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Violent Acts (violent + act)
Selected AbstractsViolence and race in professional baseball: Getting better or getting worse?AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 2 2002Thomas A. Timmerman Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between race and violence in the context of professional baseball. Specifically, I used the number of times a batter was hit by a pitch (per plate appearance) as an indicator of being the victim of an indirect violent act. Archival data were gathered from 4,273 players from 1950 to 1997, yielding 27,022 individual records. Even after controlling for player ability and league rules, race was a significant predictor of being hit. Specifically, from 1950 to 1997, the rate at which Blacks were hit was approximately 7.5% greater than the rate for Whites. The rate at which Hispanics were hit was approximately 7.6% greater than the rate for Whites. Testing year as a moderator revealed that the Black-White difference was much greater in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1970 to 1989, race was not a significant predictor of being hit. Contrary to the hypotheses, from 1990 to 1997, Whites and Hispanics were hit at a significantly higher rate than Blacks (23.0% and 29.0%, respectively). Additional analyses revealed no relationship between pitcher race and batter race in hit-by-pitch events from 1997 to 1999. The findings are discussed with respect to group threat theory and the distinction between covert and overt aggression. Aggr. Behav. 28:109,116, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Stalking: A Violent Crime or a Crime of Violence?THE HOWARD JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Issue 5 2002Emily Finch This article examines the sufficiency of the legal response to stalking in terms of the penalty that can be imposed under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. It is argued that the statute places limitations upon the availability of a sentence that adequately reflects the severity of the harm involved. This is exacerbated by the sentencing policy outlined in the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, which delineates the circumstances in which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed. Central to this article is the distinction between a violent act and an act of violence and the role of the relevant conduct and consequences in the categorisation process. The article concludes with a consideration of whether the recommendations of the Halliday report would strengthen the law in this respect. [source] Verdi's Rigoletto: The dialectic interplay of the psychic positions in seemingly ,mindless' violenceTHE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 5 2003Moshe Bergstein In this paper the author demonstrates the interplay of the psychic positions (paranoid-schizoid and depressive, alongside more primitive mental states) as they may appear in experiences of overwhelming anxieties relating to fragmentation and disintegration. These are examined in relation to the appearance of what has been described in the literature as ,mindless' violence. The vehicle for this demonstration is Verdi's opera Rigoletto, which the author examines using Fonagy and Target's model for the understanding of mindless violence. The opera is ,read' as a case study of the protagonist, using the drama as a reflection of Rigoletto's internal object representations. The author attempts to extend Fonagy and Target's model to include primitive mental states, in order to understand ,mindless' violence as a result of collapse of the dialectical relationship of the psychic positions, leading to the violent act as a desperate attempt at re-establishing a sense of self. From this perspective, the moment of the violent act may be seen as use of an autistic object and as supplying of autistic shape. The violence is ultimately directed against the already fragmenting self, especially cherished parts of it, however it may enable acknowledgement of repudiated, unmentalised emotions previously experienced as a void. [source] A REAPPRAISAL OF THE OVERLAP OF VIOLENT OFFENDERS AND VICTIMS,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2008CHRISTOPHER J. SCHRECK Because research shows a close association between offending and victimization, recent work has argued that theories that account for crime should explain victimization as well. The current study uses a new approach to examine the extent of the overlap between offenders who commit violent crime and victims of violence to determine whether it is worthwhile to pursue separate theories to account for these phenomena. Specifically, we take the statistical approach that Osgood and Schreck (2007) developed for analyzing specialization in violent versus property offending and apply it to analyzing tendencies to gravitate toward violent offending versus victimization. In doing so, we treat the differentiation into victim and offender roles as an individual-level latent variable while controlling for confounding between the likelihood that individuals will take either role in violent acts and their overall numbers of encounters with violence (as either offender or victim). Our purpose is to examine 1) whether significant differentiation can be observed between the tendency to be an offender versus the tendency to be a victim, 2) whether any such differential tendency is stable over time, and 3) if it is possible to predict whether individuals will tend toward violent offending versus victimization. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore these objectives, we find significant and stable levels of differentiation between offenders and victims. Moreover, this differentiation is predictable with explanatory variables. [source] Impact of traumatic experiences and violent acts upon response to treatment of a sample of Colombian women with eating disordersINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EATING DISORDERS, Issue 4 2005Maritza Rodríguez MD Abstract Objective The current article compared the impact of exposure to sexual trauma and other types of physical threats against the patient or the patient's family on response to treatment, relapse, and dropout rates in 160 Colombian women between 12 and 49 years of age with eating disorders. Method A comparison was made to 70 cases with unsatisfactory response to treatment and 90 controls with a better response to treatment goals. Results Forty-five percent had a history of sexual abuse, other violent traumas, or both. Significant statistical differences were observed between both groups in exposure variables. The highest probability of poor outcome was observed in patients with sexual abuse and exposure to other violent acts (odds ratio [OR] = 6.37, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.1,19.07). The risk of dropout or relapse was, respectively, 10 and 3 times greater among those exposed. Discussion Violent social conditions should be noted as another form of trauma with potential impact on outcome in Colombian women with eating disorders. © 2005 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Risk management with suicidal patientsJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2006Alan L. Berman The patient who is at-risk for suicide is complex and is difficult to evaluate and treat effectively. Should suicidal behavior occur, the clinician faces the potential wrath of bereaved survivors and their externalized blame exercised through a malpractice suit. The clinician's duty of care to a patient is to act affirmatively to protect a patient from violent acts against self. A finding of malpractice is established if the court finds that this duty was breached, through an act of omission or commission relative to the standard of care, and that this breach was proximately related to the patient's suicidal behavior. This article discusses the standard of care and factors that determine liability in a suicide death of a patient. An extensive list of recommendations for competent caregiving for the at-risk patient and risk management guidelines are then presented. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session 62: 171,184, 2006. [source] Analysis of recent incidents of on-field violence in sport: legal decisions and additional considerations from psychologyAGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2009John H. Kerr Abstract This article focuses on two recent incidents of serious on-field violence in sports and the legal consequences for those involved. The two incidents occurred in Dutch football (soccer) and became infamous owing to the nature of the violent incidents and widespread media coverage. The legal outcomes of these two incidents are described, and some of the difficulties that legal authorities face in considering assaults on the sports field are discussed. A new way of categorizing such violent incidents and the motivation behind them, based on an established psychological theory [reversal theory, Apter, 1982, 2001] is proposed. Taken along with the other points made in this article, being aware of when and how individuals cross the boundaries between play and anger, power or thrill violence may provide an additional perspective to making informed decisions about illegal violent acts on the sports field. Aggr. Behav. 35:41,48. 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] SCL-90-R profiles in a sample of severely violent psychiatric inpatientsAGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 6 2002Stål Bjørkly Abstract A sample of 39 patients who had committed serious violent acts toward others were assessed with the revised Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R). The SCL-90-R is a self-report symptom inventory for the measurement of psychopathology in psychiatric and medical patients. In addition to the patients' self-report, an observer-rated SCL-90-R was obtained. This was accomplished by letting one pair of nurses complete SCL-90-R ratings for each patient. The first aim of the study was to compare the SCL-90-R self-report scores of the patient sample with the psychiatric inpatient norms [Derogatis LR (1992): Clinical Psychometric Research Inc]. Another purpose of this study was to explore possible trends of discordance between the observer ratings and the self-reports of the study group. Always considering the limitations of the small sample, it was nevertheless also of interest to look for possible sex differences and differences between violent subgroups and between diagnostic groups in the self-reported scores as well as in the observer ratings. The most striking findings of the present study were that the self-reported scores were lower than the inpatient norms for SCL-90-R and that the patients' self-reported levels of distress were significantly lower than those found in the observer ratings. Underreporting of psychopathology as a marker of violence risk is discussed in light of these findings. In this study, women reported higher distress levels than men in the Interpersonal Sensitivity symptom dimension. There were no significant differences concerning SCL-90-R ratings between patients who had committed homicide, attempted homicide, or physically assaulted another person in a serious but not life-threatening way. Aggr. Behav. 28:446,457, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Dangerous Children: Assessment and Management of RiskCHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 2 2004Paul Tiffin Background:, Workers in the field of child health appear to be presented with increasing numbers of young people who exhibit behaviours that pose a potential or actual risk to the safety of others. Method:, A review of the current literature on the assessment and management of these children and adolescents was conducted. Results:, A history taking check-list has been devised on the basis of what is known about current associations with background and current factors and violent acts directed to others. There is emerging evidence of interventions that may be effective in reducing long-term risks in such youths. However, these are often resource intensive and may be less effective in older children and adolescents. Conclusions:, Faced with the challenge of assessing and managing severely conduct disordered children, child and family mental health teams should develop formalised assessment procedures and protocols for managing risk factors in a multi-agency context. [source] |