I began my inquiry into women's lawbreaking from a disquiet between what I "knew" from academic feminist accounts and what I "saw" as a worker. My understanding of women's lawbreaking came from a distorted representation of women lawbreakers as victims produced by academic feminist scholarship. This distorted representation came from a feminist practice of emphasizing women's victimhood as an explanatory framework. As a result, women have been rendered 'victims' - a representation that relies on women's object, rather than subject, status. Further, this distorted 'victim' representation fails to examine the way women can, and do, negotiate 'structures' to shape their own lives. As a result of my disquiet, I began to ask what is it about victimization that contributes to women's lawbreaking? I adapted Dorothy Smith's method of inquiry to develop a method which includes women's agency and yet retains feminist insights into economic and cultural gender inequities. This method allows one to understand agency in the context of victimization and its entanglement with lawbreaking by understanding the dialectic nature of social interaction. This dialectic understanding of action is important because we can examine not only what things come into view as structural or institutional processes, but also see more clearly the undercurrent of resistance and survival so relevant to feminism. Further, this method looks at women's lawbreaking differently - it captures women's agency as a counter-discourse to existing feminist discourses of victimization. A small research study was conducted for this thesis. Nine women were interviewed about their lives growing up and their experiences with lawbreaking. From this data, three areas were explored: "invalidation", "addiction" and "negotiation". The analysis of these themes explores, and then maps out, courses of women's lawbreaking action and how those courses are coordinated by the ruling relations. This project aims to contribute to feminist scholarship on women's courses of lawbreaking action by offering Smith's method of inquiry as a way to capture both women's agency and how that is coordinated by the organizational and social relations of ruling. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

This research has attempted to better understand property crime victimization by studying the important role of community structures, while controlling for the following demographic variables: age, gender, race, and income. Three different types of analyses were used: (1) bivariate analysis; (2) multivariate analysis, and (3) path analysis. Bivariate analysis was used in order to gain a better understanding of the following zero-order relationships: (1) the relationship between the structural characteristics of communities and property crime victimization; (2) the relationship between the structural variables and the mediating variables--guardianship and neighborhood cohesion; (3) the relationship between guardianship and property crime, and (4) the relationship between neighborhood cohesion and property crime. Most of these relationships were found to be in the expected direction. The multivariate analysis was conducted by running three separate regression models. Model 1 included only the structural variables of community size, racial heterogeneity, and residential mobility. In Model 2, demographic variables were added in order to see how this addition would impact the effects of the structural variables on property crime victimization. Model 3 included both the structural and the demographic variables, along with guardianship and neighborhood cohesion. This additional regression model was used in an attempt to discover the effects of guardianship and neighborhood cohesion on property crime victimization. Path analysis was used in order to find out the direct and indirect effects of the structural and demographic variables on property crime victimization. Many of the findings of this research were not consistent with past research. There appears to be other important factors which were not included. For example, guardianship and neighborhood cohesion did not mediate the effects of the structural and demographic variables. The thesis concludes with alternative explanations for these and other inconsistent findings. / Master of Science

No description available.

Univ., Diss.--Passau, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. 239 - 253.

In this study a research is done on the pastoral counselling given to pre-adolescent secondary victims of trauma and crime in the age group (11-13 years). Certain concepts will be discussed which will be used as a framework for this study. The nature and effect of trauma on the pre-adolessent will be addressed pastoral-theologically. Theories that will be investigated as appropriate on the counselling of the pre-adolessent is narrative theory, Biblical counselling and Stone's crisis counselling. The manner in which assistance will be given through pastors and counsellors to the traumatised pre-adolescent will be investigated and discussed. The application of certain therapies like narrative therapy, children's drawings, and family drawings, children's drawings as projection-technique and children's drawings as diagnostic aid as well as the interpretation thereof will be explained according to a case study. The shortcomings of some of these approaches will be highlighted and application thereof will also be highlighted. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

This study aimed to examine the relationships between crime exposure and posttraumatic stress symptomatology, and crime exposure and fear of crime. More specifically it set out to establish a possible causal link between crime exposure and posttraumatic stress symptomatology and fear of crime. In addition, it then aimed to identify and explore the possible moderating effect of coping style, (problem-focused, emotion-focused and dysfunctional coping) on the afore-mentioned relationships. The study was conducted on a Johannesburg based, tertiary student population (n = 123) and employed self-report questionnaires to solicit responses which were then subject to statistical analyses. Findings for the relationship between crime exposure and posttraumatic stress symptomatology indicated that increased exposure to crime was predictive of higher posttraumatic stress symptomatology. However a comparison of the relationship between non-crime related traumas and posttraumatic stress symptomatology suggested that crime exposure was not the only predictor of posttraumatic stress symptomatology. Similarly, findings for the relationship between crime exposure and fear of crime indicated that increased exposure to crime was predictive of increased fear of crime levels. Again, however, a comparison of the relationship between non-crime related traumas and fear of crime suggested that crime exposure was not the only predictor of fear of crime. In reference to the possible moderating effects of coping styles on the relationships between crime exposure and posttraumatic stress symptomatology, and crime exposure and fear of crime, no significant moderating effects were found for problem-focused, emotion-focused or dysfunctional coping. Dysfunctional coping was significantly associated with higher levels of traumatic stress symptomatology and fear of crime, but independent of exposure patterns. Visible patterns of relationship with regard to both problem focused and emotion focused coping appeared to be more complex than would be expected based on existing findings in the literature.

published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (Ph.D.)(Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MA (Criminology))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.