More than a game : the impact of sport-based youth mentoring schemes on developing resilience toward violent extremism

This paper draws upon the findings of an evaluation of “More than a Game”, a sport-focused youth mentoring program in Melbourne, Australia that aimed to develop a community-based resilience model using team-based sports to address issues of identity, belonging, and cultural isolation amongst young Muslim men in order to counter forms of violent ex-tremism. In this essay we focus specifically on whether the intense embodied encounters and emotions experienced in team sports can help break down barriers of cultural and religious difference between young people and facilitate ex-periences of resilience, mutual respect, trust, social inclusion and belonging. Whilst the project findings are directly rel-evant to the domain of countering violent extremism, they also contribute to a growing body of literature which con-siders the relationship between team-based sport, cross-cultural engagement and the development of social resilience, inclusion and belonging in other domains of youth engagement and community-building.

The iatrogenic reflex and belief that repression can coercively suppress asymmetric coercive violence : does very robust action by the government decrease functional support for insurgents?

Non-state insurgent actors are too weak to compel powerful adversaries to their will, so they use violence to coerce. A principal objective is to grow and sustain violent resistance to the point that it either militarily challenges the state, or more commonly, generates unacceptable political costs. To survive, insurgents must shift popular support away from the state and to grow they must secure it. State actor policies and actions perceived as illegitimate and oppressive by the insurgent constituency can generate these shifts. A promising insurgent strategy is to attack states in ways that lead angry publics and leaders to discount the historically established risks and take flawed but popular decisions to use repressive measures. Such decisions may be enabled by a visceral belief in the power of coercion and selective use of examples of where robust measures have indeed suppressed resistance. To avoid such counterproductive behaviours the cases of apparent 'successful repression' must be understood. This thesis tests whether robust state action is correlated with reduced support for insurgents, analyses the causal mechanisms of such shifts and examines whether such reduction is because of compulsion or coercion? The approach is founded on prior research by the RAND Corporation which analysed the 30 insurgencies most recently resolved worldwide to determine factors of counterinsurgent success. This new study first re-analyses their data at a finer resolution with new queries that investigate the relationship between repression and insurgent active support. Having determined that, in general, repression does not correlate with decreased insurgent support, this study then analyses two cases in which the data suggests repression seems likely to be reducing insurgent support: the PKK in Turkey and the insurgency against the Vietnamese-sponsored regime after their ousting of the Khmer Rouge. It applies 'structured-focused' case analysis with questions partly built from the insurgency model of Leites and Wolf, who are associated with the advocacy of US robust means in Vietnam. This is thus a test of 'most difficult' cases using a 'least likely' test model. Nevertheless, the findings refute the deterrence argument of 'iron fist' advocates. Robust approaches may physically prevent effective support of insurgents but they do not coercively deter people from being willing to actively support the insurgency.

Violence in and around entertainment districts : a longitudinal analysis of the impact of late-night lockout legislation

Violence in entertainment districts is a major problem across urban landscapes throughout the world. Research shows that licensed premises are the third most common location for homicides and serious assaults, accounting for one in ten fatal and nonfatal assaults. One class of interventions that aims to reduce violence in entertainment districts involves the use of civil remedies: a group of strategies that use civil or regulatory measures as legal “levers” to reduce problem behavior. One specific civil remedy used to reduce problematic behavior in entertainment districts involves manipulation of licensed premise trading hours. This article uses generalized linear models to analyze the impact of lockout legislation on recorded violent offences in two entertainment districts in the Australian state of Queensland. Our research shows that 3 a.m. lockout legislation led to a direct and significant reduction in the number of violent incidents inside licensed premises. Indeed, the lockouts cut the level of violent crime inside licensed premises by half. Despite these impressive results for the control of violence inside licensed premises, we found no evidence that the lockout had any impact on violence on streets and footpaths outside licensed premises that were the site for more than 80 percent of entertainment district violence. Overall, however, our analysis suggests that lockouts are an important mechanism that helps to control the level of violence inside licensed premises but that finely grained contextual responses to alcohol-related problems are needed rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.

Study Protocol - Alcohol Management Plans (AMPs) in remote indigenous communities in Queensland: their impacts on injury, violence, health and social indicators and their cost-effectiveness

Background In 2002/03 the Queensland Government responded to high rates of alcohol-related harm in discrete Indigenous communities by implementing alcohol management plans (AMPs), designed to include supply and harm reduction and treatment measures. Tighter alcohol supply and carriage restrictions followed in 2008 following indications of reductions in violence and injury. Despite the plans being in place for over a decade, no comprehensive independent review has assessed to what level the designed aims were achieved and what effect the plans have had on Indigenous community residents and service providers. This study will describe the long-term impacts on important health, economic and social outcomes of Queensland’s AMPs. Methods/Design The project has two main studies, 1) outcome evaluation using de-identified epidemiological data on injury, violence and other health and social indicators for across Queensland, including de-identified databases compiled from relevant routinely-available administrative data sets, and 2) a process evaluation to map the nature, timing and content of intervention components targeting alcohol. Process evaluation will also be used to assess the fidelity with which the designed intervention components have been implemented, their uptake and community responses to them and their perceived impacts on alcohol supply and consumption, injury, violence and community health. Interviews and focus groups with Indigenous residents and service providers will be used. The study will be conducted in all 24 of Queensland’s Indigenous communities affected by alcohol management plans. Discussion This evaluation will report on the impacts of the original aims for AMPs, what impact they have had on Indigenous residents and service providers. A central outcome will be the establishment of relevant databases describing the parameters of the changes seen. This will permit comprehensive and rigorous surveillance systems to be put in place and provided to communities empowering them with the best credible evidence to judge future policy and program requirements for themselves. The project will inform impending alcohol policy and program adjustments in Queensland and other Australian jurisdictions. The project has been approved by the James Cook University Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number H4967 & H5241).

The effects of the 2004 reduction in the price of alcohol on alcohol-related harm in Finland : A natural experiment based on register data

Changes in alcohol pricing have been documented as inversely associated with changes in consumption and alcohol-related problems. Evidence of the association between price changes and health problems is nevertheless patchy and is based to a large extent on cross-sectional state-level data, or time series of such cross-sectional analyses. Natural experimental studies have been called for. There was a substantial reduction in the price of alcohol in Finland in 2004 due to a reduction in alcohol taxes of one third, on average, and the abolition of duty-free allowances for travellers from the EU. These changes in the Finnish alcohol policy could be considered a natural experiment, which offered a good opportunity to study what happens with regard to alcohol-related problems when prices go down. The present study investigated the effects of this reduction in alcohol prices on (1) alcohol-related and all-cause mortality, and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases, (2) alcohol-related morbidity in terms of hospitalisation, (3) socioeconomic differentials in alcohol-related mortality, and (4) small-area differences in interpersonal violence in the Helsinki Metropolitan area. Differential trends in alcohol-related mortality prior to the price reduction were also analysed. A variety of population-based register data was used in the study. Time-series intervention analysis modelling was applied to monthly aggregations of deaths and hospitalisation for the period 1996-2006. These and other mortality analyses were carried out for men and women aged 15 years and over. Socioeconomic differentials in alcohol-related mortality were assessed on a before/after basis, mortality being followed up in 2001-2003 (before the price reduction) and 2004-2005 (after). Alcohol-related mortality was defined in all the studies on mortality on the basis of information on both underlying and contributory causes of death. Hospitalisation related to alcohol meant that there was a reference to alcohol in the primary diagnosis. Data on interpersonal violence was gathered from 86 administrative small-areas in the Helsinki Metropolitan area and was also assessed on a before/after basis followed up in 2002-2003 and 2004-2005. The statistical methods employed to analyse these data sets included time-series analysis, and Poisson and linear regression. The results of the study indicate that alcohol-related deaths increased substantially among men aged 40-69 years and among women aged 50-69 after the price reduction when trends and seasonal variation were taken into account. The increase was mainly attributable to chronic causes, particularly liver diseases. Mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality, on the other hand, decreased considerably among the-over-69-year-olds. The increase in alcohol-related mortality in absolute terms among the 30-59-year-olds was largest among the unemployed and early-age pensioners, and those with a low level of education, social class or income. The relative differences in change between the education and social class subgroups were small. The employed and those under the age of 35 did not suffer from increased alcohol-related mortality in the two years following the price reduction. The gap between the age and education groups, which was substantial in the 1980s, thus further broadened. With regard to alcohol-related hospitalisation, there was an increase in both chronic and acute causes among men under the age of 70, and among women in the 50-69-year age group when trends and seasonal variation were taken into account. Alcohol dependence and other alcohol-related mental and behavioural disorders were the largest category in both the total number of chronic hospitalisation and in the increase. There was no increase in the rate of interpersonal violence in the Helsinki Metropolitan area, and even a decrease in domestic violence. There was a significant relationship between the measures of social disadvantage on the area level and interpersonal violence, although the differences in the effects of the price reduction between the different areas were small. The findings of the present study suggest that that a reduction in alcohol prices may lead to a substantial increase in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity. However, large population group differences were observed regarding responsiveness to the price changes. In particular, the less privileged, such as the unemployed, were most sensitive. In contrast, at least in the Finnish context, the younger generations and the employed do not appear to be adversely affected, and those in the older age groups may even benefit from cheaper alcohol in terms of decreased rates of CVD mortality. The results also suggest that reductions in alcohol prices do not necessarily affect interpersonal violence. The population group differences in the effects of the price changes on alcohol-related harm should be acknowledged, and therefore the policy actions should focus on the population subgroups that are primarily responsive to the price reduction.

Impact of Cyberprogram 2.0 on Different Types of School Violence and Aggressiveness

Some antibullying interventions have shown positive outcomes with regard to reducing violence. The aim of the study was to experimentally assess the effects on school violence and aggressiveness of a program to prevent and reduce cyberbullying. The sample was comprised of a randomly selected sample of 176 adolescents (93 experimental, 83 control), aged 13-15 years. The study used a repeated measures pre-posttest design with a control group. Before and after the program, two assessment instruments were administered: the "Cuestionario de Violencia Escolar-Revisado" (CUVE-R [School Violence Questionnaire- Revised]; Alvarez Garcia et al., 2011) and the "Cuestionario de agresividad premeditada e impulsiva" (CAPI-A [Premeditated and Impulsive Aggressiveness Questionnaire]; Andreu, 2010). The intervention consisted of 19 one-hour sessions carried out during the school term. The program contains 25 activities with the following objectives: (1) to identify and conceptualize bullying/cyberbullying; (2) to analyze the consequences of bullying/cyberbullying, promoting participants' capacity to report such actions when they are discovered; (3) to develop coping strategies to prevent and reduce bullying/cyberbullying; and (4) to achieve other transversal goals, such as developing positive variables (empathy, active listening, social skills, constructive conflict resolution, etc.). The pre-posttest ANCOVAs confirmed that the program stimulated a decrease in: (1) diverse types of school violence teachers' violence toward students (ridiculing or publicly humiliating students in front of the class, etc.); students' physical violence (fights, blows, shoves... aimed at the victim, or at his or her property, etc.); students' verbal violence (using offensive language, cruel, embarrassing, or insulting words... toward classmates and teachers); social exclusion (rejection or exclusion of a person or group, etc.), and violence through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT; violent behaviors by means of electronic instruments such as mobile phones and the Internet); and (2) premeditated and impulsive aggressiveness. Pre-posttest MANCOVA revealed differences between conditions with a medium effect size. This work contributes an efficacious intervention tool for the prevention and reduction of peer violence. The conclusions drawn from this study have interesting implications for educational and clinical intervention.

Male Perpetrators of Domestic Violence: How should we hold them to account?

Domestic violence is now widely acknowledged as being a significant social, health and legal issue. At both a national and transnational level governments have sought to develop strategies built upon prevention, support for victims and holding perpetrators to account through criminal justice sanctions. However, the current paradigm that informs the policy response to most perpetrators of domestic violence has failed to deliver the outcomes required, in terms of a reduction in levels of recidivism or the improved safety of women and children. It is argued that holding men to account through external controls has failed and that interventions should support men to take responsibility for their own behaviour.

Civilianizing Civil Conflict: Civilian Defense Militias and the Logic of Violence in Intra-State Conflict

This article examines how civilian defense militias shape violence during civil war. We define civilian defense forces as a sedentary and defensive form of pro-government militia that incumbents often use to harness the participation of civilians during a counterinsurgency campaign. We argue that civilian defense forces reduce the problem of insurgent identification. This leads to a reduction in state violence against civilians. However, we also claim that these actors undermine civilian support for insurgents, which leads to an increase in rebel violence against civilians and overall intensification of conflict. A statistical analysis of government and rebel violence against civilians from 1981 to 2005, and a qualitative assessment of a civilian defense force operating in Iraq from 2005 to 2009, offer strong support for our theoretical claims. These findings provide further insight into pro-government militias and their effects on violence. They also have wider ethical implications for the use of civilian collaborators during civil war.

Applying the good lives model to male perpetrators of domestic violence

Domestic violence is a pervasive social problem that has devastating emotional, physical, psychological, and financial costs for individuals, families, and communities. Despite the widespread use of current intervention programmes, recent reviews have demonstrated that these have only a small impact on the reduction of recidivism. In this article, we briefly summarise the features identified in the literature that distinguish domestically violent men from those who do not engage in such behaviours. We then explore the most common interventions used to treat domestic violence offenders and discuss the limitations of these interventions, before outlining the assumptions of the Good Lives Model (GLM), a strengthbased approach to the treatment of offenders. We discuss the advantages of using the GLM compared to existing approaches and finally, we consider future directions for the use of the GLM in domestic violence interventions.

The health and economic benefits of reducing intimate partner violence: an Australian example.

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence (IPV) has important impacts on the health of women in society. Our aim was to estimate the health and economic benefits of reducing the prevalence of IPV in the 2008 Australian female adult population. METHODS: Simulation models were developed to show the effect of a 5 percentage point absolute feasible reduction target in the prevalence of IPV from current Australian levels (27%). IPV is not measured in national surveys. Levels of psychological distress were used as a proxy for exposure to IPV since psychological conditions represent three-quarters of the disease burden from IPV. Lifetime cohort health benefits for females were estimated as fewer incident cases of violence-related disease and injury; deaths; and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). Opportunity cost savings were estimated for the health sector, paid and unpaid production and leisure from reduced incidence of IPV-related disease and deaths. Workforce production gains were estimated by comparing surveyed participation and absenteeism rates of females with moderate psychological distress (lifetime IPV exposure) against high or very high distress (current IPV exposure), and valued using the friction cost approach (FCA). The impact of improved health status on unpaid household production and leisure time were modelled from time use survey data. Potential costs associated with interventions to reduce IPV were not considered. Multivariable uncertainty analyses and univariable sensitivity analyses were undertaken. RESULTS: A 5 percentage point absolute reduction in the lifetime prevalence of IPV in the 2008 Australian female population was estimated to produce 6000 fewer incident cases of disease/injury, 74 fewer deaths, 5000 fewer DALYs lost and provide gains of 926,000 working days, 371,000 days of home-based production and 428,000 leisure days. Overall, AUD371 million in opportunity cost savings could be achievable. The greatest economic savings would be home-based production (AUD147 million), followed by leisure time (AUD98 million), workforce production (AUD94 million) and reduced health sector costs (AUD38 million). CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes new knowledge about the economic impact of IPV in females. The findings provide evidence of large potential opportunity cost savings from reducing the prevalence of IPV and reinforce the need to reduce IPV in Australia, and elsewhere.

Exploring policy linkages between poverty, crime and violence: a look at three Caribbean states

Includes bibliography

Report of the AD HOC Expert Group meeting on social exclusion, poverty, inequality, crime and violence: Towardsa research agenda for informed public policy for Caribbean SIDS

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean convened an expert group meeting on Social Exclusion, Poverty, Inequality – Crime and Violence: Towards a Research Agenda for informed Public Policy for Caribbean SIDS on Friday 4 April 2008, at its conference room in Port of Spain. The meeting was attended by 14 experts drawn from, the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago; and Mona Campus, Jamaica; the St. Georges University, Grenada; the Trinidad and Tobago Crime Commission and the Ministry of Social Development, Government of Trinidad and Tobago and representative of Civil Society from Guyana. Experts from the United Nations System included representatives from the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Barbados; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Port of Spain and UNDP Barbados/SRO and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The list of participants appears as an annex to this report. The purpose of the meeting was to provide a forum in which differing theories and methodologies useful to addressing the issues of social exclusion, poverty, inequality, crime and violence could be explored. It was expected that at the end of the meeting there would be consensus on areas of research which could be pursued over a two to four-year period by the ECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean and its partners, which would lead to informed public policy in support of the reduction of the growing violence in Caribbean society.

Gender-based violence and socioeconomic inequalities: Does living in more deprived neighbourhoods increase women's risk of intimate partner violence?

This study investigates the influence of neighbourhood socioeconomic conditions on women's likelihood of experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Data from 940 women who were interviewed as part of the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women, and census data for Sao Paulo City, were analyzed using multilevel regression techniques. A neighbourhood socioeconomic-level scale was created, and proxies for the socioeconomic positions of the couple were included. Other individual level variables included factors related to partner's behaviour and women's experiences and attitudes. Women's risk of IPV did not vary across neighbourhoods in Sao Paulo nor was it influenced by her individual socioeconomic characteristics. However, women in the middle range of the socioeconomic scale were significantly more likely to report having experienced violence by a partner. Partner behaviours such as excessive alcohol use, controlling behaviour and multiple sexual partnerships were important predictors of IPV. A women's likelihood of IPV also increased if either her mother had experienced IPV or if she used alcohol excessively. These findings suggest that although the characteristics of people living in deprived neighbourhoods may influence the probability that a woman will experience IPV, higher-order contextual dynamics do not seem to affect this risk. While poverty reduction will improve the lives of individuals in many ways, strategies to reduce IPV should prioritize shifting norms that reinforce certain negative male behaviours. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Skills training and social influences for violence prevention in middle schools: A curriculum evaluation

This pilot study evaluated the effect of skills training and of social influences on self-reported aggressive behavior in a sample of 239 sixth-grade students. The effect of two intervention groups and one control group were compared. In the first intervention group, a 15-session, violence-prevention curriculum was taught by the teacher. In the second intervention group, the same curriculum was taught by the teacher with the assistance of peer leaders trained to modify social norms about violence. The control group was evaluated but did not receive any training. The design included four schools. In two schools, three classes were assigned to one of the two interventions or to the control group. In the other two schools, two classes were assigned to either intervention (teacher only) or control. Students were evaluated before and after the implementation of the curriculum using a standardized questionnaire.^ The primary outcome was the effect of the curriculum and peer leaders on self-reported aggressive behaviors. The secondary outcome was their impact on intervening variables: knowledge about violence, conflict-resolution skills, self-efficacy, and attitudes.^ The intervention had a moderate effect on reducing self-reported aggressive behaviors among boys in two of the six classes that received the curriculum. Both classes with peer leaders reduced their aggressive behavior, but this reduction was significant in only one. A peer leader selection problem could probably explain this lack of effect.^ In three of the four schools, both interventions had an overall significant effect on increasing knowledge about violence and skills to reduce violence. Students also developed a more negative attitude toward violence after the intervention. As hypothesized, attitude change was stronger among students from the teacher plus peer leader group. No intervention effect was observed on self-efficacy nor on attitudes toward skills to reduce violence. Limitations of the study and implications for violence prevention in schools are discussed. ^