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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a broad conceptual framework in the social sciences that have only recently been studied within criminology. The purpose of this paper is to utilize this framework by applying it to one of the most potentially dangerous forensic populations.

Archival data from 225 federal sex offenders was used to perform descriptive, correlational, and negative binomial regression models.

There was substantial evidence of ACEs including father abandonment/neglect (36 percent), physical abuse (nearly 28 percent), verbal/emotional abuse (more than 24 percent), and sexual abuse (approximately 27 percent). The mean age of sexual victimization was 7.6 years with the youngest age of victimization occurring at the age of 3. Offenders averaged nearly five paraphilias, the most common were pedophilia (57 percent), pornography addiction (43 percent), paraphilia not otherwise specified (35 percent), exhibitionism (26 percent), and voyeurism (21 percent). The offenders averaged 4.7 paraphilias and the range was substantial (0 to 19). Negative binomial regression models indicated that sexual sadism was positively and pornography addiction was negatively associated with serious criminal violence. Offenders with early age of arrest onset and more total arrest charges were more likely to perpetrate kidnaping, rape, and murder.

ACEs are common in the life history of federal sex offenders, but have differential associations with the most serious forms of crime.

Recent highly publicized acts of violence and shootings on school campuses have prompted numerous crime prevention responses. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of protective measures such as law enforcement, security policies, and school/neighborhood characteristics on school violence within the context of the racial composition of the school and grade level.

The data used in this study were part of the School Survey on Crime and Safety collected in 2006. The dependent measures of school violence include reports of serious violence, physical attacks/fights, gun or knife possession, and threats and attacks with a weapon. The sample was divided by racial composition of the school (predominately white, and predominately minority schools) and by grade level (high schools, and all other grades). A negative binomial regression was conducted due the count-based dependent variables.

Findings revealed that minority schools often face higher levels of reported violence and had a heavier law enforcement presence, which often had mixed or counterproductive results for reducing school violence. School characteristics, such as reports of bullying, location, gang activity, and security measures yielded numerous statistically significant results.

Officials proposing school violence prevention efforts should strongly consider the importance of school and community characteristics, most notably grade level, and the unique context of a predominately white or minority school as there were different statistically significant results. Furthermore, officials should be cautious about relying on simple efforts such as more security personnel to address school violence. Violence and crime on school grounds should not be viewed as being isolated from violence and other forms of crime in the community. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided.

This study differs from much of the previous literature, which typically examines student and administrator attitudes about victimization and crime prevention. The current study examines detailed information on the effects of school violence prevention efforts and moves beyond most other works as it considers school safety approaches within the context of racial composition of the school and by different grade levels.

Recent highly publicized acts of violence and shootings on campus have prompted numerous crime prevention suggestions including having an armed presence in the schools. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of protective measures, policies, and school/neighborhood characteristics on school violence.

The data used in this study were part of the School Survey on Crime and Safety collected in 2006. The dependent measures of school violence include reports of violence, threatened attack with a weapon, attack with weapon, and gun possession. The sample was divided into high schools and all other grades to consider differences in levels of school violence among grade levels in relation to various law enforcement security measures, school security measures, and school characteristics.

Findings revealed mixed and often counterproductive results for law enforcement and school security efforts to control school violence. School characteristics, such as reports of bullying, location, and gang activity yielded numerous statistically significant findings. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided.

This study differs from much of the previous literature, which typically examines student and administrator attitudes about victimization and crime prevention. The current study examines detailed information on the actual effects of school violence prevention efforts. Furthermore, this study moves beyond most other works (that typically focus on high schools) as it considers school safety approaches by different grade levels.

A series of highly publicized school shootings in the USA generated the misperception of an epidemic of school violence. Fears of school violence stimulated an ill‐advised expansion of zero tolerance school discipline policies and the widespread dissemination of profiles or warning signs of potentially dangerous students for use by school administrators. This article presents the rationale for student threat assessment as an administrative alternative to zero tolerance or profiling. It describes the development and field‐testing of guidelines for school administrators to follow in investigating and resolving student threats of violence. Student threat assessment permits administrators to make reasonable judgments about the seriousness of a threat, to resolve most threats quickly and efficiently, and to reserve more labor‐intensive procedures for the most serious threats.

Effective professional approaches to the issue of domestic violence are in danger of being undermined by a lack of clarity in definition. This article argues that the gender neutral specification of domestic violence, the breadth of circumstances that comprise it and the encouragement of local variations allow a shift of focus away from the real problem of violence by males upon females and coherent crime reduction strategies.

The purpose of this paper was to report on the evaluation of the network and resources for violence prevention and reduction in the chosen area of focus. This area had experiences deprivation, significant implications due to Covid-19 restrictions and a lack of outdoor recreation space.

Network analysis methodologies are increasingly being used in criminological research and evaluations to assess the structures of social and economic networks. This study explored, using a mixed-methods network analysis methodology, the nature of the established violence reduction network in a specific geographical location in West Midlands.

A breadth of network activity is taking place across the community; however, the network analysis highlighted gaps in terms of specialist provision for early years and support from those with lived experience. It was perceived that a lack of continuity, in terms of changes in key roles, has affected the network. Funding mechanisms were perceived ineffective, and not encouraging of development of localisation services. Relationships between network members were predominantly positive with organisations having good communication and accessing support from one another; however, identifying shared goals and better collective working would benefit the network.

This study pioneers using an innovative, mixed methods network analysis to explore a public health approach to violence prevention and reduction. Quantitative data collection and analysis allowed for assessment of the networks capacity and density, whereas qualitative data provided insights and detailed accounts of how the network functions.

Purpose – Video game violence has historically been offered by policy-makers and some scholars as one contributing factor to mass homicides, particularly with shooters who are young, male, and white. However, the evidence for or against such beliefs has not been closely examined.

Approach – The current chapter examines the research exploring violent video game playing and its links with violent and aggressive behavior. Further, research regarding mass school shooters is also examined. The chapter also engages in a sociological analysis of structural factors within both the general society and scientific community by which media is often identified as a potential cause of social problems.

Findings – Current evidence cannot support proposed links between video game violence and aggressive or violent behavior, whether mild or mass homicides. Efforts to blame mass homicides on video games appear to be due to unfamiliarity with games among older adults, prejudicial views of young offenders, and a well-identified cycle of moral panic surrounding media as a scapegoat for social ills. Poor peer-reviewing within the scientific community allowed scholars to participate in this moral panic.

Social implications – Time focused on video games as a cause of mass school shootings is time wasted. Discussions of mental health issues and mental health care are likely to bear more fruit in relation to mass school shootings.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the prevalence of economic violence against women, specifically in formal sector micro-firms managed by women in Peru, a key Latin American emerging market. Additionally, the authors have identified the demographic characteristics of the micro-firms, financing and credit associated with women who suffer economic violence.

In this study, a structured questionnaire was administered to a representative sample nationwide (357 female micro-entrepreneurs).

The authors found that 22.2 percent of female micro-entrepreneurs have been affected by economic violence at some point in their lives, while at the same time 25 percent of respondents have been forced by their partner to obtain credit against their will. Lower education level, living with one’s partner, having children, business location in the home, lower income, not having access to credit, not applying credit to working capital needs, late payments and being forced to obtain credit against one’s will were all factors associated with economic violence. Furthermore, the results showed a significant correlation between suffering economic violence and being a victim of other types of violence (including psychological, physical or sexual); the highest correlation was with serious physical violence (r=0.523, p<0.01).

A limitation of this study is that the authors measured economic violence only in terms of misappropriation or theft of funds from the business, but not in terms of exacting control over economic resources, which can be a way of depriving the micro-entrepreneur of her autonomy in the management of the business.

The authors hope that the findings and conclusions reported here might open a renewed debate among academia, financial service providers, micro-firms, civil society and the public sector, providing a conceptual framework and a starting point to design effective, integrated and inter-sectoral prevention efforts.

The authors recommend that efforts to reduce intimate partner violence be strengthened, taking into account the issue of gender inequality. It is not sufficient that social policy solely be designed to eliminate violence.

Previous research on gender violence has tended to examine the nature and causes of psychological, physical and sexual violence; this study, however, intends to contribute to the understanding of economic gender violence in the context of formal sector small business in a Latin American emerging market.

Homicide is the most severe form of crime and one that imposes the greatest societal costs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the homicide circumplex, a set of traits, behaviors, psychological and psychiatric features that are associated with greater homicidal ideation, homicidal social cognitive biases, homicide offending and victimization, and psychopathology that is facilitative of homicide.

Using the data from a near population of federal supervised release offenders from the Midwestern USA, ANOVA, multinomial logistic, Poisson and negative binomial regression models were developed.

Greater homicidal ideation is associated with homicide offending, attempted homicide offending and attempted homicide victimization and predicted by gang activity, alias usage, antisocial personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder. These behavioral disorders, more extensive criminal careers, African American status and gang activity also exhibited significant associations with dimensions of the homicide circumplex.

Developing behavioral profiles of offenders that exhibit homicidal ideation and behaviors are critical for identifying clients at greatest risk for lethal violence. The homicide circumplex is an innovation toward the goal that requires additional empirical validation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Chinese police officers’ general support for police intervention into domestic violence, emphasizing adequate protection of the victims, and specific support for utilizing arrests to deal with the offenders.

This study relies on survey data collected from 1,064 police officers who worked in multiple areas in two provinces of China between June and July of 2019. OLS models were used to test whether organizational variables are significant predictors of officer attitudes toward domestic violence intervention.

Both agency endorsement and supervisory support are positively related to officers’ favorable attitudes toward police intervention into domestic violence and using arrests to handle offenders. The amount of training received from the agency on the recently promulgated Anti-Domestic Violence Law, however, has a negative influence on officer support for general intervention into domestic violence and no influence on officer attitudes toward arrests.

This study represents one of the first attempts to investigate the connections between organizational and managerial factors and Chinese officers’ support for both general and specific interventions into domestic violence. It contributes to the current literature that only included police cadets in the analysis of Chinese police attitudes toward domestic violence despite the fundamental differences between cadets and active-duty officers.