Criminal Case Processing of Sexual Assaults in Alaska

Discretion plays a role in nearly every facet of the American criminal justice system. It is widely regarded as necessary to do justice but is not without criticisms – especially when it leads to unfavorable or disparate treatment. The role of discretion in sexual assault cases has been particularly scrutinized. Since the majority of sexual assaults do not fit stereotypic beliefs about what constitutes a “real rape” and “genuine victim,” criminal justice officials use their discretion to filter these cases out of the justice system. This study explored this issue by examining two stages of the criminal justice process: the police decision to refer cases for prosecution and the prosecutorial decision to accept referred cases. In doing so, it contributes to this body of literature in three ways. First, it included sexual assault cases that involve Alaska Native victims and suspects. Second, it addressed a gap in the theoretical scholarship by examining the downstream nature of police decision-making. And finally, it examined the formal reasons prosecutors give for charge dispositions. This study found a significant amount of attrition of sexual assault cases as they progressed through the criminal justice system. Moreover, a combination of legally relevant and extralegal factors was found to be important, but not consistently across all types of sexual assaults. Among legal factors, the number of victim injuries was the most consistent predictor. Among extralegal factors, cases that involved Alaska Native suspects had significantly higher odds of case referral and case acceptance compared to white suspects. The effect of suspect race was particularly pronounced in cases with a white victim. Additionally, the findings suggest that not only are Native American defendants more likely to have their cases referred by police, but once referred, they are also more likely to have them accepted for prosecution. Contrary to expectations, victim-suspect relationship, specifically non-stranger assaults, increased the odds of police referral compared to stranger cases. However, the opposite appears to be true for the decision to prosecute cases. Once referred, prosecutors were five times more likely to accept sexual assaults perpetrated by strangers. The implications of these findings are also discussed.

Metodologia do Planeamento em Saúde: Sexualidade na Adolescência

A temática central deste relatório de estágio é a sexualidade na adolescência, área de grande interesse em Saúde Comunitária e contemplada no Plano Nacional de Saúde sendo, também, competência do Enfermeiro Especialista em Saúde Comunitária, o desenvolvimento de projetos em promoção da saúde. O principal objetivo deste relatório consiste em finalizar o ciclo formativo do II Mestrado de Especialização em Enfermagem de Saúde Comunitária, descrevendo e analisando as atividades desenvolvidas em estágio. No âmbito do Planeamento em Saúde foi efetuado um Diagnóstico de Situação que permitiu identificar as necessidades dos adolescentes numa escola da cidade de Portalegre, que serviram de base á realização de um estágio. Definiu-se o objetivo de contribuir para a implementação de atividades no âmbito do Plano Nacional de Saúde Escolar, intervindo sobre as áreas identificadas: Sexualidade e afetos; métodos contracetivos; prevenção de infeções sexualmente transmissíveis e mitos. Identificadas as áreas prioritárias, foram selecionadas estratégias e planeadas e efetuadas sessões de educação para a saúde, em duas escolas da cidade. Estas foram realizadas em turmas, através de metodologia expositiva/interativa e distribuição de panfletos interativos. As intervenções foram avaliadas através de um questionário final, cuja análise permitiu constatar a efetividade das mesmas. Concluímos que a maioria dos adolescentes reconhece a importância de sessões de informação acerca da sexualidade, considerando-se mais informados nesta área, após as atividades desenvolvidas. O estágio contribuiu para o desenvolvimento pessoal e profissional da autora, enquanto prestadora de cuidados e como futura Enfermeira Comunitária

Sexualidade na Adolescência: Relatório de Estágio

Este relatório centra-se no tema da Sexualidade na Adolescência, tema pertinente em Enfermagem Comunitária e no Plano Nacional de Saúde. A promoção da sáude e o desenvolvimento de projectos, é uma das principais competências do Enfermeiro especialista em Enfermagem Comunitária. O principal objectivo deste relatório é apresentar, descrever e analizar as actividades desenvolvidas durante o estágio. Utilizando a metodologia do planeamento em saúde realizou-se um diagnóstico de situação numa escola da cidade de Portalegre, identificando-se necessidades de adolescentes, sendo estas a base o estágio. O estágio teve como objectivo contribuir para a implementação de actividades presentes no Plano Nacional de Saúde, intervindo nas seguintes áreas: sexualidade e afectos; métodos contraceptivos; prevenção de ist’s e mitos acerca da sexualidade. Definiram-se áreas prioritárias e, posteriormente, selecionaram-se estratégias. Foram planeadas e realizadas sessões de educação para a saúde em duas escolas da cidade de Portalegre. Estas foram desenvolvidas em sala de aula utilizando-se métodos desmonstrativos/interactivos e distribuindo-se de folhetos. Após as sessões aplicou-se um questionário de avaliação das actividades, cuja análise revelou a sua efectividade. Sumariamente, a maioria dos adolescentes reconhece a importância das sessões informativas sobre sexualidade, admitindo-se melhor informados acerca desta temática. Para o autor, o estágio contribuiu para o desenvolvimento pessoal e profissional enquanto prestador de cuidados e professional de Enfermagem

Dançando às avessas: relatos de um processo de criação

The term body without organs is present in a poem by the french writer, actor and director Antonin Artaud, written in 1947 and titled: To Have Done with the Judgement of God. I aim, in this work, from what we call investigative scenic writing, to problematize this term and its possible relations with the theater and also with some aspects of the Hindu myths. I unite the idea of the body without organs with the body in trance present in the stories of an Indian master named Caitanya Mahaprabhu. These ideas, along with the development of practices that come from some principles of Theatre Anthropology, are incentives for a creation process that highlights the work of preparation and creation of corporeal work of the actor. The relationship between the concepts and the practice raise discussions about where I stand as an actor-researcher in process

Veteranness : Representations of Combat-related PTSD in U.S. Popular Visual Media

Posttraumatic stress and PTSD are becoming familiar terms to refer to what we often call the invisible wounds of war, yet these are recent additions to a popular discourse in which images of and ideas about combat-affected veterans have long circulated. A legacy of ideas about combat veterans and war trauma thus intersects with more recent clinical information about PTSD to become part of a discourse of visual media that has defined and continues to redefine veteran for popular audiences. In this dissertation I examine realist combat veteran representations in selected films and other visual media from three periods: during and after World Wars I and II (James Allen from I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Fred Derry and Al Stephenson from The Best Years of Our Lives); after the Vietnam War (Michael from The Deer Hunter, Eriksson from Casualties of War), and post 9/11 (Will James from The Hurt Locker, a collection of veterans from Wartorn: 1861-2010.) Employing a theoretical framework informed by visual media studies, Barthes’ concept of myth, and Foucault’s concept ofdiscursive unity, I analyze how these veteran representations are endowed with PTSD symptom-like behaviors and responses that seem reasonable and natural within the narrative arc. I contend that veteran myths appear through each veteran representation as the narrative develops and resolves. I argue that these veteran myths are many and varied but that they crystallize in a dominant veteran discourse, a discursive unity that I term veteranness. I further argue that veteranness entangles discrete categories such as veteran, combat veteran, and PTSD with veteran myths, often tying dominant discourse about combat-related PTSD to outdated or outmoded notions that significantly affect our attitudes about and treatment of veterans. A basic premise of my research is that unless and until we learn about the lasting effects of the trauma inherent to combat, we hinder our ability to fulfill our responsibilities to war veterans. A society that limits its understanding of posttraumatic stress, PTSD and post-war experiences of actual veterans affected by war trauma to veteranness or veteran myths risks normalizing or naturalizing an unexamined set of sociocultural expectations of all veterans, rendering them voice-less, invisible, and, ultimately disposable.

Consecuencias literarias del 11-S: la representación de la violencia en la novela angloamericana

In my eight years as a professional journalist, I have been a front line observer of the extreme level of violence which occurs everyday in our society. As victims, consumers or perpetrators of violence, this phenomenon is now a part of our existence. As a reporter for the Spanish national newspaper El País I have been witness to the most terrible acts of violence. In Venezuela, with one of the highest rates of criminality in the world, I saw piles of bodies stacked up in mortuaries. In Argentina, I reported on the most brutal crimes including the rape of children by policemen. I believe that my interest in the manifestations and causes of violence was aroused during my time as a journalist. On a personal level, I was deeply affected by the twin poles of attraction/repulsion which the violent images produced in me. The first time I visited New York in 2003, I talked to various people who were selling photos of the victims of the Twin Tower attacks. They had laid out their wares along the wire fence that separated Ground Zero from the main public areas. One particular photograph made an indelible impression on my mind: a ghost like corpse covered in white dust which was streaked with blood. It is an image I will never forget. If I remember well, a complete album of these gruesome images cost about ten dollars. At the same time, I also became interested in islamic terrorism: its complexity and the great impact it has made on Western society. One only has to look at the front page of the press around the world to read about war, terrorism or the constant violation of human rights. The words Al-Qaeda, Daesh, Boko Haram and Islamic State have sadly become parts of our everyday language. The nihilistic philosophy which promisess eternal life in exchange for self-inmolation is a new, highly worrying reality, especially painful when it involves young people who become indoctrinated through the social media. They have become the most loyal supporters of a fanatical and uncompromising version of Islam. The stark reality is that these young recruits to Jihad (holy war) were born in places like London, Paris, Rome or Madrid...

Developmental, relational and situational characteristics of maritally abusive men

Rapport de stage présenté à la Faculté des Arts et Sciences en vue de l’obtention du grade de Maître des Sciences (M. Sc.) en Criminologie, Option Stage en Intervention

The Ultimate Secrecy: Feminist Readings of Masculine Trauma in Vietnam War Literature

It is a widely acknowledged and often unquestioned fact that patriarchy and its modes of behaviour and social organization favour the appearance of trauma on the weakest (and defenceless) members of society: women. In the last decades, trauma seems to have taken the baton of typically female maladies such as 19th c. hysteria or 20th c. madness. Feminists in the 20th c. have long worked to prove the connection between the latter affections (and their reflection in literary texts) and patriarchal oppression or expectations of feminine behaviour and accordance to roles and rules. With Trauma Studies on the rise, the approach to the idea of the untold as related to femininity is manifold: on the one hand, is not trauma, which precludes telling about one’s own experience and keeps it locked not only from the others, but also from ourselves, the ultimate secrecy? On the other hand, when analyzing works that reflect trauma, one is astounded by the high number of them with a female protagonist and an almost all-female cast: in this sense, a ‘feminist’ reading is almost compulsory, in the sense that it is usually the author’s assumption that patriarchal systems of exploitation and expectations favour traumatic events and their outcome (silence and secrets) on the powerless, usually women. Often, traumatic texts combine feminism with other analytical discourses (one of the topics proposed for this panel): Toni Morrison’s study of traumatic responses in The Bluest Eye and Beloved cannot be untangled from her critique of slavery; just as much of Chicana feminism and its representations of rape and abuse (two main agents of trauma) analyze the nexus of patriarchy, new forms of post-colonialism, and the dynamics of power and powerlessness in ethnic contexts. Within this tradition that establishes the secrecies of trauma as an almost exclusively feminine characteristic, one is however faced with texts which have traumatized males as protagonists: curiously enough, most of these characters have suffered trauma through a typically masculine experience: that of war and its aftermath. By analyzing novels dealing with war veterans from Vietnam or the Second World War, the astounding findings are the frequent mixture of masculine or even ‘macho’ values and the denial of any kind of ‘feminine’ characteristics, combined with a very strict set of rules of power and hierarchy that clearly establish who is empowered and who is powerless. It is our argument that this replication of patriarchal modes of domination, which place the lowest ranks of the army in a ‘feminine’ situation, blended with the compulsory ‘macho’ stance soldiers are forced to adopt as army men (as seen, for example, in Philip Caputo’s Indian Country, Larry Heinemann’s Paco’s Story or Ed Dodge’s DAU: A Novel of Vietnam) furthers the onset and seriousness of ulterior trauma. In this sense, we can also analyze this kind of writing from a ‘feminist’ point of view, since the dynamics of über-patriarchal power established at the front at war-time deny any display of elements traditionally viewed as ‘feminine’ (such as grief, guilt or emotions) in soldiers. If trauma is the result of a game of patriarchal empowerment, how can feminist works, not only theoretical, but also fictional, overthrow it? Are ‘feminine’ characteristics necessary to escape trauma, even in male victims? How can feminist readings of trauma enhance our understanding of its dynamics and help produce new modes of interaction that transcend power and gender division as the basis for the organization of society?

Estudo sobre abusos sexuais de crianças em Portugal (estudantes universitários dos 18-25 anos)

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA – Instituto Universitário para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Psicologia especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.

Comportamentos desviantes na adolescência : consumo de álcool, tabaco e drogas ilícitas

Relatório de Estágio, apresentado à Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Intervenção Social Escolar – Especialização em Crianças e Jovens em Risco.

The fact of metafiction in nineteenth-century children's literature : Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book and Elizabeth Stoddard's Lolly Dinks's Doings

This article examines two American books for children: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1851) and Elizabeth Stoddard’s Lolly Dinks’s Doings (1874). In both books, fairy tales or myths are framed by a contemporary American setting in which the stories is told. It is in these realistic frames with an adult storyteller and child listeners that metafictional features are found. The article shows that Hawthorne and Stoddard use a variety of metafictional elements. So, although metafiction has been regarded as a postmodernist development in children’s literature, there are in fact instances of metafiction in nineteenth-century American children’s literature.

O Abuso Sexual de Crianças e a Criança no Papel de Testemunha

O presente estudo pretende explorar a perceção dos profissionais de saúde mental acerca do crime de abuso sexual de crianças e as competências da criança no papel de testemunha, centrando-se para tal, na identificação das crenças e mitos existentes entre os participantes, no âmbito dessa problemática. Esta investigação pretende assim alargar o conhecimento relativamente a esta temática, enfatizando o facto de que qualquer profissional pode ratificar mitos de abuso sexual e que isso pode interferir nas suas atitudes perante a atribuição de credibilidade à criança. Os dados foram obtidos através da técnica da entrevista, como recurso a uma entrevista semi-estruturada e um questionário sócio-demográfico. Foram analisadas 11 entrevistas de uma amostra constituída por 9 psicólogos, 1 psiquiatria e 1 pedopsiquiatria, sendo 8 participantes dos sexo feminino e 3 do sexo masculino. Da análise realizada observou-se que os participantes detêm crenças adequadas quanto à situação abusiva; aos motivos para a criança não revelar a situação abusiva ou revelar apenas tardiamente; e quais os fatores que estão implicados/ afetam as competências da criança, enquanto testemunha credível. Por sua vez, os mitos observados surgiram relativamente ao agressor, acreditando que os abusadores apresentam caraterísticas distintas das outras pessoas e/ou doença mental e que abusam de crianças e/ou adolescentes motivados por um gosto padrão; relativamente às vítimas, acreditando que os rapazes adolescentes podem defender-se do abuso e que os adolescentes são abusados por terem caraterísticas semelhantes aos adultos; e sobre as caraterísticas do testemunho realizado pela criança, acreditando que as crianças não mentem sobre situações de abuso sexual e que não podem recordar/reportar de forma fidedigna eventos que aconteceram há muito tempo.

A importância da adaptação da linguagem do visual merchandising para o varejo de baixa renda

A evolução do varejo no Brasil, também atribuída ao crescimento econômico das últimas décadas, foi marcada pelo surgimento de novos formatos e estratégias comerciais e por um surpreendente processo de transformação social. Observa-se que a referida transformação social foi seguida pelo aumento do poder aquisitivo das diferentes classes sociais que compõem o cenário econômico. O crescimento econômico, proporcionado pela instituição de políticas econômicas e de inclusão social, fez despontar um nicho de mercado, que até o momento apresentava-se com acesso restrito ao consumo, formado pela classe social de baixa renda. O surgimento de um novo cenário mercadológico constituído por indivíduos pertencentes à classe social de baixa renda e a concorrência saturada dos mercados consolidados despertaram o interesse de muitas empresas em incrementar suas atividades investindo no emergente mercado de consumo. Para consolidar suas atuações em um mercado pouco conhecido, algumas empresas perceberam a necessidade de compatibilizar sua estratégias comerciais e de marketing ao novo perfil e comportamento dos respectivos consumidores. Entretanto, ainda é possível observar que muitas das referidas estratégias são desenvolvidas a partir de mitos acerca das motivações e comportamentos de consumo da classe social de baixa renda e, desta forma, não correspondente ao estilo de vida e formação cultural do referido público alvo. O presente estudo pretende contribuir para o aperfeiçoamento do varejo de baixa renda e, desta forma, apresentar a importância de planejar ações comerciais e de convencimento de consumo coordenadas com estratégias de marketing, notadamente do visual merchandising, adaptadas ao referido público alvo. Para alcançar a proposta deste estudo fez-se necessária a compreensão do estilo de vida do respectivo público alvo através do desenvolvimento de métodos de pesquisa investigativos, para uma análise detalhada e assertiva das respectivas motivações de consumo.

Developmental, relational and situational characteristics of maritally abusive men

Rapport de stage présenté à la Faculté des Arts et Sciences en vue de l’obtention du grade de Maître des Sciences (M. Sc.) en Criminologie, Option Stage en Intervention

The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association

Annually, the association publishes a journal, The Proceedings, which consists of papers presented at the annual meeting. The English Parliament and the Theory of Corporation by Jerome V. Reel, Jr. Puritan Myths in the Background of American Foreign Policy by William F. Ricketson, Jr. Socialized Medicine —Some Aspects of the British Experience by J. M. Thorn Dollars from Scholars: The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation by Edward H. Beardsley