In this book, Victoria Tahmasebi-Birgani provides the first examination of the applicability of Emmanuel Levinas' work to social and political movements.
Introduction Past research examining the relationship between psychosis and criminality has typically focused on chronic schizophrenia and violence. However, contact with the criminal justice system ...is not constrained to the most unwell or most violent. The present study is novel as it examines the different clinical stages of psychosis, from the at-risk mental states (ARMS)/Ultra-High Risk (UHR) to the early and chronic psychotic illness phase, across the entire spectrum of criminal offending. Objectives The main study objective is to establish the prevalence of the clinical stages of psychosis among adults entering custody and to examine the sociodemographic and forensic characteristics associated with the different stages of psychosis. A further aim is to examine whether psychosis-spectrum prisoners differ from non-psychotic prison controls across these characteristics. Methods Participants consist of unselected 291 adult male and female prisoners entering the largest maximum security reception centres in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. They completed a range of semi-structured questionnaires and adapted mental health screening measures. The Comprehensive Assessment of At Risk Mental States (CAARMS; Yung et al., 2005) was used to ascertain whether participants met the Ultra High Risk (UHR), First Episode of Psychosis (FEP) or Established Psychosis (EP) criteria. Results Participants were 34.25 years old (SD = 10.69) on average and men were significantly older than women ( p = 0.035). Among prisoners with a psychosis-spectrum illness ( n = 121), the prevalence of UHR was 24%, First Episode Psychosis (FEP) was 6% and established psychosis was 11%. Compared to controls, psychosis spectrum prisoners were found to have higher levels of social disadvantage, psychiatric comorbidities and multiple incarceration episodes. However, psychosis was not associated with a greater risk of violent offending. Implications on the complex illness burden associated with psychosis and the need for early identification and intervention across forensic mental health services will be further discussed. Conclusions This study is novel as it examines the full spectrum of psychotic illness across the entire spectrum of criminal offending. The findings support the notion that risk of criminal justice contact and complex illness burden exist across the different clinical stages of psychosis, from the UHR to the early FEP and chronic psychosis stages, for both violent and non-violent offending. Early intervention services must consider how to more effectively identify and intervene to reduce the risk of criminal justice system contact among mentally ill individuals. Disclosure of Interest None Declared
It is a widespread concern that violent video games promote aggression, reduce pro-social behaviour, increase impulsivity and interfere with cognition as well as mood in its players. Previous ...experimental studies have focussed on short-term effects of violent video gameplay on aggression, yet there are reasons to believe that these effects are mostly the result of priming. In contrast, the present study is the first to investigate the effects of long-term violent video gameplay using a large battery of tests spanning questionnaires, behavioural measures of aggression, sexist attitudes, empathy and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), mental health (depressivity, anxiety) as well as executive control functions, before and after 2 months of gameplay. Our participants played the violent video game Grand Theft Auto V, the non-violent video game The Sims 3 or no game at all for 2 months on a daily basis. No significant changes were observed, neither when comparing the group playing a violent video game to a group playing a non-violent game, nor to a passive control group. Also, no effects were observed between baseline and posttest directly after the intervention, nor between baseline and a follow-up assessment 2 months after the intervention period had ended. The present results thus provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games in adults and will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective on the effects of violent video gaming.
Prison officers are directly responsible for transmitting penal culture and prison policy to the confined, yet few studies of officers’ impact on inmate behavior have been conducted. We examined the ...effect of inmates’ perceptions of officer legitimacy on rule breaking within prisons, as well as the effects of officers’ reliance on different power bases on rates of rule breaking across prisons. The findings from bi‐level analyses of data from inmates and officers from 33 prisons revealed that inmates who held stronger views regarding officer legitimacy committed fewer nonviolent infractions but that perceived legitimacy did not affect the number of violent offenses inmates committed. We also examined a subsample of inmates encountered by officers for a rule violation and found no relationship between perceived legitimacy and subsequent rule breaking, although stronger perceptions of procedural justice related to the incident did directly and indirectly (through perceived legitimacy) coincide with lower odds of nonviolent misconduct. At the prison level, we found that prisons in which officers exercised their authority more lawfully and fairly (positional power) or by relying more on their skills and expertise (expert power) had lower rates of violent or nonviolent rule violations. Prisons in which officers relied more on coercion had higher levels of nonviolent infractions.
Collective action research tends to focus on motivations of the disadvantaged group, rather than on which tactics are effective at driving the advantaged group to make concessions to the ...disadvantaged. We focused on the potential of nonnormative nonviolent action as a tactic to generate support for concessions among advantaged group members who are resistant to social change. We propose that this tactic, relative to normative nonviolent and to violent action, is particularly effective because it reflects constructive disruption: a delicate balance between disruption (which can put pressure on the advantaged group to respond) and perceived constructive intentions (which can help ensure that the response to action is a conciliatory one). We test these hypotheses across 4 contexts (total N = 3650). Studies 1-3 demonstrate that nonnormative nonviolent action (compared with inaction, normative nonviolent action, and violent action) is uniquely effective at increasing support for concessions to the disadvantaged among resistant advantaged group members (compared with advantaged group members more open to social change). Study 3 shows that constructive disruption mediates this effect. Study 4 shows that perceiving a real-world ongoing protest as constructively disruptive predicts support for the disadvantaged, whereas Study 5 examines these processes longitudinally over 2 months in the context of an ongoing social movement. Taken together, we show that nonnormative nonviolent action can be an effective tactic for generating support for concessions to the disadvantaged among those who are most resistant because it generates constructive disruption.
This article considers the challenges associated with completing risk assessments in countering violent extremism. In particular, it is concerned with risk assessment of those who come to the ...attention of government and nongovernment organizations as being potentially on a trajectory toward terrorism and where there is an obligation to consider the potential future risk that they may pose. Risk assessment in this context is fraught with difficulty, primarily due to the variable nature of terrorism, the low base-rate problem, and the dearth of strong evidence on relevant risk and resilience factors. Statistically, this will lead to poor predictive value. Ethically, it can lead to the labeling of an individual who is not on a trajectory toward violence as being "at risk" of engaging in terrorism and the imposing of unnecessary risk management actions. The article argues that actuarial approaches to risk assessment in this context cannot work. However, it further argues that approaches that help assessors to process and synthesize information in a structured way are of value and are in line with good practice in the broader field of violence risk assessment.
An emerging consensus holds that nonviolent resistance campaigns are more successful than violent campaigns, partly because they attract more participants. Yet, we lack an understanding of whether ...and why nonviolent tactics attracts support. We propose two motivational logics that can explain support for nonviolence: An instrumentalist logic, whereby nonviolent resistance is preferred based on cost-benefit considerations, and an intrinsic logic where nonviolent resistance is preferred because of perceived inherent moral worth. To investigate the motivational pull of these two logics, we conduct a pre-registered survey experiment among more than 5000 respondents across 33 countries in fall 2019. We find that nonviolent tactics strongly increase movement support relative to violent tactics, and that the preference for nonviolence is primarily driven by intrinsic commitments to the moral worth of nonviolent resistance, rather than instrumental considerations.
Why do organizations choose to use nonviolence? Why do they choose specific nonviolent tactics? Existing quantitative work centers on mass nonviolent campaign, but much of the nonviolence employed in ...contentious politics is smaller-scale nonviolent direct action. In this article, we explore the determinants of nonviolence with new data at the organization level in self-determination disputes from 1960 to 2005. We present a novel argument about the interdependence of tactical choices among nonviolent options in self-determination movements. Given limitations on their capabilities, competition among organizations in a shared movement, and different resource requirements for nonviolent strategies, we show that organizations have incentives to diversify tactics rather than just copy other organizations. The empirical analysis reveals a rich picture of varied organizational resistance choices, and a complex web of interdependence among tactics.
Public underestimation of support for climate change policy is striking. Social science research tells us this is bad news, but also tells us what to do about it. Climate change communication must ...hammer home the overwhelming support for action.A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.
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