Sexual offences against children: An exploration of attrition in the Northern Ireland criminal justice system

Objective: This paper uses data provided by the Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) to compare the characteristics and outcomes of reported sexual offences involving child and adult victims and explore the factors associated with case outcomes.
Method: PSNI provided data on 8,789 sexual offences recorded between April 2001 and March 2006. Case outcomes were based on whether a case was recorded by police as having sufficient evidence to summons, charge, or caution an offender (detected). Where an offender was summonsed, charged, or cautioned, this is classified as detection with a formal sanction. A case can also be classified as "detected" without a formal sanction. The analysis focused on two key categories of detection without formal sanction: cases in which the police deem there to be sufficient evidence to charge an offender but took no further action because the victim did not wish to prosecute, or because the police or the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) decided that no useful purpose would be served by proceeding.
Results: The analysis confirmed that the characteristics of recorded sexual offences involving adult and child victims vary significantly according to gender, offence type, the timing of report and victim-offender relationship. Almost half of child sex abuse cases are not detected by police and a quarter do not proceed through the criminal justice system because either the victim declines to prosecute or the Police/PPS decide not to proceed. Only one in five child cases involved detection with a formal sanction. Child groups with lower detection with formal sanction rates included children under 5, teenagers, those who do not report when the abuse occurs but disclose at a later date; and those who experience abuse at the hands of peers and adults known to them but not related. The analysis also highlighted variation in formal sanction rates depending on where the offence was reported.
Conclusions: Consideration needs to be given to improving the criminal justice response to specific child groups as well as monitoring detection rates in different police areas in order to address potential practice variation.
Practice implications: Consideration needs to be given to improving the professional response in relation to with particularly lower detection with formal sanction rates. There is also a need to monitor case outcomes to ensure that child victims in different areas receive a similar service.

L'attrition de la marque d'usage PROVERBIAL de la 7e (1878) à la 8e (1932-35) édition du Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

Notre mémoire porte sur l’attrition de la marque d’usage PROVERBIAL de la 7e (1878) à la 8e édition du Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1932-35). L’informatisation des huit éditions achevées de l’ouvrage (Redon 2002), qui permet tant le relevé quantitatif que qualitatif des données, laisse voir que la marque jouit d’une grande stabilité dans les sept premières éditions, mais que son emploi chute considérablement de l’édition de 1878 à celle de 1932-35. Dans les limites notre projet, nous tâchons de comprendre le comment de cette érosion. Pour ce faire, nous avons recensé exhaustivement les lexies touchées de la 7e à la 8e édition, en tenant compte des cas de figure logiquement possibles : retrait d’un article ou d’une lexie dans la 8e édition, lexies partagées avec la 7e édition mais a) dépouillées de la marque, b) marquées différemment ou c) héritières du marquage d’origine. Dans l’édition de 1878, PROVERBIAL s’applique à 4 674 lexies distribuées dans 1 645 articles. Au terme de notre recherche, nous identifions les expressions proverbiales disparues ou maintenues dans le passage crucial de la 7e à la 8e édition du Dictionnaire de l’Académie française. Nous en tirons des résultats qui portent, entre autres, sur la transformation du système de marquage dans la tradition du Dictionnaire de l’institution.

Prédiction de l'attrition en date de renouvellement en assurance automobile avec processus gaussiens

Le domaine de l’assurance automobile fonctionne par cycles présentant des phases de profitabilité et d’autres de non-profitabilité. Dans les phases de non-profitabilité, les compagnies d’assurance ont généralement le réflexe d’augmenter le coût des primes afin de tenter de réduire les pertes. Par contre, de très grandes augmentations peuvent avoir pour effet de massivement faire fuir la clientèle vers les compétiteurs. Un trop haut taux d’attrition pourrait avoir un effet négatif sur la profitabilité à long terme de la compagnie. Une bonne gestion des augmentations de taux se révèle donc primordiale pour une compagnie d’assurance. Ce mémoire a pour but de construire un outil de simulation de l’allure du porte- feuille d’assurance détenu par un assureur en fonction du changement de taux proposé à chacun des assurés. Une procédure utilisant des régressions à l’aide de processus gaus- siens univariés est développée. Cette procédure offre une performance supérieure à la régression logistique, le modèle généralement utilisé pour effectuer ce genre de tâche.

L'attrition dans les enquêtes sociales longitudinales : le cas de l'Étude longitudinale du développement des enfants du Québec (ÉLDEQ)

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Analyse de l'attrition des enseignants au Québec

L’abandon de la carrière chez les enseignants, généralement appelé l’attrition des enseignants dans les écrits scientifiques, a été l’objet de nombreuses études. La connaissance en est assez avancée dans certaines régions du monde, mais très peu de recherches ont étudié cette problématique au Québec. Ainsi, l’objectif principal de ce travail de recherche était d’identifier les facteurs de l’attrition des enseignants au Québec. L’objectif spécifique de cette recherche était d’observer comment ces facteurs influencent la perception des individus et amènent certains d’entre eux à prendre la décision de quitter. Dans le cadre de cette étude qualitative, 26 individus (16 femmes et 10 hommes) ayant récemment quitté l’enseignement ont été rencontrés. Dix participants ont exercé la profession enseignante au niveau primaire et 16 au niveau secondaire. Afin de recueillir les données, le chercheur a procédé à des entrevues de groupe semi-dirigées d’une durée de deux heures. Les résultats de cette étude indiquent que les facteurs qui influencent l’attrition des enseignants au Québec sont nombreux et variés. Ils sont surtout relatifs aux conditions d’exercice de la profession et les plus souvent mentionnés sont les difficultés liées à la gestion de classe, la précarité du travail, les difficultés dans les relations avec les collègues, la charge de travail et le peu de soutien offert par la direction. Le contexte social et la faible valorisation de la profession enseignante ont aussi été mentionnés. Par ailleurs, le chercheur a analysé la perception qu’avaient les participants de leur expérience de travail à l’aide de la théorie de l’autodétermination (Deci et Ryan, 2000). Les résultats de cette analyse suggèrent que les participants ne se sentaient pas en mesure de satisfaire leurs besoins psychologiques fondamentaux dans le cadre du travail enseignant.

Granular Attrition due to Rotary Valve in a Pneumatic Conveying System

The rotary valve is a widely used mechanical device in many solids-handling industrial processes. However, it may also be responsible for most of the attrition effects occurring in a typical process. In this study, the attrition effects occurring in a rotary valve operating as a stand-alone device and as part of a pneumatic conveying system were investigated. In the former case granular attrition was carried out at three different rotary valve speeds and the experimental results obtained were found to be in good agreement with the Gwyn correlation. In the latter case three typical air flow rates were used in the pneumatic conveying system. The size distribution of the attrition product obtained at the lowest air flow rate used was not adequately described by the Gwyn correlation. The attrition process and mechanisms involved were analysed and the minimum size of the attrition product obtained from both modes of operations was found to be similar.

Exploring the source of differences and similarities in L1 attrition and heritage speaker competence: evidence from pronominal resolution

Several studies of different bilingual groups including L2 learners, child bilinguals, heritage speakers and L1 attriters reveal similar performance on syntax-discourse interface properties such as anaphora resolution (Sorace, 2011 and references therein). Specifically, bilinguals seem to allow more optionality in the interpretation of overt subject pronouns in null subject languages, such as Greek, Italian and Spanish while the interpretation of null subject pronouns is indistinguishable from monolingual natives. Nevertheless, there is some evidence pointing to bilingualism effects on the interpretation of null subject pronouns too in heritage speakers’ grammars (Montrul, 2004) due to some form of ‘arrested’ development in this group of bilinguals. The present study seeks to investigate similarities and differences between two Greek–Swedish bilingual groups, heritage speakers and L1 attriters, in anaphora resolution of null and overt subject pronouns in Greek using a self-paced listening with a sentence-picture matching decision task at the end of each sentence. The two groups differ in crucial ways: heritage speakers were simultaneous or early bilinguals while the L1 attriters were adult learners of the second language, Swedish. Our findings reveal differences from monolingual preferences in the interpretation of the overt pronoun for both heritage and attrited speakers while the differences attested between the two groups in the interpretation of null subject pronouns affect only response times with heritage being faster than attrited speakers. We argue that our results do not support an age of onset or differential input effects on bilingual performance in pronoun resolution.

Flexible delivery and student attrition in the vocational education and training sector: case studies of students who dropped out

Government policy in Australia is increasingly encouraging training organisations in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector to adopt flexible delivery approaches. This policy shift is supported by key VET stakeholders including Industry Training Advisory Boards. A recurring theme in VET policy documents is an apparent confidence that flexible delivery can meet the diverse needs of individual learners while at the same time providing cost savings. Yet evidence is emerging that Australian VET learners are not typically ready for flexible delivery, and this lack of readiness is reflected in high attrition rates and low pass rates in many flexibly delivered courses. One research project found that over 70% of learners in the Australian VET sector do not have the learning capabilities required to be ready for flexible delivery. A recent review of the module outcomes achieved by VET students nationally found that students studying by external/correspondence and self-paced unscheduled modes had lower module completion rates than students studying by other delivery strategies.

Research on student progress in flexible delivery within the Australian VET sector has largely been quantitative. That research provides useful statistical data on completion and attrition rates for various modes of delivery, but does not explore the reasons underlying the high attrition rates found in flexible delivery. The qualitative research that is available tends to focus on students who successfully complete their courses, not on those who withdraw. As a result, the Australian literature on flexible delivery in the VET sector is lacking in-depth qualitative information about students who enrol in courses but do not complete. In comparison, the broader literature on distance education and flexible delivery in other educational sectors offers some useful insights into student attrition, and can be can be used to inform research into attrition within the Australian VET sector.

This paper reports on aspects of a research project that followed up six adult learners who enrolled in VET courses but who either failed assessment or withdrew. The research project presented the students’ stories in the form of narrative case studies, focussing on the detailed examination of the barriers that each student experienced, and analysing these barriers in relation to issues raised in the literature. This paper reports on two particular themes that emerged from that research project. The literature on distance education and flexible delivery argues that:


· student dropout is often not determined by a single factor, but by the interaction of a number of factors that build up over time;

· students who experience difficulties when studying by flexible delivery can often be reluctant to access the support that is available to them.

This paper uses these themes as a point of reference in presenting the stories of some of the students who participated in the research project.

Sustainability of a long-term volunteer-based bird monitoring program : recruitment, retention and attrition

With an increasing demand and reliance on volunteers in a host of different sectors, the need for organisations to understand motivating factors behind volunteering, and how to retain volunteer services, is crucial. This paper examines the recruitment, retention and attrition among a group of volunteers participating in a long-term monitoring program for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot Neophema chrysogaster. This project is one of the longest running of its type in Australia with more than 20 years of survey activities. Volunteers were most often recruited via other environmental agencies. Almost three-quarters of respondents had been involved in birdwatching or other bird monitoring activities usually in connection with conservation organisations. The modal response was an involvement of 10-20 years, with most other responses in the range 0-5 years. The majority intend to continue volunteering, but cited perceived health and time commitments as the main factors behind possible future decisions to cease volunteering. Respondents suggested improvements in the volunteer management of the program, and in particular, thought a personal 'thank you', would maintain motivation and participation.

Attrition from an internet-based psychological intervention for erectile dysfunction : who is likely to drop out?

The current study evaluated the dropout rate from an internet-based treatment program for erectile dysfunction (ED), and determined reasons for attrition from this program. Only 12 of 40 treatment group men and 19 of 20 control group men completed the post-test measures. Reasons for the men being excluded or dropping out of the study are discussed. These reasons included medical conditions that contributed to their ED, the man's partner not being interested in participating in the program, a lack of motivation from the man, or the time commitment being too demanding.