Understanding child,family, environmental and agency risk factors: findings from an analysis of significant case reviews in Scotland

This paper presents the findings from an analysis of 56 significant case reviews (SCRs) in Scotland. In contrast to England and Wales where national analyses have been undertaken for many years, until this study was undertaken, the findings from SCRs had not previously been collated nationally. The paper discusses child, parent, environmental and agency factors that were identified in the SCRs and, whilst noting that the pathways to death or harm will be unique in individual cases, tries to further our understanding of the ways in which these different factors may interact to result in death or harm. A significant finding was the high number of SCRs that relate to the care and protection of children living in families whose lives are dominated by drug use and the associated issues this brings, including criminality and neighbourhood problems. Another challenging finding was the lack of suitable resources for the placement and support of troubled teenagers. Finally, a number of SCRs involved long‐term neglect and/or sexual abuse of school or nursery age children who had been known to statutory services for many years.     

Blinking During and After Lying

We tested the hypothesis derived from eye blink literature that when liars experience cognitive demand, their lies would be associated with a decrease in eye blinks, directly followed by an increase in eye blinks when the demand has ceased after the lie is told. A total of 13 liars and 13 truth tellers lied or told the truth in a target period; liars and truth tellers both told the truth in two baseline periods. Their eye blinks during the target and baseline periods and directly after the target period (target offset period) were recorded. The predicted pattern (compared to the baseline periods, a decrease in eye blinks during the target period and an increase in eye blinks during the target offset period) was found in liars and was strikingly different from the pattern obtained in truth tellers. They showed an increase in eye blinks during the target period compared to the baseline periods, whereas their pattern of eye blinks in the target offset period did not differ from baseline periods. The implications for lie detection are discussed.     

Book reviews

A classic republished

Sex and Sex Worship. By O.A. Wall. London: Kegan Paul, 2006, 607 pages. Cloth, $255.

Senior sex: Exploring the sex lives of older adults

Sexuality, Sexual Health, and Ageing. By Merryn Gott. New York, NY: Open University Press, 2005,149 pages. Paper, $36.95.

The social construction of erotophobia

The Politics of Lust. By John Ince. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005, 335 pages. Paper, $16.00.     

Response to: 'New Directions in child protection and family support in Western Australia: a policy initiative to re-focus child welfare practice'

This paper is a response to ‘New Directions in child protection and family support in Western Australia: a policy initiative to re‐focus child welfare practice’, written by Nigel Parton and Richard Mathews and published in Volume 6(2) of Child and Family Social Work. Parton and Mathews’ paper describes the policy and provides an analysis of its impact on child protection practice. They find the policy to have been successful on a number of different dimensions. This paper subjects their findings to a broader lens of analysis and arrives at conclusions somewhat different to those of the authors.     

Church Attendance,Social Capital,and Black Voting Participation*

Objectives. We test the traditional studies of political participation that suggest enhanced education and income will help reduce the racial gap in voting. Methods. We adopt a Bayesian model to test the impact of education and income on both black and white racial groups. We also link the explanation of black voting participation to social capital. Results. We find that bonding and bridging social capital as well as human capital are all important in explaining white voting participation, but only bonding social capital, measured by church attendance, explained African‐American voting participation. Conclusions. We conclude that the utility of social capital theory and continuing significance of human capital theory must be considered in a racial context. In addition, our findings offer important implications about the continuing role of black churches for increasing social capital and political participation.     

Letter From the Editors

ABSTRACT

In this article we explore older persons’ definitions of and explanations for elder abuse in the Netherlands by means of interviews with older persons. A qualitative study was conducted based on semistructured interviews with 35 older persons who had no experience with abuse. Our findings show that older persons participating in our study define elder abuse foremost as physical violence that is performed intentionally. The study participants explain elder abuse as a result of the dependency and vulnerability of older persons, of changing norms and values, and of changes in the position of older persons in society, which result in disrespect toward older persons and a lack of social control and responsibility. The older persons’ explanations for the occurrence of abuse mainly focus on societal changes; older persons seem to regard elder abuse primarily as a societal problem. This understanding of, and explanation for, elder abuse may influence their detection and reporting behavior, as they may tend to acknowledge only severe cases of intentional physical violence that leave clear and therefore physically detectable evidence.