Most people who read an article in the newspaper about the brutal rape of a woman by a stranger, or the long-standing sexual abuse of a young boy by his step-father have a strong visceral reaction which is a mix of anger, fear, and incomprehension. Apart from these aversive reactions, several questions also come to people's minds: Was this offender crazy or sexually obsessed? What is the purpose of such outrageous acts? To answer these questions, the authors of this book review theoretical and empirical models of the processes that lead men to sexually assault children or women, whilst also presenting new results and models on this topic. In particular, this book focuses on empirical analyses of the pathways of six types of sexual aggressors, three of which (marital rapists, hebephilic sexual aggressors, and polymorphic sexual aggressors) have never been investigated before. Drawing on a large dataset on the offending processes of sexual aggressors, this book analyzes the influence of personality factors and lifestyle factors on offending pathways and brings together key researchers in the field of sexual aggression. This book will be of interest to psychologists, psychiatrists, criminologists, and social workers involved in the study, assessment and treatment of sexual aggressors. In addition, this information will be crucial for practitioners involved in the follow-up of these offenders in the community, and will interest researchers and graduate students in the field of sexual aggression.

Widely perceived as an unprecedented crisis, the magnitude of refugee flows originating in the Third World has generated widespread concern in the West. This concern reveals itself to be an ambiguous mixture of heartfelt compassion for the plight of the unfortunates who have been cast adrift and a diffuse fear that they will come pouring in. In this eloquent and comprehensive study, the authors examine the refugee phenomenon originating in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and suggest means by which the international community can assist those in greatest need. Drs Solberg, Suhrke, and Quezada first analyse the history of refugee movements in the West and show how the formation of refugee flows and the fate of endangered populations has been largely determined by the partisan objectives of receiving countries. They identify the varied types of historical refugee movements which fail to conform to the classic cases used as guidelines by contemporary policy-makers. Drawing on this historical context, the authors then examine the kinds of social conflict characteristic of different regions of the Third World, assessing their incidence and bearing on refugee flows as a means of yielding

Disordered Personalities and Crime seeks to better understand how we respond to those individuals who have been labelled at various points in time as 'morally insane', 'psychopathic' or 'personality disordered'. Individuals whose behaviour is consistent with these diagnoses present challenges to both the criminal justice system and mental health systems, because the people who come to have such diagnoses seem to have a rational and realistic understanding of the world around them but they can behave in ways that suggest they have little understanding of the meaning or consequences of their actions. This book argues that an analysis of the history of these diagnoses will help to provide a better understanding of contemporary dilemmas. These are categories that have been not only shaped by the needs of criminal justice and the claims of expertise by professionals, but also the fears, anxieties and demands of the wider public. In this book, David W. Jones demonstrates us how important these diagnoses have been to the history of psychiatry in its claims for professional expertise, and also sheds light on the evolution of the insanity defence and helps explain why it remains a problematic and controversial issue even today. This book will be key reading for students, researchers and academics who are interested in crime and its relationship to mental disorder and also for those interested in psychiatry and abnormal psychology.

Gendered Violence, Abuse and Mental Health in Everyday Lives: Beyond Trauma offers new insights into the social dimensions of emotional distress in abuse-related mental health problems, and explores the many interconnections between gendered violence, different forms of abuse and poor mental health. Looking at how individuals can overcome the impact of abuse over the course of their lives, Moulding maps a feminist-informed recovery-oriented approaches to therapy and prevention. Drawing on sociological perspectives and a wide range of international research, as well as original qualitative data presented here for the first time, this book: -Demonstrates how gender and other social power relations play out in the specific emotional dimensions of some of the mental health problems most strongly linked to abuse, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and eating disorders; -Critiques the way that mainstream psychological theory and research pathologises the effects of abuse through various mental illness diagnoses, obscuring the nature of the individual emotional distress involved, its social context and relational nature; -Outlines a feminist-informed, recovery-oriented approach that aims to reduce violence against women and children. This innovative volume is an important contribution to the literature on the impact of violence and abuse on the lives and health of its survivors. It will be of interest to students and researchers from a range of disciplines and professions, including social work, gender studies, sociology, social policy, psychology, counselling, mental health, public health, medicine and nursing.

Violence and Gender in the Globalized World expands the critical picture of gender and violence in the age of globalization by introducing a variety of uncommonly discussed geo-political sites and dynamics. The volume hosts methodologically and disciplinarily diverse contributions from around the world, discussing various contexts including Chechnya, Germany, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Palestine, the former Yugoslavia, Syria, South Africa, the United States, and the Internet. Bringing together scholars' and activists' historicized and site-specific perspectives, this book bridges the gap between theory and practice concerning violence, gender, and agency. In this revised and updated edition, the scope of inquiry is expanded to incorporate phenomena that have recently come to the forefront of public and scholarly scrutiny, such as Internet-based discourses of violence, female suicide bombers, and the Islamic State's violence against women. At the same time, new data and developments are brought to bear on earlier discussions of violence against women across the globe in order to bring them fully up to date. With an international team of contributors, comprising eminent scholars, activists and policy-makers, this volume will be of interest to anyone conducting research in the areas of gender and sexuality, human rights, cultural studies, law, sociology, political science, history, post-colonialism and colonialism, anthropology, philosophy and religion.

This companion workbook to The Wounded Heart will help you work through the complex issues of sexual abuse in a concrete way by leading you step-by-step through the process of change. It also includes specific sections for men, ideas for discussion-group facilitators, and reflective quotations from fellow strugglers with sexual abuse.

There are few areas of modern social science that are as fiercely debated as media psychology. Written by one of the foremost experts on the topic, this is a concise overview of what is known and not known about how individuals are affected by and interact with various forms of mass media. The book critically examines research from cognitive, social, developmental, biological, and evolutionary approaches to psychology and addresses the interplay between media consumption and viewer behavior in such realms as advertising, body image, sex, and violence. Distinguished by its examination of research from a scientifically objective position, the book offers students not only current knowledge of media psychology but also the tools to challenge commonly held assumptions from popular advocacy and ideology. This text cuts across different psychological approaches to studying how individuals are affected by mass media and includes research from criminal justice and sociology. It considers critical debates in media psychology and how debates in science themselves can be influenced by processes such as ""moral panic."" Written in a lively, accessible manner, the book draws upon engaging examples such as Photoshopped model controversies, dubious advertising practices, and attempts to blame violent crimes on media to illustrate scholarly principles. Throughout, data from research studies are related back to real-world phenomena such as violence rates, advertising dollars spent, or changes in the news media. Written for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students studying media psychology, the text will also be of value to professionals in psychology, sociology, and criminal justice as well as individuals involved in public policy as it relates to media effects. Key Features Offers an objective, interdisciplinary approach to understanding media and behavior Draws from cognitive, social, developmental, and biological psychology, as well as criminal justice research and sociology Challenges the conclusions drawn from research to foster critical thinking Written in a lively, accessible writing style with engaging examples

The threat of violence concerns most people most profoundly. It has long been a topic of intensive academic, practical and political debate. In recent years the workplace has emerged as a recognized site of violence, threat and menace and this book will make a significant contribution to the growing literature on workplace violence. Using innovative research methods, this book uniquely examines four of the most violence-prone occupations: the police; Accident and Emergency staff; social workers; mental health professionals. The Violent Workplace identifies similarities and differences between these occupations that are far from intuitive. It examines the diversity of experiences that shelter under the concept of 'violence and threats'; promotes the importance of the 'moral dimension' in experiences of violence; analyzes the impact of appearance and reputation in creating fear; discusses the importance of context in creating a sense of menace; and concludes by considering the practical implications of this research for handling violence and managing those who have suffered it.

In a new era of global conflict involving non-state actors, At War with Words offers a provocative perspective on the role of language in the genesis, conduct and consequence of mass violence. Sociolinguistics meets political science and communication studies in order to examine interdependence between armed conflict and language. As phenomena attributed only to humans, both armed conflict and language are visible on two axes: language as war discourse, and language as a social policy subject to change by the victorious. In this unique volume, internationally known contributors provide original data and new insights that illuminate roles of text and talk in creating identities of enemies, justifications for violence, and accompanying propaganda. Incorporating contexts from around the world, this collection's topics range from a radio talk show hosts' inflammatory rhetoric to the semantic poverty of the lexicon of mass destruction. The first eight chapters discuss war texts. How does language serve as a vehicle to incite, justify, and resolve an armed conflict? Case studies from the US to China, and from Austria to Ghana detail such a progression to, through, and from war. The book's second part reflects the understanding of language as a symbol of power achieved by a victorious side in war. Five chapters discuss cases from Okinawa, Croatia, Cyprus, Palau, and Northern Ireland. Edited by a sociolinguist and a political scientist, At War with Words includes chapters by Michael Billig, Paul Chilton, Ruth Wodak and a dozen other prominent linguists and communications scholars. This book will be of interest to linguists, media scholars and political scientists, but is also accessible to any reader interested in language and war. Teachers will find particular chapters useful as course material in discourse analysis, language policy, war and peace studies, conflict resolution, mass communication, and other related disciplines.

This moving book reshapes our understanding of the nature of woman abuse and makes a major contribution to a key issue for feminist campaigning and theory. The past 25 years of research on `battered' women has focused on the psychological, sociological and political conditions which contribute to violence, and on women's reasons for staying with violent and abusive partners. The author goes beyond the discourse of `victims' and `survivors' to offer new insights into the very specific and multifaceted nature of the abuses women experience - emotional as well as physical. Drawing on firsthand accounts, Kirkwood sheds new light both on the dynamics of abuse which afford abusers control over women and the resources and knowledge women draw upon to re-empower themselves. Examining first the nature of abuse and then the issues confronted by a woman after she has left an abusive relationship, Kirkwood finds that women's experiences of society after leaving abusive partners are highly interrelated. She develops the concept of a `web' to explain how the different elements of abuse connect to make up the experiences of abused women.

In this book, a collection of experts investigate the varied forces - from global systems to local beliefs - that lead to civil violence, chaos and, perhaps, a new political order. The State, Identity and Violence explores acts of mass violence occurring within national borders and examines the links such acts have to personal identities and how they challenge the character or very existence of the state. Building upon the anthropological premises of holism and cross-cultural comparison, this volume shows how violent challenges to existing states should be conceptualized as layered problems, with multiple kinds of causes. It not only goes beyond the "ancient hatreds" explanation, but shows the inadequacy of the concept of "ethnic violence" and of theories which treat interests and identities as separate, sometimes opposed variables

This book is primarily for psychotherapists, but is also for professionals such as lawyers, judges, doctors, and the clergy, and for victims. Different perspectives describe worlds of sadistic violence, revealing how human beings are deliberately and persistently broken. It explores how victims are used and abused in the context of pornography, prostitution, and snuff videos; how they are deprived of their rights through mind control: degraded to nothing more than objects, abused at the push of a button according to the desires of the tormentors. Claims by the "false memory" movement aid the tormentors, and this is reflected in the language these groups use. With an explanation of the diverse structures of dissociation, ranging from dissociation as the reaction of an organism, through conditioning, all the way to programming, the author develops a structural model for treating victims of extreme violence and mind control.

By any standard, the United States is the most violent nation in the industrialized world. To find comparable levels of interpersonal violence, one must look to nations in the midst of civil war.

Most observers of modern American violence do not consider the historical roots of current levels of violence, preferring to criticize American liberalism, permissive child-rearing practices, and excessive greed and individualism as the sources of the problem.

This collection of original essays examines the role of violence in America's past, exploring its history and development, from slave patrols in the Colonial South to gun ownership in the twentieth century.

Contributors examine both individual acts, such as domestic violence, murder, dueling, frontier vigilantism, and rape, and group and state-led acts such as lynchings, slave uprisings, rifle clubs, legal sanctions of heterosexual aggression, and invasive medical experiments on women's bodies.

Contributors include Jeff Adler, Bruce Baird, Robert Dykstra, Lee Chambers-Schiller, Philip J. Cook, Laura Edwards, Uche Egemonye, Nicole Etcheson, Evan Haefeli, Sally Hadden, Paula Hinton, Arthur L. Kellermann, Laura McCall, Kate Nickerson, Mary Odem, Craig Pascoe, John C. Pettegrew, Junius P. Rodriguez, and Andrea Tone, Christopher Waldrep.

"Written in clear, accessible language...New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory."
-- "Adolescence"

"Timely contribution to the theorization of rape and helps delineate areas in need of further analysis. [Lamb] also address[es] the issue from radically different perspectives and methodologies...particularly noteworthy."--"SIGNS"

It is increasingly difficult to use the word "victim" these days without facing either ridicule for "crying victim" or criticism for supposed harshness toward those traumatized. Some deny the possibility of "recovering" repressed memories of abuse, or consider date rape an invention of whining college students. At the opposite extreme, others contend that women who experience abuse are "survivors" likely destined to be psychically wounded for life.

While the debates rage between victims' rights advocates and "backlash" authors, the contributors to New Versions of Victims collectively argue that we must move beyond these polarizations to examine the "victim" as a socially constructed term and to explore, in nuanced terms, why we see victims the way we do.

Must one have been subject to extreme or prolonged suffering to merit designation as a victim? How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars? Resisting the reductive oversimplifications of the polemicists, the contributors to New Versions of Victims critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the harm of victimization while simultaneously taking on the reactionary boilerplate of writers such as Katie Roiphe and CamillePaglia and offering further strategies for countering the backlash.

Written in clear, accessible language, New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory.

Violence against women is a global problem and despite a wealth of knowledge and inspiring action around the globe, it continues unabated. Bringing together the very best in international scholarship with a rich variety of pedagogical features, this innovative new textbook on violence against women is specifically designed to provoke debate, interrogate assumptions and encourage critical thinking about this global issue. This book presents a range of critical reflections on the strengths and limitations of responses to violent crimes against women and how they have evolved to date. Each section is introduced with an overview of a particular topic by an expert in the field, followed by thoughtful reflections by researchers, practitioners, or advocates that incorporate new research findings, a new initiative, or innovative ideas for reform. Themes covered include: advances in measurement of violence against women, justice system responses to intimate partner violence and sexual assault, victim crisis and advocacy, behaviour change programs for abusers, and prevention of violence against women. Each section is supplemented with learning objectives, critical thinking questions and lists of further reading and resources to encourage discussion and to help students to appreciate the contested nature of policy. The innovative structure will bring debate alive in the classroom or seminar and makes the book perfect reading for courses on violence against women, gender and crime, victimology, and crime prevention.

Latino Homicide is the first empirically based, but readable book for courses to counter the conventional wisdom that immigrant populations only contribute crime to their communities. For this second edition, Martinez further emphasizes his argument with updated data and the addition of a new city, San Antonio. With fascinating case studies from police reports and actual cases from six varied cities, Latino homicide rates are revealed to be markedly lower than one would expect, given the economic deprivation of these urban areas. Far from dangerous or criminal, these communities often have exceptionally strong social networks precisely because of their shared immigrant experiences. Martinez skillfully refutes negative stereotypes in a coherent and critically rigorous analysis of the issues.

""Wounds of the Spirit" is a complex book about a complex and difficult topic."
-- "Hypatia"

In Wounds of the Spirit, Traci West employs first person accounts-from slave narratives to contemporary interviews to Tina Turner's autobiography-to document a historical legacy of violence against black women in the United States. West, a black feminist Christian ethicist, situates spiritual matters within a discussion of the psycho-social impact of intimate assault against African American women.

Distinctive for its treatment of the role of the church in response to violence against African American women, the book identifies specific social mechanisms which contribute to the reproduction of intimate violence. West insists that cultural beliefs as well as institutional practices must be altered if we are to combat the reproduction of violence, and suggests methods of resistance which can be utilized by victim-survivors, those in the helping professions, and the church.

Interrogating the dynamics of black women's experiences of emotional and spiritual trauma through the diverse disciplines of psychology, sociology, and theology, this important work will be of interest and practical use to those in women's studies, African American studies, Christian ethics, feminist and womanist theology, women's health, family counseling, and pastoral care.

Elder abuse has been increasingly recognised over the past ten years in many countries and progress has been made in both understanding and addressing the issue. This volume provides a much-needed international overview of the topic.

Opening with an examination of what elder abuse is, Amanda Phelan sets it in a theoretical context and looks at assessment and approaches to the issue in residential and community care environments. The book then presents a range of country studies, which provide an overview of the context of elder abuse in the country and a discussion of related policy, legislation, research and practice. Countries covered include Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, China, Australia, Kenya, Israel, Canada and the United States, whilst a regional chapter looks at South America. A concluding chapter draws together cross-cultural comparisons and provides some guidance as to best practice.

The only comprehensive book in this area, "International Perspectives on Elder Abuse" is an invaluable reference for practitioners, academics and researchers from a range of disciplines, including nursing, social work, sociology, public health and social policy.

Originally published in 1972, this fully revised edition was published in 1991 and provides a classic study of humanity s capacity for evil.

The human species is capable of the most appalling cruelty. Why is this and where does our capacity for such destructiveness come from? In "Human Destructiveness," Anthony Storr explores these important questions.

In seeking to shed light on such brutal phenomena as genocide, racial conflict and other large-scale manifestations of violence, he cautions against easy extrapolations from individual behaviour to the behaviour of groups and nations, though he offers illuminating discussions of aggressive personality disorders, sadomasochism and the mechanisms of paranoid delusion. Most provocatively, he locates the propensity for mass outbreaks of cruelty in the imagination: to be able to see fellow human beings as wholly evil requires an imaginative capacity not found in other species.

Combining wide scholarship, humane intelligence and a graceful style, "Human Destructiveness" provides an illuminating study of some of the darkest corners of the human psyche."

In this exploration of the way racism is translated from the print-only era to the cyber era the author takes the reader through a devastatingly informative tour of white supremacy online. The book examines how white supremacist organizations have translated their printed publications onto the Internet. Included are examples of open as well as 'cloaked' sites which disguise white supremacy sources as legitimate civil rights websites. Interviews with a small sample of teenagers as they surf the web show how they encounter cloaked sites and attempt to make sense of them, mostly unsuccessfully. The result is a first-rate analysis of cyber racism within the global information age. The author debunks the common assumptions that the Internet is either an inherently democratizing technology or an effective 'recruiting' tool for white supremacists. The book concludes with a nuanced, challenging analysis that urges readers to rethink conventional ways of knowing about racial equality, civil rights, and the Internet.

In Mexico, during the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and as a direct result of his 'war' on drugs, at least 60,000 people were killed, tens of thousands were 'disappeared' and countless more were subjected to kidnapping and sexual violence. This book analyses how artists and filmmakers, alongside affected citizens, attempted to navigate, articulate and contend with this unparalleled escalation in brutality.

Faith, War, and Violence analyzes the age-old links between religion and violence perpetrated in the name of God, and the role religion performs in politically infusing the state with romantic spiritualism. The volume examines instances of this phenomenon from ancient Rome to the modern day; it finds that religion-inspired violence is not restricted to Abrahamic faiths or to one geographic region.

The fact that symbolically charged religious violence has destructive consequences is not lost on contributors to Faith, War, and Violence. Among the subjects tackled are: the ideological and religious foundations that inspired the founders of Al-Qaeda and its role in the Arab Spring; the long history of religious conflict in Ireland known as the Troubles; Sikh extremism; and the evolution of the Christian approach to war.

As the contributors demonstrate, in Western societies, the unity of religious fervor and warmongering stretches from Constantine's incorporation of Christian symbols into Roman army flags to slogans like Gott mit uns (God is with us), which appeared on the belt buckles of German soldiers in World War I. In recent years, George W. Bush declared the war on terror a "crusade," and his speechwriter, David Frum, coined the religiously inspired term "Axis of Evil," to describe Iraq and other countries opposing the United States.

Social scientist, victim advocate, and herself, the mother of a murder victim, Deborah Spungen is well acquainted with all facets of what she defines as "the blackest hell accompanied by a pain so intense that even breathing becomes an unendurable labor." In Homicide: The Hidden Victims, Spungen illustrates just how and why family members become co-victims when a loved one is murdered and she poignantly addresses the emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological effects of such traumatic events. Until now, the extant literature has focused, primarily, on the perpetrator while impact on the "invisible victims" of crime has been overlooked. With limited services and/or advocacy available, co-victims have found their wounds compounded by confusion and a sense of aloneness in the ongoing aftermath of such a tragic event. Now in a breakthrough presentation, the author provides a wellspring of research, personal insight, and case examples that illuminate such critical issues that surround family notification, effects of murder on family and friends of the victim, media influences, traumatic grief, circumstantial influences, intervention and advocacy, the criminal justice system, and reconstruction and healing.

The timely information and innovative modalities discussed in this book make it ideal for mental health and criminal justice professionals, pastoral counselors, social workers, and victim advocates. It is an excellent training manual for recent graduates and new service providers and, due to its multidisciplinary approach, the book is invaluable for students, academics, researchers, and anyone interested in clinical and counseling psychology, social work, criminal justice, interpersonal violence, nursing, health care, or family studies.

This book critically examines the link between guns and violence. It weighs the value of guns for self-protection against the adverse effects of gun ownership and carrying. It also analyses the role of public opinion, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and the firearms industry and lobby in impeding efforts to prevent gun violence. Confronting Gun Violence in America explores solutions to the gun violence problem in America, a country where 90 people die from gunshot wounds every day. The wide-range of solutions assessed include: a national gun licensing system; universal background checks; a ban on military-style weapons; better regulatory oversight of the gun industry; the use of technologies, such as the personalization of weapons; child access prevention; repealing laws that encourage violence; changing violent norms; preventing retaliatory violence; and strategies to rebuild American communities. This accessible and incisive book will be of great interest to students and researchers in criminology and sociology, as well as practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in gun ownership and violence.

This book takes a new look at the impacts of Christianity in the late-nineteenth-century China. Using American Baptist and English Presbyterian examples in Guangdong province, it examines the scale of Chinese conversions, the creation of Christian villages, and the power relations between Christians and non-Christians, and between different Christian denominations. This book is based on a very comprehensive foundation of data. By supplementing the Protestant missionary and Chinese archival materials with fieldwork data that were collected in several Christian villages, this study not only highlights the inner dynamics of Chinese Christianity but also explores a variety of crisis management strategies employed by missionaries, Christian converts, foreign diplomats and Chinese officials in local politics.