“So Tell Me,Why Do Women Need Something Different?”

SUMMARY

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of women in the criminal justice system over the past two decades, creating the need for gender-specific responses and programs in jails, prisons, and community corrections. Systems must adapt to appropriately respond to women and their families. Institutions and community-based organizations must help women to deal with their histories of trauma, violence, and substance abuse. One gender-specific, strength-based, community model for support is presented.     

“I Really Belong Here”: Civic Capacity-Building among Returning Citizens

This article focuses on unlikely movement actors whose civic engagement has been understudied: people with criminal records (“returning citizens”). We present findings from 18 months of ethnographic research with members (leaders) of Fighting to Overcome Records and Create Equality (FORCE), a civic group led by returning citizens. FORCE leaders received institutional support from Community Renewal Society (CRS), a larger faith and community-based organization, to lead a rights reform movement in Chicago. Findings suggest that FORCE leaders constructed notions of kinship, recognition, and power through civic capacity-building efforts—and that social belonging was core to such capacity-building efforts. While bonding social belonging occurred as FORCE leaders formed kinship with people facing similar social and economic marginality, bridging social belonging emerged as leaders felt recognized by CRS staff organizers, affiliates, and elected officials. Bonding and bridging social belonging enabled FORCE leaders, who faced constant social exclusion in society, to experience much needed kinship, recognition, and power. Future studies should continue to uncover how local capacity-building processes have life-changing relational effects on movement participants from socially and economically marginalized groups.     

Children discharged from kin and non-kin foster homes: Do the risks of foster care re-entry differ?

This study investigates whether the type of pre-discharge placement, kinship versus non-kinship foster care, has a net impact on children's likelihood of re-entering substitute care after controlling for possible selection biases through the use of regression adjustment and propensity score matching (PSM). Children in kin and non-kin foster care are compared on their rates of foster care re-entry, using bivariate comparisons and accelerated failure time (AFT) models. Lower rates of foster care re-entry after reunification from kinship homes are attributed to differences in child characteristics at removal, greater stability of kin placements, and gate-keeping functions that agencies and courts exercise over discharge and re-entry options. Children adopted from kinship and non-kinship homes exhibit similar re-entry rates, but the results for legal guardianship are mixed.     

Staying straight: lessons from ex-offenders

This paper reports findings of a qualitative study of the experiences of ex-offenders. Incarceration and release from prison create a particularly challenging set of experiences for individuals and families seeking help with social, emotional, and psychological problems, and present significant barriers to understanding for the practitioner. The broad question posed was: What is the experience of ex-offenders? We presumed that the provision of effective treatment services for ex-offenders would require that they first be empathically understood in depth and in all their complexity. Intensive study of twelve subjects produced findings illustrating their unique experience of external and internal challenges. Practice implications are discussed with the aim of helping clinicians understand and serve this underserved and vulnerable population more effectively.     

Reuniting Children with their Families: Reconsidering the Evidence on Timing, Contact and Outcomes

This paper discusses key issues emerging from a review of theliterature on reuniting children in public care with their families,examining the basis for common assumptions about reunification.It focuses on three important issues: the evidence on the timingof discharge, the evidence on parental contact and the viewthat reunion is necessarily a positive outcome for children.Reviewing the research on the links between time in care andthe probability of reunification, it argues that this researchevidence has sometimes been misinterpreted. This has also beenthe case in relation to studies of the links between contactand reunification. The paper then presents the limited evidenceon the outcomes of reunification, including evidence on re-entry,re-abuse and psychosocial outcomes, arguing that such evidenceas exists clearly indicates a need for caution when returningabused or neglected children to their families. It is arguedthat greater attention to assessment, planning and follow-upsupport is needed if children are to be successfully reunitedwith their families and that more research is needed into theoutcomes of reunification.     

美国重返亚太后中国周边外交的挑战与应对

2008年美国次贷危机后,美国高调重返亚太,在经济、军事、外交等方面全方位给中国施压:经济上加入并主导TPP、加强其东亚同盟体系、叫嚣"中国威胁论",使中国周边外交遭受严峻挑战。美国重返亚太后,东亚地区局势不断紧张。在局势紧张之下,中国应该根据局势发展调整周边外交政策,从中美关系入手,以经济合作为基础,与邻国外交为重点,以公共外交为辅助,从各方面消除美国重返亚太给中国造成的不利影响,以保障中国国家利益,维持东亚地区和平与稳定。