Psychosocial Profile of Juvenile and Adult Offenders Who Acknowledge Having Committed Child-to-Parent Violence

The main objective of this study was to establish the psychosocial profile of adolescents and adults who have admitted to committing child-to-parent violence (CPV) and were serving a judicial sanction or prison sentence, respectively. Two groups of participants took part in this study. The first group was made up of 89 male youths who were serving judicial sanctions, and the second group was made up of 70 men serving a prison sentence. A cross-sectional retrospective design with concurrent measurements was used in this study. Group differences in the exposure-to-violence variables were conducted. Automatic regression models were used to estimate a self-reported CPV. In relation to the variables of indirect exposure to violence, statistically significant differences between those who admitted having committed CPV and those who did not, irrespective of being adults or adolescents, were found for seeing violence in class and at home but not for seeing violence on the street or on television. Regarding the variables related to experiencing violence, the results showed statistically significant differences in experiencing violence at home but not in class or on the street. The best predictive model of CPV includes some of the dimensions of self-concept, specifically academic and family self-concept, as well as the avoidant and rational problem-solving styles and the negative orientation toward problems. The results have shown the existence of a CPV offender profile that is common to minors and adults.

Challenging the Myth of Color Blindness in Restorative Justice Programs

Using critical race theory and institutional ethnography as frameworks, this paper investigates the Extra-Judicial Sanctions (EJS) Program, as implemented in Calgary, Alberta, and its lack of ability to achieve transformative restorative justice in the cases of racialized immigrant youth. The failure to recognize the impact of race, ethnicity, and immigrant status in the Youth Criminal Justice Act is considered problematic as this paper challenges the notion of color blindness. It is suggested that a color-conscious approach be used in the EJS Program to incorporate inclusive institutional policies explicitly to foster a sense of belonging among racialized immigrant youth.

I didn’t do that! Contested Definitions of Racialized Immigrant Youth in the Extra-Judicial Sanctions Program: Uncovering Hidden Voices.

The social organization of knowledge focuses on how knowledge is created, enacted and shared by individuals in order to coordinate people’s actions. Using the frameworks of Institutional Ethnography (IE) and Critical Race Theory (CRT), this paper will look at the process of hearing the cases of racialized immigrant youth who are referred to the Extra-judicial Sanctions program in Calgary. I investigate how cultural knowledge impacts the way in which the youth’s cases are adjudicated. In particular, looking at how knowledge about various racialized and ethnic groups is gained in an environment of popular discourse, and how this influences the cases of racialized immigrant youth. I then look at how this racialized knowledge impacts the process of the youth and their families attempting to contest the definitions that are assigned to them during the hearing process. I suggest that in the context of a neo-liberal, “colour-blind” Canadian society and policy, workers in the EJS process draw on their own cultural understandings in order to interpret the interactions with racialized immigrant youth, which then impacts the ability of the youth to truly have their voices heard.

Conclusion: Clemency’s Place

The Conclusion, after briefly summarizing the respective country positions and restating the three-part hypothesis outlined in Chapter 7, considers what Southeast Asia’s ‘natural experiment’ on clemency means for policymakers, NGO staff, and legal practitioners working on death penalty cases in the region. The four national case studies, together with Chapter 7’s comparative hypothesis, suggest various practical means of boosting each Southeast Asian jurisdiction’s clemency rate within finalized capital cases. The Conclusion also considers what implications the comparative findings outlined in Chapter 7 have for the broader criminal justice literature in other parts of the world (particularly concerning the relationship between discretion exercised at different stages of a criminal case, the relationship between extrajudicial and judicial sanctions, the impact of democratization on criminal justice policies, and the influence of delay on criminal justice decision-making). Finally, the Conclusion suggests a future research agenda, including quantitative studies to ‘test’ the accuracy of the book’s three-part hypothesis in other parts of the retentionist world. The chapter ends with several predictions regarding the future of capital clemency in the four Southeast Asian jurisdictions under analysis (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia).

Drug Courts

Drug courts were developed to facilitate treatment for criminal offenders with substance abuse problems. Drug courts operate using dual paradigms of healing and discipline via treatment, social service resources, and case management for healing, and judicial sanctions and criminal justice interventions in efforts to initiate change resulting in sobriety and no further criminal behavior. The key goals of most drug courts are to reduce drug use and associated criminal behavior by engaging and retaining drug-involved offenders in programs and treatment services; to concentrate expertise about drug cases into a single courtroom; to address other defendant needs through clinical assessment and effective case management; and to free judicial, prosecutorial and public defense resources for adjudicating non-drug cases. It is vital that social work students be introduced to drug courts and how they function for students to gain better understanding of how addiction can bring their clients into contact with the criminal justice system. Drug courts are ideal settings for internship placements so that students can get hands-on experience in a court setting and assist clients using a therapeutic jurisprudence model.

Evaluating a Health Education Website: The Case of AlcoholEdu

Building on the promise of interactive, multimedia education, this evaluation study examines an alcohol abuse prevention program, AlcoholEdu, delivered through an interactive Web-based format for the purpose of reducing the harm associated with student alcohol abuse. The study uses a clustered, randomly assigned post-test only evaluation design with 20,150 individuals to examine differences between individuals who have and have not yet received the educational program. Analyses examined the efficacy of the intervention among different groups of students: those who are members of Greek letter organizations, those referred because of judicial sanctions, or those entering their first year of study. Findings hint toward evidence that interactive health-related Web tools can contribute to preventing high-risk student health behaviors in the campus environment, with self-reported evidence suggesting implementation among first-year students to be the most promising.