Mark A. Winton

Violentization Theory and Genocide

The purpose of this article is to use Lonnie Athens’ violentization theory to explain the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides. These two case studies are used to compare and contrast how the brutalization, defiance, violent dominance engagements, and virulency stages emerged prior to and during the genocides. Using published texts such as interviews with perpetrators, human rights reports, and court transcripts, qualitative content analysis is employed to test the fit between violentization theory and the two case studies. The results demonstrate that violentization theory is consistent with the data and provides an explanation of how the genocides developed and were enacted. Similarities and differences between Rwanda and Bosnia are described to explain how the perpetrators went through the violentization process, and an additional stage is added to illustrate extreme violence. Suggestions for further research using this model are provided.

Campus Law Enforcement Use-of-Force and Conducted Energy Devices: A National-Level Exploratory Study of Perceptions and Practices

Although many police departments throughout the nation have been quick to incorporate the use of conducted energy devices (CEDs) within their use-of-force policies, the use of these devices on college campuses has been relatively unexamined in the literature. This article addresses campus police agency decisions regarding CEDs as a less-than-lethal force alternative. This study utilized a stratified random sample of public 4-year universities and colleges throughout the United States. Respondents answered questions pertaining to multiple variables, such as political pressure, public opinion, officer safety, liability, and funding, as factors considered when deciding whether to acquire CEDs. The results suggest that a majority of the public institutions surveyed have not acquired CEDs due to public opinion. Furthermore, the results reveal that for institutions that have issued CEDs their acquisition can be attributed to the campus law enforcement agencys concern for officer safety. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Advanced practice nurse attitudes toward sex offender patients

Purpose: To determine advanced practice nurses’ (APNs’) attitudes and behaviors toward patients in their practices who are registered sex offenders. Data sources: An online survey of 300 APN members of a local APN organization asking respondents to identify the behavioral actions they were likely to agree or disagree with when faced with a scenario of realizing that a sex offender was a patient in their practice. Sixty‐nine respondents submitted completed surveys. Conclusions: There was an ambiguity of behavioral responses and no consensus among APNs on how to respond to the issue of a sex offender patient in a healthcare practice. There was also a lack of awareness of whether sex offenders were patients in their practice. Implications for practice: The modest number of respondents and their demographic homogeneity limit the ability to draw any conclusions or generalizations from this study. While awareness of a known sex offender in a practice is unlikely to alter direct patient care, it may have an impact on office policies and procedures and should be a consideration of all involved staff, including providers, ancillary team members, and administrative personnel.

Gender, Sexual Dysfunctions, and the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy

The purpose of this study is to examine male and female sexual dysfunctions present in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy . The Journal of Sex Research , the Journal of Sex Education and Therapy , and the Archives of Sexual Behavior also are briefly discussed. The types of dysfunctions investigated include female orgasmic disorder, female sexual arousal disorder, male erectile disorder, and premature ejaculation. The results indicate that the focus has shifted to male sexual dysfunctions. Specifically, there is greater attention paid to erectile dysfunction. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Book Review: From deportation to prison: The politics of immigration enforcement in post-civil rights AmericaMacías-RojasP. (2016). From deportation to prison: The politics of immigration enforcement in post-civil rights America. New York: New York University Press. xi, 233 pp.

This book focuses on the links between immigration, border policing policies, incarceration, and the development and implementation of the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) and other related polices. Using multiple ethnographic techniques, such as observation, interviews, and archival analysis, Macı́as-Rojas spent more than 10 years analyzing the effects of immigration and border policing policies. The settings are the Arizona–Mexican border towns. From congressional debates to local decisions to deport based on detention bed availability, Macı́as-Rojas demonstrates a problematic and costly system that has negative effects. Macı́as-Rojas includes her experiences of “being watched” while conducting her research. This book provides an examination of surveillance, social control, and criminalization that seems to becoming more intense as perceived threats from different groups are constructed. She discusses stigma, labeling, and the social construction of the criminal immigrant and analyzes the interactions between different groups. Chapter 1, “The Post-Civil Rights Borderland: The Arizona-Sonora Border,” centers on the theoretical explanations for social control, punishment, and civil rights. Due to the large number of undocumented migrants, “fast track” hearings take place. Furthermore, Macı́as-Rojas points out the dilemma in trying to reduce the prison population while simultaneously arresting and prosecuting more people. Macı́as-Rojas analyzes multiple perspectives to explain this turn toward punitive approaches and the problems of labeling immigrants as criminals. Macı́as-Rojas’s symbolic and structural analytic approaches provide a historical account of immigration law and enforcement practices leading to an increased understanding of how we arrived at our current problems and policies. For example, Operation Safeguard intensified the punitive approach and increased detention space, and we never looked back. Chapter 2, “Beds and Biometrics: The Legacy of the Criminal Alien Program,” shows how the CAP influenced the transformation toward a criminal history focus. The differentiation process between high priority “criminals” and nonpriority cases is discussed. A historical review of early enforcement concerns and the differentiation of the criminal justice and immigration systems are examined from the early 20th century to the current criminalization of immigration. The War on Crime led to the growth of the prison system, prison overcrowding, and a detention bed shortage. This resulted in several policies including the CAP. New laws also made removal of illegal immigrants quicker and provided officers more discretion. Macı́as-Rojas sums up:

28.00, ISBN 978-1-4798-3118-0.

The purpose of this study is to examine a method of predicting and understanding torture during international conflicts by applying and linking two established theoretical approaches to the Abu Ghraib case. The first theoretical approach is based on the circumplex model of family functioning focusing on cohesion, flexibility, and communication (Olson, 1995, 2000; Olson and DeFrain, 1997). In this model, social groups at the extreme points on the flexibility and cohesion dimensions have the highest level of risk for violence. The second approach is based on violentisation theory (Athens, 2003). The four stages of the violentisation process include: brutalisation, defiance, violent dominant engagements, and virulency. Extreme virulency was added as another stage. Using qualitative content analysis, the data demonstrated that the perpetrators moved through the violentisation process as their social environment moved toward the chaotic and disengaged extremes of the circumplex model. Study limitations and suggestions for further research are also addressed.