What is social about criminal justice social work in Belgium?

This paper is concerned with how ‘social work’ is constructed in policy documents of Belgian criminal justice social work, applied to the Houses of Justice, Department of Offender Guidance (previously called the probation service). We argue that Belgian probation has been indeed under influence of controlling tendencies, however, these are masked in a managerial cloth rather than an open punitive stance. Second, we notice that social work values are interpreted in a very limited and methodical manner, namely with reference to the systems perspective of the Palo Alto school of Gregory Bateson and Paul Watzlawick as the work method for all Belgian probation tasks. Hence, from this analysis, we argue for a more radical debate on the relation between probation and social work.     

Social‐psychological principles in criminal justice processing

Based on 1979–1981 and 1989–1991 vital registration and 1980 and 1990 census data, we construct increment‐decrement life tables for rural and urban males and females. The analysis is centered on 1980 and 1990 and describes urban‐rural differences in patterns of mortality and nuptiality by age and sex. Our research updates an earlier study that described urban‐rural mortality and marital transition patterns for Tennessee, 1970. The 1980 and 1990 findings parallel the 1970 results. Rural women and men have shorter life expectancies; higher infant mortality rates; younger median ages of entry into first marriage, divorce, and widowhood; a greater proportion of their cohorts ever marrying; lower probabilities of divorce; and higher probabilities of widowhood than urban women and men. However, there was a decline in urban‐rural differences from 1970–1990. These changes suggest that urbanization, technological advances in communication and transportation, and the diffusion of urban lifestyles and values may have blurred the urban‐rural distinction.     

If the PRS Experience in Latin America is a Disappointment,What is the Alternative?

This is a reflection inspired by Geske Dijkstra's article ‘The PRSP Approach and the Illusion of Improved Aid Effectiveness: Lessons from Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua’ (Development Policy Review 23 (4), July 2005) which questions the usefulness of the PRS approach in Latin America, building to a considerable degree on studies carried out in the three countries by the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), which Sida financed. ¹ 1 The reports are produced annually and available at http://www.iss.nl/prsp .
     

Do the rich save more in Latin America?

This paper reports evidence that the savings rate of the rich is higher than that of the poor in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. On average, the difference between the fifth and fourth income quintile groups is 7 percentage points. No differences between income groups are found in Uruguay and the results for Argentina and Colombia are not robust to estimation alternatives. The key methodological step is to construct a measure of lifetime income. Current income is not a good proxy since it is affected by phases of the life cycle and transitory shocks. We implement a two-stage procedure based on the education level of the household head and the education level of his/her partner. Several robustness exercises are reported for different age groups, inclusion/exclusion of outliers and for a wealth index based on homeownership, home appliances and other household owned assets.     

Declining inequality in Latin America? Robustness checks for Peru

The Journal of Economic Inequality - Household surveys underreport incomes from the upper tail of the distribution, affecting our assessment about inequality. This paper offers a tractable...     

Labour market turnover in Latin America: How intensive is it and to what extent does it differ across countries?

The study of labour market turnover is particularly significant in Latin America, which is characterized by marked economic cycles and limited social protection coverage. This article estimates the intensity of transitions from employment in six countries in Latin America in the new millennium and decomposes the differences observed, furthermore evaluating the employment destinations of workers making such transitions. The countries under analysis show very different turnover rates, which are mostly explained by a dissimilar incidence of informal and temporary employment. In all cases, a large share of job exits imply transitions to precarious jobs or unemployment.     

Urban ecosystem Services in Latin America: mismatch between global concepts and regional realities?

Urban Ecosystems - Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is one of the most urbanized and biologically diverse regions in the world but is often characterized by weak environmental governance and...     

Stalker profiles with and without protective orders: reoffending or criminal justice processing?

Research indicates that stalking is an extension of intimate partner violence. The overall purpose of this study was to better understand stalkers by examining the association between a protective order history and the court's processing of subsequent stalking, and to examine patterns of reoffending. This study examined a sample of 346 males who were charged with stalking in 1999 in one state. Subjects were partitioned into three groups: (1) males without protective orders; (2) males with one prior protective order; and (3) males with two or more prior protective orders. Almost two-thirds of the stalkers had a protective order against them at some point in the study, suggesting that stalking is associated with intimate partner violence. Results also found a linear trend with many of the criminal justice involvement variables and protective order history prior to 1999. Those charged with first-degree stalking were more likely to be found guilty initially, and about one-third of all three study groups had the initial felony stalking charge amended. Of those charged with second-degree stalking, only 7% of the group with two or more protective orders was initially found guilty, which was substantially less than the other two groups. And, when all the amendment dispositions were considered, there were no significant differences by group in guilty and dismissed dispositions for the index stalking charge. Further, consistent with previous criminal justice involvement, the group with two or more protective orders was more likely to have subsequent felony charges than the other two groups. Implications are discussed.     

Have cash transfers succeeded in reaching the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean?

We present original estimates of the quality of targeting of conditional cash transfer (CCT) and non‐contributory pension (NCP) programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our contribution is novel because we use both national and international poverty lines; provide differentiated estimates for urban and rural areas; and compare the CCT and NCP programmes. We show that leakage to the non‐poor coexists with pervasive under‐coverage of all poor, including the extreme poor. On average, the CCTs cover only 50.5% of the extreme poor in households with children under 18 years of age. Similarly, the NCPs cover only 50.9% of the extreme poor in households with elderly members who do not receive a contributory pension. At the same time, 40.4% of CCT beneficiaries and 50.1% of NCP beneficiaries are not poor, highlighting the potential need for re‐targeting and re‐certification. In most countries, re‐targeting could produce a substantial double benefit in terms of poverty reduction and fiscal savings.     

“Supportive” psychotherapy: A contemporary view

In this paper, a brief review of social work literature regarding the technique of psychotherapy serves as a bridge to introduce the way in which self-psychology and the systematic use of empathy as a mode of listening and responding, had effected the conduct of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A clinical sample, taken from the treatment of a patient who was diagnosed as having a Borderline Condition, is being used to demonstrate that feeling understood firms up the self in a way that enhances introspection and permits the use of interpretations as the therapist's primary mode of communication. The clinical example also demonstrates that when the therapist maintains an empathic position, the patient, even in once weekly therapy, is likely to develop one of the selfobject transferences. Further, that when empathic interpretations are used as the therapist's primary interventions, structural changes are likely to occur in such a way that treatment results in true healing rather than in the fostering of a life-long dependency on the therapist. Only a brief reference is made to the usefulness of self-psychology to the treatment of patients with higher level psychic organization and the important part that anger plays in the process of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.The Shirley Greenberg Memorial Lecture, Delivered at Simmons College, School of Social Work, Boston, Massachusetts on June 9, 1983.     

Directions in a Post-aid World? South–South Development Cooperation and CSOs in Latin America

The architecture of international aid to developing and emerging economies is undergoing significant change. Post-aid world conditions will reshape relationships between international aid actors including donors, civil society organizations (CSOs), governments, and other institutions. These trends draw attention to South–South Development Cooperation (SSDC) as a promising direction in regions like Latin America. CSOs’ participation in SSDC might challenge and divert the dependency and power asymmetries in traditional North–South aid. As potential adaptive strategy for CSOs, SSDC diversifies the actors involved in aid and the resources exchanged, and produces different development discourses. The article outlines SSDC as an alternative development model and specifically considers the participation of CSOs. It provides a case of CSOs’ participation in SSDC in the region of Latin America. As research on CSOs in SSDC is limited, the article contributes to its further understanding and provides further avenues of research.     

When “critters” act like people: Anthropomorphism in greeting cards

This paper examines anthropomorphism as a social phenomenon, using one of the most widely used modes of interpersonal communication, the birthday card, as the source of data. The sample consists of 535 birthday cards randomly selected from fourteen retail outlets in a metropolitan (SMSA) area. Each outlet represented a geographically distinct high‐traffic area varying in type of establishment (discount, drug, dime, department, grocery and card stores) and socioeonomic levels of the community. The incidence of anthropomorphism in birthday cards and differences between cards with and without anthropomorphism are presented. Cards with anthropomorphism are compared with respect to the type of animal(s) and the context within which the animal(s) is pictured. Using Goffman ‘s model of frame analysis as reference, social and cultural implications are discussed.     

Another ‘Lost Decade’? Crisis and Structural Adjustment in Europe and Latin America

With the recent economic crisis, conditional lending and mandatory structural reforms arrived in the European Union. Greece and a number of other crisis countries were subjected to a rigorous process of economic adjustment in exchange for emergency credits from the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund). Conditionality and structural adjustment were first tested in Latin America. This article compares the European adjustment programmes with the structural reforms introduced in Latin American countries several decades earlier. By doing so, the article reveals strong parallels in spite of the fact that the initial adjustment programmes are rarely considered a success story and that the neoliberal ideology which inspired the related reforms is widely made responsible for the recent crisis. The fact that there are differences in the adjustment programmes is not the result of a re-think of the neoliberal agenda, but of the specific dynamics of European integration and of pragmatic responses to financial threats. However, the article also shows parallels in the outcome of structural adjustment. Some European crisis countries face a ‘lost decade’ quite similar to the one experienced in Latin America in the 1980s.     

The “hurried child”: The myth of lost childhood in contemporary American society

The hurried child writers argue that childhood has changed fundamentally for the worse in contemporary American society. The authors assert that today's youth are too adultlike: they behave like adults and are treated as adults by parents, schools, the workplace, the media, and society in general. While offering some perceptive insights, the thesis poses numerous methodological, substantive, and empirical problems. These include (1) a limited historical perspective on the changing nature of American childhood, (2) a failure to identify exactly who the hurried children are, and (3) the use of a deterministic model and negative bias in their work. Our analysis indicates no large-scale destruction of childhood and adolescence hypothesized by the hurried child writers. For the vast majority of contemporary American children, the hurried child is more myth than reality.     

“Bringing the migrant back in”: mobility,conflict, and social change in contemporary society

Dominant social theories have rarely placed migration at the center of our understanding of society and social change. Classical theories in the Western tradition have been more preoccupied with the impact of economic and political revolutions on social change, stratification and class conflict, and have paid far less attention to other important aspects of society. Contemporary theories have expanded the theoretical gaze to include a much wider set of issues, from racial and gender divisions to warfare and the environment. In an era of globalization, we argue that such a marginalization of the migrant, and the failure to better integrate both internal and external migration into a more nuanced interpretation of social change, is a significant shortcoming. By examining some of the key elements linked to such human movement in Europe, North America and China -- in the light of five recent studies in this field -- we argue that migration is a vital factor in changing the world as we know it and consequently a central concern for social theory. This is a review essay on:Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.Louis DeSipio and Rodolfo de la Garza. US Immigration in the Twenty-First Century: Making Americans, Remaking America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2015.Adrian Favell. Immigration, Integration and Mobility: New Agendas in Migration Studies. Colchester: ECPR Press, 2015.Zhongshan Yue. Social Integration of Rural-Urban Migrants in China: Current Status, Determinants and Consequences. Singapore: World Scientific Publishers, 2015.Robyn R Iredale and Fei Guo. Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015.     

“Something More”: The Meanings of Marriage for Religious Couples in America

This study focused on how couples’ beliefs about marriage and religion shape the meanings they find in their marriage. Interviews about connections between religion and marriage were conducted with 57 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim couples in New England and northern California. Qualitative analyses found the major theme, common across faith traditions, was that marriage is a sacred union that is “something more": more than the self, more than the couple, and more than the family unit. To these couples marriage is divine and institutional and a vital support for their relationship. Our findings raise an interesting counterpoint to the current scholarly discourse about the deinstitutionalization and individualization of contemporary marriage. Institutionalized features of marriage may retain their strength in contemporary society as many religious couples, and perhaps many other couples as well, believe marriage is something more than the deinstitutionalized, private relationship that many scholars now see.     

How to Make the Law Work? Budgetary Implications of Domestic Violence Laws in Latin America,Central America,and the Caribbean

SUMMARY

This study focuses on budgetary implications of domestic violence (DV) laws in the Latin American, Central American, and Caribbean (LAC) region. It is based on a survey of literature and data on DV legislation, literature reviews on the social and economic costs of DV, and an analysis of policies on DV in the region based on a survey of nonprofits working on DV in the region. The study shows DV is not being mainstreamed into ministerial budget line items as would be expected following the passage of law. There is clearly a difference between what is ratified in laws and the implementation of activities that follows those decisions. Funding for DV programs is insufficient to reach the entire target population and address the magnitude of the problem. Even after laws were passed, major sources of funding for DV services have continued to be discretionary funds from the ministries' budgets and international donor funds.     

Winning a Battle but Losing the War? Third Sector and Social Policy in Latin America: The Case of Uruguay

This paper analyzes some aspects of the third sector’s involvement process in the provision of public social services. Using evidence garnered in previous research based on in-depth interviews, I offer elements toward an assessment of the consequences this process has produced not only in terms of the gains and losses it has produced for social policy, but also for the very identity and constitutive characteristics of the third sector. The evidence hereby compiled strengthens skepticism toward the hypothesis that sees a transformative potential in the role of the third sector in social policy in Latin America. This skepticism arises from issues detected by involved actors themselves and that are linked to the weakness of the sector as a whole.     

“Who generates this city”? Socialist strategy in contemporary London

This essay, based on a “militant ethnography” of the attempts of the small radical grassroots activist group, Our London (a pseudonym), to mobilize a collective oppositional politics through activities around an election campaign, engages critically with E. Laclau and C. Mouffe's arguments on discourse and collectivity in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1985). I argue, on the basis of my findings, that while their model does provide insights that help describe the process of building collectivity from among disparate perspectives and identities, we need to go beyond a focus on discourse alone and consider the ways politics is shaped by material contexts. This is necessary if we are to understand the continued appeal of class politics as well as the difficulties in mobilizing collectivity in highly unequal and fragmented cities. From an activist perspective, the essay also highlights how developing a conception of collective interests and a critique of overarching systems of exploitation can be important in building political unity.