• Canada
• 050901 criminology close

Antecedentes. La valoración del riesgo de violencia es un requisito fundamental en la toma de decisiones profesionales que implican prevenir, intervenir o informar sobre la conducta de las personas. El uso de herramientas estructuradas de evaluación del riesgo de violencia ha mostrado mejoría en la precisión de las evaluaciones basadas exclusivamente en el juicio clínico o en la pericia de un experto en contextos psiquiátricos, penitenciarios y jurídicos.Objetivo. Este estudio presenta los resultados de la primera encuesta sobre las prácticas profesionales asociadas al uso de herramientas de evaluación del riesgo de violencia en España.Materiales y métodos. La información fue recogida mediante la administración de una encuesta en internet que fue distribuida por correo electrónico a los miembros de organizaciones profesionales.Resultados. De manera similar a los contextos profesionales del resto del mundo, las escalas de psicopatía de Robert Hare (Psychopathy Checklist-Revised y Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version) y el Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20 encabezaron la lista de las herramientas más usadas tanto por elección personal como por requisito institucional.Conclusiones. Se ofrecen datos novedosos sobre la prevalencia de uso y la utilidad percibida de las herramientas estructuradas, así como sobre otras cuestiones relacionadas a las prácticas profesionales de evaluación del riesgo de violencia en España que pueden orientar tanto a los profesionales de contextos sanitarios, correccionales y forenses, como a los responsables de las instituciones en la elección de las herramientas a implementar para asistirlos en la toma de decisiones. Background. Violence risk assessment is a key requirement in professional decision making involving prevention, intervention or reporting on human behavior. The use of structured tools for violence risk assessment has shown to improve the accuracy of assessments based exclusively on clinical judgment or expertise in psychiatric, correctional and legal settings.Objectives. This study presents results of the first survey about professional practices associated with tools for violence risk assessment in Spain.Materials and methods. The information was collected by administering an online-based survey that was distributed by e-mail to members of professional organizations around the country.Results. As in professional contexts worldwide, the Robert Hare's psychopathy scales (Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version) and the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20 topped the list of the most used tools both by professional choice and institutional requirement.Conclusions. We provide novel data on the prevalence of use and the perceived utility of specific tools, as well as on other issues related to the professional practice of violence risk assessment in Spain, which can guide professional in the health care, correctional and forensic settings, as well as those responsible for decisions in institutions about choosing which tool to implement.

This paper describes how the findings of two nationally representative Canadian surveys on woman abuse were taken up by both academics and the media. It puts the surveys in the context of debates about feminist epistemology and measurement. This context does now, however, fully account for the ways in which the findings were mobilized for apparently different purposes. Using a governmentality perspective, the paper illustrates the parallels between the way in which anti‐violence policies and the surveys have constituted the problem of woman abuse in ways that facilitate a particular form of governing gender. The paper argues that the wider shift to neo‐liberal forms of governance must be considered by feminists who count woman abuse in order to avoid contributing to this shift. The paper concludes with ways to undertake survey research on woman abuse.

‘Hate stereotyping’ occurs when researchers foreground negative emotions, especially hate, as motivating right-wing social movements, epitomized by labels like ‘hate group’. This convention contradicts empirical evidence showing that hateful feelings and ideological prejudices are mostly insignificant for attracting and retaining members in such movements. Using contemporary theories of hate, this article demonstrates the concept’s limits and misuse in studying and theorizing the political Right. For instance, hate’s theoretical and methodological ambiguity sometimes leads scholars to confuse hatred with right-wing ideology and prejudice, which can obfuscate findings and spur dubious generalizations across political groups. Moreover, some researchers accept post-structuralist theories of hate as a substitute for vital data on emotions, motivations and meaning-making among right-wing actors. Hate explanations persist because they appeal to ‘common sense’ about intolerance, not because of their methodological integrity for studying right-wing movements. By foregrounding intolerance, hate stereotyping risks sustaining the dominant narrative that prejudices such as racism are deviant, and that racism is a problem of bad attitudes and fringe ideologies, rather than larger issues of systemic and structural inequality.

Despite several decades of institutional reforms in sexual assault policing, sexual assault police investigators continue to dismiss a disproportionate number of sexual assault reports as unfounded. This article examines the policing practices behind these trends by outlining the techniques that police use to assess the credibility and truthfulness of survivors’ reports of sexual assault. Drawing on 17 semistructured interviews with sexual assault investigators working in urban policing organizations in Ontario, Canada, this article reveals how investigative techniques in sexual assault cases often rest on normative assumptions about who real survivors are and how they behave. Through this analysis, this article illustrates how survivors of sexual assault can become suspect in sexual assault investigations.

ABSTRACT Remoteness in the isolated communities of Nunavut, Canada adversely affects access to mental health services. Mental health initiatives in criminal courts exist in many cities to offer healthcare alternatives to regular criminal court processing for people affected by mental illness. These initiatives do not exist in Nunavut. A qualitative multiple-case study in 3 Nunavut communities involving 55 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus groups explored perceptions by health, justice and community stakeholders of the potential for criminal court mental health initiatives in the territory. Findings suggest remoteness is perceived to hinder mental healthcare support for court responses to people affected by mental illness, creating delay in psychiatric assessments and treatment. While communication technologies, such as tele-mental health, are considered an effective solution by most health professionals, many justice-sector participants are sceptical because of perceived limits to accessibility, reliability and therapeutic value. These perceptions suggest remoteness is a significant hurdle facing future criminal court mental health initiatives in Nunavut. Additionally, remoteness is viewed as affecting decisions by lawyers to bypass legislated mental health avenues, possibly resulting in more people with mental illness facing criminal justice sanctions without assessment and treatment.

This paper focuses on contract law as a central field in contemporary regulatory practice. In recent years, "governance by contract" has emerged as the central concept in the context of privatization, domestic and transnational commercial relations, and law-and-development projects. Meanwhile, as a result of the neo-formalist attack on contract law, "governance of contract" through contract adjudication, consumer pro-tection law, and judicial intervention into private law relations has come under severe pressure. Building on early historical critique of the formalist foundations of an alleg-edly private law of the market, the paper assesses the current justifications for contrac-tual governance and posits that only an expanded legal realist perspective can adequately explain the complex nature of contractual agreements in contemporary practice. The paper argues for an understanding of contracts as complex societal arrangements that visibilize and negotiate conflicting rationalities and interests.

Abstract This paper investigates the certification of insanity through a standardized template called Form K which was used in Ontario between 1873 and 1883. My main thesis is that the introduction of the Form K had profound and long-lasting effects on the determination of insanity. In particular, it created a unique case in the history of certification, it grounded civil confinement on a strategy of consensus, and it informed mental health documentation for more than a century. As the result of a transnational mediation from Victorian England, the Form K prescribed an examination setting which involved a high number of participants, including three physicians and several witnesses. By comparing this case with other jurisdictions of the time, this paper shows how Ontario became a distinctive case worldwide. In order to get a closer look at this medico-legal procedure, I consider the archival records of the Toronto asylum and conclude that the certification of insanity relied on a strategy of consensus. While the Form K proved quite successful in preventing legal actions, it produced financial, logistic, and bureaucratic issues. The Form K was thus discontinued after a decade, yet its structure influenced Ontario’s mental health documentation throughout the twentieth century. This paper shows the relevance of the certification of insanity for transnational history and for understanding contemporary issues of involuntary confinement and stigma in mental health.

SummaryLaw enforcement personnel regularly present suspects to eyewitnesses using showups. In this study, we examined the impact of the presence of stolen property on live showup identification performance. Two hundred seventy university students were exposed to a simulated theft. During the subsequent showup, we manipulated the presence of the target and stolen property. Binary logistic regression analyses indicated that both factors independently predicted the accuracy of identification decisions. Participants were more accurate when the target was in the showup and when the stolen property was present during the identification. Consistent with the item, context, and ensemble theory of recognition, the presence of stolen property led to an increase in sensitivity, suggesting ensemble formation. Future research on showups should continue to examine contextual variables that may lead to changes in sensitivity or criterion shift. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article combines the Foucauldian governmentality principles of managing troublesome populations with the actual everyday institutional discourse at parole hearings. The article illuminates how parole board members, inmates, and inmates' family members participate collaboratively in the construction of inmate identities as either parolees who should be released to the community or as prisoners who should remain in prison. The Foucauldian governmentality principles are complemented by a family attachment perspective whereby an offender's stake in conformity is promoted. Board members use a typology of caring and uncaring families to organize the parole hearings. This typology includes caring inmate mothers, caring inmate fathers, caring female partners uncaring inmate fathers, uncaring male partners, and uncaring female partners.