Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of ill-treatment and bullying experienced by Irish workers and to explore individual and organisational predictors. The most recent national figures available are specific to bullying and predate the economic recession; therefore, this study is timely and investigates a broader range of negative behaviours.

A questionnaire survey study on a national probability sample of Irish employees was conducted (N = 1,764). The study design replicated the methodology employed in the British workplace behaviour study.

The results showed that 43% of Irish workers had experienced ill-treatment at work over the past two years, with 9% meeting the criteria for experiencing workplace bullying. A number of individual and organisational factors were found to be significantly associated with the experience of ill-treatment at work.

This study provides national-level data on workplace ill-treatment and bullying that are directly comparable to British study findings.

The findings indicate that a significant number of Irish workers experience ill-treatment at work, and that workplace bullying does not appear to have decreased since the last national study was conducted in Ireland.

This study is of use to the Irish regulator and persons responsible for managing workplace bullying cases, as it identifies high-risk work situations and contributing individual factors.

This study provides national Irish data on workplace behaviour and ill-treatment following a severe economic recession.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceived low number of Scottish criminal convictions in cases of ill-treatment or wilful neglect of adults where the victims experienced mental disorder, and/or incapacity. Human rights and anti-discrimination legislation are drawn upon to consider whether victims are gaining equality of access to justice through the charging and conviction of those who commit these offences.

The paper uses the concept of parity of participation to first set out the wider legal framework in which access of justice takes place and to try to determine how it may be working in practice. Second the paper explores Scottish guidance, research and case law in relation ill-treatment or wilful neglect to evaluate the seeming lack of progress towards criminal convictions.

Whilst the legal framework, at least on paper, appears to promote equality of access to justice, little is known about how it is working in practice; in particular whether cultural barriers to participation are being addressed. Evaluation of Scottish statistical data on cases of ill-treatment and wilful neglect revealed a small number of cases progressing to court though there were challenges in constructing a pathway from charges to convictions. There also appeared to be no Scottish legal opinions published in connection with these cases. In addition lack of research means that little is known about why cases progress, and how victims might be being supported through the process.

It is suggested that these gaps in information, in comparison to England and Wales, might be hindering practice. In particular the apparent lack of operational definitions for ill-treatment and wilful neglect in Scotland may reduce the use of this type of criminal offence. As such criminal offences embedded within civil mental health and mental capacity legislation may currently be hidden in plain sight. The human rights consequences of the issues raised in this paper are argued as significant. Research is needed to fill these gaps and inform future guidance and training.

Improved Scottish guidance and publicity of this issue is required. Local inter-agency discussions and training could develop a better understanding of how these offences have been defined and how disabled people might be supported through the legal processes. The Scottish publication of statistical information for charging and convictions might usefully record these offences separately to give them a greater public profile in the future.

This paper highlights the dearth of publicly available information on the number and nature of Scottish prosecutions for ill-treatment or wilful neglect. It suggest ways in how this might be addressed.

This article describes and clarifies the human rights of persons with disabilities in the context of detention in light of the recently adopted and already in force Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Convention). Focusing on the Convention, the article sheds light on the legality of certain forms of detention affecting persons with disabilities, the substantive and procedural requirements for their detention, and on their rights in relation to conditions of detention. This article also provides an account of the different treatments and practices inflicted on persons with disabilities in prisons and other institutions and assesses whether they constitute torture and ill treatment. The authors argue that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities represents a paradigm shift that requires States to modify and adopt laws, policies and practices that fully respect the right to liberty of persons with disabilities, and their equal enjoyment of rights while in detention, including the right to be free from torture and ill treatment.

Aging has detrimental effects on elders due to their physical health and financial hardship. Elders face neglect, insult and abuse in society due to causes related to physical health and financial issue from caregivers. This study aims to identify the measures of physical health and financial hardship and classifies elders under neglect, insult and abuse categories.

The propositions of existence and classifying elders under neglect, insult and abuse categories were tested by using discriminant analysis and their profiling was done by perceptual mapping technique.

The elder neglect category identified as a prominent category due to physical health while elder insult and abuse were caused by physical health and financial hardship both. The present study portrays the multi-dimensional facets related to elders’ ill-treatment. The elder’s ill-treatment categories were profiled to imply the measure of elevating elders’ dignity and care at a personal level and society at large.

This study classifies elders under neglect, insult and abuse categories. This classification may facilitate the medical practitioners, academicians and government and non-government social welfare agencies in understanding elder abuse with new perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate key milestones in development of standards of human rights to health care in particular context of addressing palliative care, relevant efforts of advocacy in past decade and future area of growth.

In this study, analysis of human rights and its standards in context of palliative care has been provided through the lens of freedom from ill treatment and torture, right to health care and older persons’ and children’s rights.

Findings of this study highlighted significant developments in this area which include following: first treaty of human rights which explained right to palliative care; first resolution on palliative care by World Health Assembly; special rapporteur’s report focussed on denial of pain; and addressing issue of controlled medicine availability in special session of UN General Assembly.

Human rights standards and their development in context of palliative care have been most significant in relation to freedom from ill treatment and torture, right to health care and older persons’ rights. Further work is required in context of children’s rights and treaty bodies of human rights need to consistently address state obligations towards palliative care.

The struggle against torture and institutional violence has to be practiced in numerous scenarios: in the very places of deprivation of liberty, against workers, administrations and judges who try to hide it or justify it, but also, it’s a struggle against an academy that, too often, has decided to look the other way. In order to be activist, criminology must leave the classroom and enter the places of deprivation of liberty. It must engage with victims and survivors and it has to make political and social denunciations, organising itself and weaving networks with other social organisations that fight for the same goal. Unfortunately, it also has to fight against the very obstacles that the criminal justice system institutions pose; the denunciations and persecution of these same institutions and some police and prison workers groups and unions; the dirty war against terrorism and political dissent; and the criminalisation of some mass media and also of the academic world, where activism against this phenomenon is a minority and marginalised. These two sides of the same coin, involvement in anti-torture activist movements, as well as persecution and criminalisation when challenging state power, is what the authors of this chapter have experienced in Catalonia and Spain. While we fight against torture outside the classroom, we also carry out activism inside the classroom, teaching what other academics do not want to engage with, and pointing out the political elements of criminology and the action of the penal system. In this chapter, the authors highlight the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in custody and prison, and in the context of police activity in Spain. Then, the authors explain the structures of denial (political, judicial and academic) that allow its perpetuation and impunity. The text ends with a journey through the configuration of activist criminology in Spain that unites critical analysis from a legal sociology perspective with collective and activist intervention.

The paper is centred through an examination of a short piece of recorded talk between managers and shop stewards within a UK National Health Service (NHS) Trust, relating to the manner in which one of the shop stewards attempted to get the managers to accede to a request he made for changes to the wording of a section of the Trust’s disciplinary procedure. In examining this piece of talk, the paper first contextualises the Trust through the decentralisation process of the early 1990s. The decentralisation process clearly did not introduce formal negotiation into NHS units, but instead increased the scope of formal negotiation encounters. The paper argues that there was an increased importance for persuasion as the need to gain others’ assent on industrial relations matters at the local level was significantly increased. The paper analyses the dynamics of one particular negotiating encounter between two managers and two shop stewards. In analysing this, the paper focuses through rhetoric. In coming through a rhetorical framework, the paper highlights the need for managers, when negotiating, to be alert to the implied elements of the arguments of those across the negotiating table. Concludes by also understanding the rhetoric of the encounter in the light of the marketisation of the NHS during the 1990s.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experiences of workplace ill-treatment of administrative and technical staff in the higher education sector, with a particular focus on organisational response.

A qualitative interpretative phenomenological research design was employed. Using non-random, purposive sampling strategies nine self-selecting participants from three of the seven universities in the Republic of Ireland were interviewed in person. Data were analysed thematically employing the Pietkiewicz and Smith’s (2012) four-stage data analysis model.

Thematic analysis yielded four main themes: micro-political nature of bullying, cynicism about the informal response, the formal procedures exacerbate the problem and significant and adverse health impact. Participant narratives engender the lived experience for the reader.

As participants were self-selecting respondent bias is acknowledged.

The findings of this study add to the accumulating evidence that organisations are failing to address workplace bullying.

In failing to protect employees, the adverse health difficulties experienced by targets of bullying are further exacerbated.

While the literature yields much in terms of types of behaviours and impact, and argues for anti bullying policies and procedures in the workplace, what is evident is the selective organisational use of policy and procedures and inherent biases in place which expose a reluctance to effectively protect dignity and respect in the workplace.

Unfortunately, workplace incivility (WI) within the information technology (IT) sector has hardly been covered in extant literature. Therefore, through narratives, this study explored various situational and cultural attributes of WI in the Indian IT sector.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted among the IT professionals (N = 24; Males = 13, Females = 11) aged between 21 and 45 years (Mean = 31.20, SD = 6.56) working in the South Indian state of Karnataka (Bengaluru).

The narrative thematic analysis yielded the following themes: Experiences of managers' ill-treatment at the workplace, co-workers incivility: dominance in the IT sector and prevalence of gender-based interpersonal discrimination. Furthermore, many sub-themes emerged under each major theme.

Contexts and cultural attributes of WI experiences warrant reconsidering and redefining the concept's theoretical underpinnings, especially from multi-cultural contexts, i.e. India, unlike leading studies in the Western culture. Current study narratives would guide further explorations of how IT professionals wish to curtail these behaviours and suggest strategies to minimize these behaviours in the respective sector.

The findings pose an interesting question for further investigation such as: Do individuals who seek favours from co-workers, under certain conditions, invite the experiences of WI for themselves from potential favour-doer? In a first of its kind, the study also offered relevant insights into exploring whether intentional acts as uncivil behaviours are peculiar to multi-cultural contexts, such as in India.

This paper demonstrates that the health of juveniles in deprivation of liberty in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, deteriorates while in detention and that conditions of detention are the major catalyst for offenders’ declining health status. The environment is conducive to the propagation and contamination of health‐related problems such as skin, respiratory, dental, and ear illness and viruses and parasitic infections. The paper concludes that at the moment, both inmates and the environment are disease carriers, deteriorating juveniles’ health status.