Search results

Accessing and distributing child pornography is an emerging problem. This paper aims to examine the judicial sentencing decisions of child pornography cases and whether they differ from decisions of child molestation cases.

Using a legal database of Canadian court judgments, the study examined sentencing decisions of 50 child pornography and 50 child molestation cases, identifying variables that were present in the judges' reasons for their decision.

The results revealed a disparity in sentencing that favours incarceration rather than community sentences for child molesters over child pornography cases. Despite what appears to be lighter sentences for child pornography offenders, judges were more likely to sanction treatment and recommend restrictions in cases of child pornography than child molestation. In light of the absence of literature exploring sentencing disparity among child sexual offences, further directions and suggestions for practice are discussed.

The examination of the disparity of sentencing decisions for child molesters and child pornography offenders and the identified variables that may contribute to these decisions suggests that the judiciary views child pornography and child molestation offenders differently and are more punitive toward contact offenders. Such disparity has implications for the criminal justice system.

This study offers the first exploration of sentencing disparity and decisions on child pornography and child molestation cases in Canada.

Investigates the sexual molestation of children in the USA and its repercussions for all concerned. Defines the subject and its reasons for the underreporting of this type of behaviour. Gives many guidelines and includes much information to aid both victims and parents/guardians in and out of schools. Concludes that both teachers and parents must continue to protect children from these heinous crimes, by sexual predators, as a proactive rather than reactive approach is required.

This article summarises recent research into the subject of downloading child pornography and the different kinds of individuals engaged in the activity. Current attitudes to paedophilia are assessed. The question as to whether the downloading of pornographic paedophile material always leads to paedophilia is a core discussion. The law and current views on downloading are also discussed. The issue of whether downloaders of such materials are a danger is addressed and ways of preventing children being sexually exploited via the internet are explored.

The aim of this paper is to provide up‐to‐date discussion of the types of factors used to assess sexual offenders risk.

The current status of the factors used to assess risk in sexual offenders is examined.

Risk factors broadly fall into two categories: static factors (i.e. generally unchangeable information such as previous offence history) from which a number of actuarial scales have been developed; and dynamic factors (i.e. psychological dispositions) that are typically identified in treatment. It is suggested that these risk factors are artefacts of the same behavioural and psychological vulnerabilities at different stages of assessment, with static factors acting as markers for underlying dispositions, while dynamic factors are the underlying dispositions.

The paper discusses in some detail the status of age as a risk factor, where even though it is typically considered a static risk factor in a number of actuarial scales (allowance typically being made if individuals are over/under 25), there is a dynamic element (i.e. change with age or the passage of time) to this aspect of assessment.

This paper may be useful to practitioners working in the field, in terms of providing a useful heuristic framework for risk conceptualisation.

The computer has evolved from a tool used solely for business, research and governmental purposes to an instrument characterized by social interaction in virtual worlds. In this context, like‐minded people can converse and interact online in ways that are both enjoyable and satisfying. However, virtual worlds also bring with them cause for concern. These concerns include – but are not limited to – the loss of one's privacy, the fear of being exploited, and the loss of identity. This paper seeks to investigate the current state of affairs of online virtual worlds in terms of what many people deem acceptable and unacceptable forms of behavior.

A study is presented that explores the unmonitored distribution of electronic materials through the internet. Available technologies are surveyed and recommendations made based on these analyses.

This paper has shown that effective enforcement of online behavior is, at least, a very complicated undertaking – not one that will be quickly or easily solved. However, it demonstrates a number of techniques people may use today to protect themselves and those around them.

A number of techniques are described to help people traverse virtual worlds in a safe, secure and confident manner. This includes recommendations for people of all ages, from children through to adults.

This paper aims to evaluate a potential resolution to the gamer’s dilemma that arises from Gary Young’s metaethical theory of constructive ecumenical expressivism (CEE).

In this paper, the gamer’s dilemma is reformulated as a paradox and the potential resolution is evaluated in light of this new formulation.

The author argues that this resolution does resolve the dilemma, but CEE itself has limited appeal.

This paper contributes to the growing scholarship dedicated to resolving the gamer’s dilemma.

The aim of this study is to investigate Turkish taxpayers’ perception of the severity of tax evasion relative to other crimes and violations.

A questionnaire survey was administrated to 475 Turkish self-employed respondents. One sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance methods were used for data analysis.

The results of the study illustrate that tax evasion ranked 10th among the 21 offences surveyed. The results indicate that the average person views tax evasion as only somewhat serious. When compared to similar white-collar crimes, it ranked less severe than accounting fraud, while it was ranked higher than violation of minimum wage laws, welfare fraud and child labor laws. The results of this paper are important as they emphasize the fact that general public do not perceive tax evasion as a serious crime. This perception, allied to lack of enforcement efforts, has created an environment where certain individuals may not be afraid of cheating on their tax return. The study also endeavors to observe whether there is a correlation between the relative severity of a crime whether a victim is involved or not.

The main limitation arises from the sampling process used. The sample was drawn from only one city of Zonguldak, Turkey. The second limitation is related to the possibility of a participant misunderstanding the questions and terminology used in the survey. The third limitation is that this study only measures perceptions of the seriousness of 21 selected offences; hence, it may not be representative of the actual crimes.

This is an important study in relation to Turkey. This is the pioneer study of its kind which investigates the relationship between tax evasion as a crime and other offences in Turkey. Another important aspect of this study is the fact that our results indicate a close correlation with similar studies carried out in the USA.

Shelley:I suppose we should explain the title.Douglas:“From Lingua Franca to Scriptio Animi”: Sounds so scholarly, eh? So learned.S:In an uptight, un-Carolyn kind of way.D:We first heard about her in that profile in Lingua Franca.S:I was teaching a qualitative research class. The idea of reflexive ethnography jumped off the page. She sounded so fascinating and courageous.D:And so close by! Living just across the swamp from us in Tampa. Was it then that you went out and bought Final Negotiations?S:Yes, and found myself drawn into her life and her writing in an intense way.D:How did reading her work change your approach to the research class?S:I became more and more interested in personal experience methods, and ultimately created a class devoted almost exclusively to autoethnography. I guess you could say Carolyn was a ghost member of our curriculum committee.D:Oh, I love the image of her hovering around us.S:She actually sort of entered my blood stream, and I’d never even met her yet, though I certainly wanted to.D:And during that same time, I happened to email this guy named Art Bochner to thank him for his amazing “Forming Warm Ideas” chapter in Rigor and Imagination (Bochner, 1981). He and I started corresponding back and forth, developing an online friendship, and all the while I didn’t have a clue that he and Carolyn were together.S:One day you came home and said, “You know Art, the guy I told you I’ve been chatting with via email? You’re never going to believe who his partner is!”D:The coincidence was wonderful! I was clueless!S:The Latin formality of the title is doubly ironic then. “Scriptio Animi.” Brother!D:How so?S:Well, for one thing, Latin is not the first language that jumps to mind for capturing the intimate, speaking-in-vernacular nature of Carolyn's scholarship.D:Right. Despite the fact that the term lingua franca has to do with speaking a common language and scriptio animi translates as “writing of the heart-and-mind-and-soul.”S:That's the first irony – using a dead language of disembodied scholarship to refer to Carolyn's lively and embodied first-person voice.D:And the second irony?S:The use of Latin makes us sound like we’re these all-knowing academics. But neither of us knows anything about Latin. In you’re words, we’re clueless.D:Absolutely. I was trying (and failing) to cobble together a meaningful phrase by working backwards in the O.E.D. Our friend John brought his expertise in classical languages to bear on my first few attempts and very sensitively suggested I torch them. Without him, we’d never have come up with “Scriptio Animi” (John Leeds, personal communication, March 9, 2003). A Liberal Arts colleague at the university, however, kindly normalized my ignorance: “Native Latin speakers,” he assured me, “are either dead for over a thousand years (in Rome) or in prison for child molestation” (Mark Cavanaugh, personal communication, March 7, 2003).S:Irony and our cluelessness aside, the title does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of Carolyn's work. After all, she values “narrative soul” (Ellis, 2000, p. 274) – pretty close to the “writing of the soul” of “scriptio animi.”D:But irony and cluelessness shouldn’t be put to the side – they belong at the center. Carolyn's whole enterprise is grounded in the irony of knowing and the importance of maintaining a not-knowing stance.S:Okay, so the Latin stays. Besides, I like the reflexive paradox of the title, and Carolyn is nothing if not reflexive.D:Little did Lacan know that social science would go through its own “mirror stage,” using an ethnographic looking glass to encounter and transform the self-in-context.S:Right. Carolyn says reflexive stories should have “therapeutic value” – that they should change the reader in some significant way. Her stories, and her students’ stories, transformed me as a researcher and as a teacher. I invited personal experience into class discussions in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible. After hearing her perform her story of her brother's death, I found that her voice was often with me in the classroom; it was very powerful.D:Therapeutic not only for the reader, but also for the writer. Last fall when I was traveling back and forth to Calgary while my mom was dying, I started writing an autoethnographic account of what I was going through. Carolyn and Art were in my head and my heart a lot as I storied my experience.S:Yes, I remember. And Carolyn's stories about her mother's illness and her many trips to West Virginia to be with her became entwined with your stories.D:Yeah. And something odd happened – something that unsettled me at the time and that cries out for a Carolyn consultation. It was like I couldn’t put down my pen. At some of the most tender, most difficult, most intimate times, I was composing sentences in my head, wondering how I could best grab the color and texture of what I was living. But in doing so, I felt removed from it. There I was, in the moment, crafting sentences rather than breathing life, forming descriptions rather than facing death.S:Carolyn talks about how writing autoethnographic texts has intensified her living (Ellis, 1996, p. 243).D:Maybe she isn’t plagued like me. Maybe she can have the experience without being interrupted by the anticipation of setting it down.S:She certainly recognizes that “written reality is a second-order reality that reshapes the events it depicts” (Bochner & Ellis, 1996, p. 26).D:Sure, but I’m troubled by the reshaping that was going on in the moment. It wasn’t a forced thing; it happened automatically. I was (and am) still struck by, and stuck on, the irony of it all.S:Still more irony? What do you mean?D:Let's say when I complete my narrative, I give it to Carolyn, and it manages to engage, evoke and provoke (Ellis, 2000, p. 274) her. Her reading will allow her to immerse in an experience that I, because I couldn’t turn off my goddamn autoethnographic eye-and-ear, felt distant from. So what's with that? She – or any reader – ends up being able to drink in my experience more than me? That's a hell of a price to pay. Rather than being with the fear in my mother's eyes, rather than being with the words and short phrases coming out of her mouth, expressions I hadn’t heard in forty years and so were transporting me back to my childhood, rather than being with the dry thin skin on her hands, rather than being with her sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night, scared to death, rather than being with her, I was a step ahead of both of us, getting it all down in my head so I could later transpose it to paper so some reader I don’t even know could get a handle on what it was like. But how the hell could I write what it was like if I was so damn busy writing what it was like, I wasn’t quite there? A curse! I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.S:The curse of rendering experience.D:Exactly! Rendering in both senses of the word. When you render something personal [writes in the air], you render it [rips the air apart].S:Carolyn points out that “the world as we ‘know’ it cannot be separated from the language we use to explain, understand, or describe it” (Bochner & Ellis, 1996, p. 20).D:Maybe the “known” world can’t, but how about the felt world, the sensed world?S:Which is where “not knowing” comes in.D:Another link to our way of approaching therapy. It's about engaging in discovery, not about imposing what you think you already understand.S:We’ve brought autoethnography to our therapy students as a way of enhancing their ability to understand their own and their clients’ experiences – a mirror inversion of Carolyn's bringing “therapeutic sensitivity” to her autoethnography students.D:Right. She tells her students that one of the goals of writing about their lives “is that they should become their own therapist…. Writing can help them have insights about themselves, help them work through problems themselves” (Flemons & Green, 2002, p. 116).S:Carolyn is right about stories having “therapeutic value,” but I think Carolyn herself – the in-person-Carolyn – does, too. Her way of being embodies her work. Because she is so intrigued by personal experience, she brings a unique intensity to her relationships. Her curiosity and genuine not-knowing stance allow her to know others deeply.D:And care about them. For someone who has done so much self-reflection, she's the least self-absorbed person I know.S:Autoethnography as a method has been criticized as a form of narcissistic self-indulgence (Sparkes, 2002), but that is the antithesis of what Carolyn does as a person and a scholar.D:She reaches in, but also out.S:Both personally and professionally, she touches us.