This dissertation focuses on using one tangible component of filicide, the method or weapon used by a parent to kill a child, as a means by which to understand parental psychology. An evolutionary psychological perspective (e.g., Buss, 2004; Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002; Daly & Wilson, 1988; Tooby & Cosmides, 1992) can provide insight into our understanding of filicide. Questions that have not been asked by previous researchers may come to the fore by using an evolutionary perspective as a guide for investigating filicide and its surrounding circumstances and contexts. I present the results of three empirical studies using archival data on filicides recorded in Chicago, Illinois. In Study 1, I present the results of an investigation of parental psychological differences evidenced by the methods of filicide, for filicides recorded between 1965 and 1994. The key results of Study 1 are: (a) while overall (i.e., non-genetic and genetic parents combined), beating was the method of filicide used most often, the percentage of filicides committed by non-genetic parents by beating significantly exceeded the percentage of filicides committed by genetic parents; (b) in contrast, the percentage of filicides committed by non-genetic parents by asphyxiation was significantly less than the percentage of filicides committed by genetic parents. In Studies 2A and 2B, I present the results of an investigation using the 1965-1994 dataset as well as a dataset of filicides-suicides recorded between 1870 and 1930. The key results of these two studies indicate that filicide-suicide may be more likely to occur in certain contexts (e.g., multiple-victim killings) and in certain circumstances (e.g., following paternal filicide). In the final chapter, I discuss the key findings, identify limitations of the current research, and present several future directions for research. / by Viviana A. Weekes. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis advisor: David Rasmussen / This thesis begins by analyzing three different philosophies on human rights. It looks to the foundations of these theories, but focuses primarily on the obligations that each system creates. It evaluates cosmopolitanism and two different institutionalist arguments, eventually settling on a tiered system of international responsibility as the strongest and most practical conception of rights. The second chapter of the thesis discusses the role of the International Criminal Court as a part of this tiered system, and as a means to promote human rights across the globe. This section evaluates the court by considering its historical foundations, its goals and responsibilities, and its actions over the past ten years. It concludes by providing recommendations for the future of the court. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Scholars of the literary depictions of lynching have given the majority of their attention to the emasculation of the black male, but the representation of the black female lynch victim has been overlooked. My thesis examines the deaths of black women that had the same effect as lynching practices used against men. This specific literary form of lynching will concentrate on two plays: Mary P. Burrill's They That Sit in Darkness (1919) and Marita Bonner's Exit: An Illusion (1929) and two novels by Toni Morrison, Beloved and Sula. Considering the contours of these black female deaths we can expand the traditional definition of lynching to include the black female lynch victim. The aspects that make her death a lynching are encased in more subtleties than a traditional definition of lynching allows for, and less visible. / by Tinea Williams. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Previous researchers have recommended that universities should be deemed very safe places. However, reports of crime have dominated the news, including shootings and mass murders at schools and universities. The issue of reality versus perception is of foremost importance when student safety is at stake. In this paper, the researcher presents the findings from unique data collected from university students related to situational crime prevention, fear of crime, self-protective behaviors, and perceptions of crime prevention programs to better understand the antecedent variables relating to crime prevention. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Understanding the psychology behind the perpetrators of the Holocaust has been difficult because experiments on conformity and obedience cannot readily simulate the reality of the Holocaust. There exists historical documentation surrounding the leaders of the Nazi organization instrumental for the perpetration of the Holocaust, but the underlying motives of Hitler's leaders relating to governmental policies of systematic extermination of the Jews in Europe, are not known, as the strategy and operationalization of the actions were kept extremely secret, disguised by euphemisms, or only discussed verbally. This research study was to further understand the thought processes behind the manipulation tactics applied by leaders of the Nazi organization, and the leaders of Britain, America, and the Soviet Union during the Holocaust, by reviewing their personal writings, communiques, and orders. The theoretical base used was the theory of groupthink by Janis, because it is most applicable to understanding complex human psychology. The research questions of the study were: a) to find the origins of the Final Solution, why it gained acceptance by the Nazis, and the role of anti-Semitism ; and b) to identify groupthink symptom language relating to German, British, American, and Soviet leaders during the Holocaust. A qualitative multiple retro-historical case study methodology was selected. Data were collected and analyzed from archival material and groupthink theory was found to be ideally suited to the study of the Holocaust. Translation of a period of Alfred Rosenberg's diary relating to Hitler's issuance of the 'Hitler Extermination Order,' was discovered. The results show areas for further research, including the translation into English of the Alfred Rosenberg diary that was lost to history for over 60 years. The findings of this research study will hopefully help organizational psychologists to better remedy groupthink practices.

Magister Legum - LLM / Piracy attacks off the coast of the Horn of Africa have been on the rise in the recent years. According to a report by Ocean without Borders, although no vessels were hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia in 2017, 8 seafarers who were captured in 2016 were still being held in captivity. So far, 545 seafarers have been subjected to piracy attacks.1 The west coast of Africa has also experienced its fair share of piracy attacks. There has been an increase in piracy attacks off the coast of West Africa, two thirds of these attacks occurred off the coast of Nigeria.2The law governing maritime piracy is founded in the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS).3Article 101 of the Convention defines piracy as; (a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed: i. on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; ii. against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State; (b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft; (c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b). In addition to the UNCLOS, the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful acts of Violence against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (herein after referred to as SUA Convention) also criminalises acts related to maritime piracy but which hinder the safe navigation of ships.4 The determining factor for crimes under the SUA Convention is whether the offence is a threat to the safe navigation or is likely to endanger the safe navigation of ships.5 The SUA Convention, however, differs from the UNCLOS in several aspects. First, the Convention does not require that the offence be committed for private ends. Second, the two ships requirement under Article 101 (a) of the UNCLOS is not applicable in the SUA Convention. The offences created in Article 3 of the SUA Convention imply that they may be committed by a perpetrator who is in the same ship with the victim. The SUA Convention does not provide for application of the principle of universal jurisdiction, a State can only exercise jurisdiction over the crimes if it is a party to it.6 Both the SUA Convention7 and the UNCLOS8 provide that the offence must be committed outside a State’s territorial waters. Article 4 of the SUA Convention however further limits the application of the Convention. The Convention does not apply to instances where the ship was not scheduled to navigate out of the territorial waters of the State. This limitation is not applicable under the UNCLOS.

It is generally agreed that a criminal justice system reflects the values of the society within which it exists. The presence of patriarchal social values will likely affect the response of the criminal justice system to intimate violence. While the perpetration of violence against another is a violation of an important social norm, patriarchal values may function to discount the seriousness of such an act, if the violence is perpetrated by a man against his girlfriend or wife. This discount of seriousness may lead to less severe punishment for men who assault their intimates than to men who assault nonintimates. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that men who are convicted of committing serious assaults against female intimates receive more lenient punishment than men who are convicted of committing serious assault against nonintimates. Punishment was defined as sentencing outcomes, i. e. type and length of sentence. The sentences of offenders convicted of felony assaults as the major offense and subject to sentencing guidelines in Oregon in 1993 were examined. Chi-square tests were used to compare the sentence types of intimate and nonintimate violence offenders. Two-tailed !-tests and multiple linear regression were used to examine the relationship between victim-offender relationship and length of sentence. It appears that the presence of Oregon's sentencing guidelines, rather than victim-offender relationship, had the greatest effect upon the severity of punishment. This finding suggests that the guidelines may be responsible for minimizing the impact of patriarchal values on sentencing decisions in serious assault cases.

No description available.

Children are among the most vulnerable to violence. A global problem, child victimization has been extensively studied in the context of public health research. As negative consequences of victimization are demonstrated, estimation of its prevalence and identification of its risk factors are two major concerns of researchers. Intimate partner violence (IPV), a worldwide prevalent family problem in itself, is directly or indirectly demonstrated in association with risk of different child victimizations. However, majority of previous studies on child victimization were fragmented into clusters that center on specific forms of victimization, primarily those involving conventional crime, maltreatment, peer and sibling abuse, sexual violence, and witnessing of violence. Efforts for assessing complete pattern of victimization in children emerged only in recent years. Nevertheless, this initial development that has clear research gaps is far from being enough. In such a context, the present study was conducted, in a comprehensive perspective, to uncover pattern and prevalence, and to identify risk factors of child victimization in the Chinese context. IPV was particularly examined on its relationship with child victimization. The ecological theory and family systems theory were integrated to build the conceptual research framework, a family-based ecological model comprising levels of individual, family, community, and social culture. This study adopts a quantitative approach. Questionnaire survey was successfully conducted among 953 parents of children aged 0-17 years old in Wuhan, China. The respondents were identified through a four-stage stratified sampling method. For the sake of ethical consideration and research requirement, child victimization cases were reported by the parents. The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) was employed for measuring child victimization. Approximately one in two children was reported having victimization. Of these victims, the proportion of those who suffered from two or more types of victimization was as high as half; children whose parents reported IPV accounted for one-third. Through multiple logistic regression analyses, the hypothesis that prior victimization can increase the risk of other victimizations was confirmed. A series of factors in the ecological model, including IPV, were identified to have association with child victimization. All the ecological factors were further examined using a structured multiphase logistic regression analysis. The results of two regression models were compared. The factors identified to be associated with the risk of child victimization involve all four levels of the ecological model. The finding suggests that occurrence of child victimization and IPV are associated and share common risk factors in the family-based ecological system. The findings emphasize the necessity of a comprehensive screening for child victimization, and highlight cooperation between services for partners and for children. The implications also include the application of family-based ecological perspective in research, and the formulation of family-based systematic prevention policies on child victimization and related family problems. In general, the reexamination of the ecological theory with emphasis on family in this study promotes the theoretical indigenization in China. The research findings contribute to the scientific database on child victimization and provide valuable implications for policies and practice of child protection. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In this report I argue that the analytical unit of feminicide must be expanded beyond gender in order to assess the axis of inequality upon which gender violence in contemporary Guatemala is being waged. Intersectionality and a gendered racial formation theory provide a more nuanced basis from which to undertake an analysis of gender violence and feminicide, and the grounds for devising effective long-term strategies for ending violence in its myriad forms. Second, I argue that the increased visibility of feminicide of late in Guatemala, far from being evidence of gradual progress toward addressing the problem, should be read as a sign of the problem‘s deepening, in a new and perhaps exacerbated form. Using historical examples from the Guatemalan women‘s movement, I demonstrate that demands to end gender violence and increase the rights of women, when articulated by the state, have often led not to a diminishing, but a reshaping of patriarchy and other forms of oppression. The Guatemalan state‘s transition towards neoliberal governmentality, and the gendered subject formation that is a part of this process, raise additional contradictions that merit further attention. State-based approaches to women‘s rights and protection should be merely one element of a larger political strategy towards more radical transformations of the state and racial, social and economic inequalities that will end gender based violence in the long-term. / text