2.71), reactive acts of aggression ( RR = 3.73), or intimate-partner violence ( RR = 4.19) elevated the risk of one or more prior acts of self-reported sexual aggression. The limitations and potential value of self-report data were discussed in regard to aggression research.