The prevalence of rape in South Africa is widespread and survivors often experience severe posttraumatic stress and shame. Although secondary traumatic stress (STS) is a risk for everyone who works with primary survivors of trauma it has only been examined in a variety of professionals that provide supportive and clinical services to traumatised populations. Little is known about the impact that this experience has on the friends and family members that support these survivors. In some cases, supporters have to find a way to cope with significant distress associated with witnessing posttraumatic stress in a loved one. This begs the question of how their perceived ability to cope would influence their experience of STS. However, no studies exist that explore the dynamics between severity of posttraumatic stress in rape survivors and secondary traumatic stress and coping self-efficacy in their supporters. For this quantitative study, 23 rape survivors from a local non-governmental organisation completed the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire-Revised (HTQ-R). The 28 informal supporters that were identified, completed the Traumatic Attachment Belief Scale (TABS) and the Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (CSE). Cross-group equivalence, the presence of the outlined factors in the sample, as well as the interaction between factors, are explored and described. Findings indicate that although the survivors endorsed some symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, their scores were not elevated enough to meet the cut-off point for this diagnosis. Findings related to the supporters indicate that the sample experienced average to high average levels of secondary traumatisation. Despite this, the subjects experienced adequate levels of coping self-efficacy. These findings indicate a need to provide more counselling resources to informal supporters in order to alleviate their secondary traumatisation and in turn increase their ability to assist primary rape survivors.

The United States faces an ever-growing public health concern of gun violence, having the highest rate of homicide by firearm use among Western countries. American leaders on this subject have debated for many years on how to address this issue. Such debate, in turn, has brought up the concern of the mentally ill in possession of firearms, especially in light of mass shootings. The goal of this thesis is to determine the existence of a relationship between gun violence and mental illness. The significance of discerning this relationship is multi-faceted in that gun violence psychologically traumatizes its victims and also has been linked with mental illnesses in a stigmatizing manner, thanks to the spotlight on mass shootings by the media. Through literature analysis of the behaviors of those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcohol abuse, it was determined that, although increasing a person’s chances for experiencing at-risk behaviors for violence, intrinsic mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are not statistically associated with gun violence. In fact, not only has it been reported that very few firearm-related acts of violence are linked with those with mental illnesses, but also it has been noted that those with serious psychiatric disorders are victimized more often than a person without mental illness. Consequently, it is critical for physicians, lawmakers, and even the general public to take active measures to ensure that those with mental illnesses are not shamed for their condition and receive the necessary services to lead an ordinary lifestyle among their peers.

No description available.

This monograph seeks to establish a articulation between the Brazilian democratic project, the violent criminality and the public security in the context of the New Republic. Arguing, first, that the institutional experience of contemporary Brazil is the only one in our public life that can be described as a "political democracy", we try to establish a parallel between the gains and troubles identified in more than two decades of the called New Republic. In this reading we have identified an intriguing and paradoxical situation: the transition process and the establishment of political democracy in Brazil has developed in parallel to a huge spread of violent criminality with the registration of about a million murders, between 1979 and 2008. Presented this, as we called the "Brazilian paradox" we began to explore the ambiguities and others paradoxical points involving criminal violence, with particular attention to the issue of public security management in the context of the New Republic. Among other considerations, we identify the securitarian scope as privileged to demonstrate, in full contemporary Brazil, the existence of a certain authoritarianism socially implanted that, among other things, establishes a "blocking" to the internalization of democratic valuesand practices within the national political culture. Suggesting the crucial link between "political democracy", "rule of law " and "public order" as the main categories for the establishment of a theoretical model appropriate to the democratic project in Brazil, we discuss - from the issue of public security - that the "blockade" operated by authoritarian permanences is not complete, subsisting like counterpoint an alternative model of democratic securitarian management, based on aspects such as the statement of a fundamental right to public safety and the participation of counties in the securitarian ambit. The establishment or not of this model, we propose, is absolutely essential to the deepening or the stagnation of the democratic project in Brazil. / A presente monografia procura estabelecer uma articulação entre o projeto democrático brasileiro, a criminalidade violenta e a segurança pública no contexto da Nova República. Argumentando, inicialmente, que a experiência institucional do Brasil contemporâneo é a única em nossa vida pública que pode ser descrita como uma democracia política , tentamos estabelecer um paralelo entre as conquistas e mazelas identificáveis nas mais de duas décadas de existência da chamada Nova República. É nesta leitura que identificamos uma situação intrigante e paradoxal: o processo de transição e instauração da democracia política no Brasil se desenvolveu, paralelamente, a uma vertiginosa expansão da criminalidade violenta com o registro, entre 1979 e 2008, de cerca de um milhão de homicídios. Apresentado este, que denominamos como o paradoxo brasileiro , passamos a explorar as ambivalências e outros pontos paradoxais que envolvem a violência criminal, com especial destaque para a questão da gestão da segurança pública no contexto da Nova República. Entre outras reflexões, identificamos o campo securitário como privilegiado para demonstrar a vigência, em pleno Brasil contemporâneo, de um certo autoritarismo socialmente implantado que, entre outros efeitos, estabelece um bloqueio à introjeção de valores e práticas democráticas no âmbito da cultura política nacional. Sugerindo a crucialidade de articular democracia política , Estado de Direito e ordem pública como categorias centrais para o estabelecimento de um modelo teórico adequado ao projeto democrático brasileiro, discutimos - a partir da questão da segurança pública que o bloqueio operado pelas permanências autoritárias não é total, já subsistindo como contraponto um modelo alternativo e democrático de gestão securitária, pautado em aspectos como a afirmação de um direito fundamental à segurança pública e a participação do município no campo securitário. A afirmação ou não desse modelo, propomos, é absolutamente essencial para o aprofundamento ou a estagnação do projeto democrático brasileiro.

In this thesis, I will argue that the role different types of perceived threat play is fundamental for how people can become more hostile or violent. Scholars have previously studied how threat perceptions can lead to outgroup hostilities and violent attitudes. Sometimes they have distinguished between realistic threats, those pertaining to wellbeing, safety and economic resources, and symbolic threats, related to culture, identity and values. Yet, despite previous research, systematic experimental evidence is scarce. Therefore, this thesis has attempted to answer the question of how realistic and symbolic threat perceptions affect outgroup hostilities through a novel survey-experimental design (n = 97) making use of Amazon’s MTurk for recruitment. It found that those exposed to a realistically framed threat exhibit more pragmatist attitudes, whereas those exposed to a symbolically framed threat leaned towards more vicious responses, although these latter results lacked statistical significance. This thesis found no difference in violent attitudes for these two types of perceived threat. These findings are important as they teach us how people can become more hostile, and how we can be aware of how actors, such as politicians, can use threat framing to achieve certain objectives.

Submitted by Clebson Anjos (clebson.leandro54@gmail.com) on 2016-03-01T18:44:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2946161 bytes, checksum: 58605522d1981f58123f375eca5ce49b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-01T18:44:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2946161 bytes, checksum: 58605522d1981f58123f375eca5ce49b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research analyzed how newspapers Correio da Paraíba and Jornal da Paraíba reported news about young adults who were victims of violent crimes, in Cidades and Últimas sections, throughout a sample of 2014. The objective was to identify the meaning behind the choices made by both media, verifying aspects as the importance given to this kind of article, the published content’s diversity, the sources heard by the reporters, the news character, as well as the perceptions regarding youth, criminality and the individuals judged as deviants. The Content Analysis was the method chosen because it can identify the news tendencies, turning the raw data (like texts and images) into clear and justified statistics. The quantitative aspect also makes it possible to have a qualitative analytical approach, evaluating the details observed through the frequencies. In order to do it all, authors from communication, sociology, anthropology and Content Analysis were essential, such as Cremilda Medina, Mauro Wolf, Mar de Fontcuberta, Émile Durkheim, Howard Becker, Roberto DaMatta, Pierre Bourdieu, Mario Margulis, Marcelo Urresti, Michel Foucault, Laurence Bardin and Heloiza Herscovitz, debating themes as news values, crime, deviation, violence, youth and the methodological viability. Achieving the goals of this research, it was verified that, in general, both media reported news similarly: there is no consensual vision about what being young is like, nor any differential because of how young the victims are; both newspapers focus on answering the journalistic lead paragraph (who did what, when, where, how and why), only describing the occurrences by what they heard from official sources; there is no photographs attached, nor any highlights on the covers of the gazettes; mostly, there isn’t almost any purposed reflections concerning what those reported cases mean beyond what it is stated. Therefore, the media reports follow a standard, as if the journalist only answered to mandatory questions in a form. This is why the victims could be exchanged among the reports without any need to make changes on news’ structures. It’s clear though that both newspapers have potential to get over this kind of bureaucracy related to the way the reports are written and go much further on their narratives, as seen in other news about different subjects. However, it’s believed that this situation is due to the fact that both media don’t think the victimization of young adults is newsworthy enough, but keep posting about them in order to reinforce their panoptic social surveillance. / Esta pesquisa analisou como são construídas as notícias sobre jovens vítimas de crimes violentos, nos cadernos de Cidades e Últimas dos jornais impressos Correio da Paraíba e Jornal da Paraíba, durante uma amostra referente ao ano de 2014. O objetivo foi identificar o sentido provocado pelas escolhas feitas por ambos os periódicos, observando aspectos como a valoração atribuída a esse tipo de matéria, a diversidade de conteúdo publicado, as fontes ouvidas, o caráter do noticiário, bem como as percepções dos media sobre a juventude, a criminalidade e os indivíduos juridicamente desviantes. O método empregado foi a Análise de Conteúdo (AC), por permitir que fosse possível identificar as tendências de apresentação dos acontecimentos, transformando os dados brutos, como textos e imagens, em estatísticas claras e justificadas. O aspecto quantitativo possibilitou ainda uma abordagem de cunho qualitativo, em que se avaliaram os pormenores identificados através dos indicadores numéricos. Nessa trajetória, foram essenciais as contribuições de autores da comunicação, da sociologia, da antropologia e da AC, como Cremilda Medina, Mauro Wolf, Mar de Fontcuberta, Émile Durkheim, Howard Becker, Roberto DaMatta, Pierre Bourdieu, Mario Margulis, Marcelo Urresti, Michel Foucault, Laurence Bardin e Heloiza Herscovitz, discutindo temas como valores-notícia, crime, desvio, violência, juventude, além da viabilidade metodológica. Alcançando-se os objetivos propostos, verificou-se que, em geral, ambos os veículos estudados constroem o noticiário de forma bastante semelhante: sem que haja uma noção consensual sobre o que é ser jovem nem um peso maior por se tratar de vítimas nesse momento etário, priorizam o atendimento do lead jornalístico (quem fez o que, quando, onde, como e por que), limitam-se à descrição das ocorrências a partir de fontes oficiais, não acompanham fotografias, não recebem destaque na capa e, sobretudo, não problematizam o que aqueles casos específicos representam. Assim, a construção midiática segue um padrão, como se o jornalista apenas respondesse a questões exigidas em um formulário, de modo que as vítimas poderiam intercambiar-se nas matérias, sem que fossem necessárias alterações na estrutura noticiosa. Constatou-se, porém, que os veículos têm potencial de ir além da informação burocrática, como se vê em notícias sobre assuntos diversos. Leva-se a crer que essa formularização se deve ao fato de os periódicos não verem o tema com grande valor-notícia, mas continuam a publicá-lo, para reforçar sua vigilância panóptica sobre o seio social.

The intent of this study is to open up the issue of aggressive and violent behavior in the selected school environment of primary school with a focus on pupils at risk of neglect. The main aim is to monitor prevention and cooperation among staff at the school, and simultaneously a relationship of the school to other specialized institutions within a given topic. The theoretical part of the study is concerned with the definition of basic terms related to the issue, above all, how aggressive and violent behavior is defined in the context of the school environment, and how the neglected child syndrome and the term of prevention is defined. This part is based on literature search and the findings from my own experience. In the practical part is presented qualitative research using instrumental case study. The selected research tools are interviews and secondary data analysis, ie. social history and analysis of the school document by which the data are detected and subsequently analyzed. In conclusion, the study summarizes the major findings, observations, it also gives recommendations for improving prevention in the issue. The study thus provides the opportunity to open the selected topic for discussion. KEYWORDS: Prevention, Agressive Behavior, Violent Behavior, School Environment, Child at Risk of...

In South Africa all the major categories of violent crime (homicide, aggravated robbery, serious assault and rape) showed an increase during the early 2000s. More than half of the total offences that were committed in South Africa during 2005 were aggressive offences. The goal of the study was to explore the perception of offenders regarding the triggering and contributing socio-economic factors to aggravated robbery with a view to inform rehabilitation and re-integration programmes for these offenders. Within the context of the interrelatedness of socio-economic factors such as poverty, inequality, unemployment and human rights, developmental social welfare and its underpinning theory of social development was an appropriate theoretical framework for the study. A qualitative research approach was utilised for the study and data was gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. Respondents for the study included maximum-term offenders that were serving an imprisonment sentence for aggravated robbery. The research findings indicate a reciprocal relationship between poverty, inequality, unemployment, intoxicating substances and intra- and interpersonal factors as possible triggering and contributing factors to aggravated robbery. Unemployment, which is exacerbated by a lack of education and skills development and linked to intra- and interpersonal factors, appears to be a dominant socio-economic factor that could contribute to or trigger aggravated robbery. The study concluded that rehabilitation programmes still lack a holistic, integrated developmental approach and hence do not prepare ex-offenders for full integration into society. The Department of Correctional Services was pointed out as a significant role-player in facilitating rehabilitation programmes that include skills development for job creation in a holistic, integrated developmental manner. Recommendations include that the Department of Correctional Services should seek partnerships and closer working relations with external service providers, and develop and implement integrated developmental rehabilitation programmes that will facilitate the creation of productive economic opportunities for offenders while they are still incarcerated and once they have been released back into the community. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

This study explores the phenomenon of serial murder from the perspective of narrative psychology. Using a case study approach and a grounded theory analytical process this qualitative study utilised the narrative concept of the imago to explore the motivation and development of those who commit serial murder in South Africa. The aim is increase our theoretical understanding of serial murder in directions that support offender profiling. Semi-structured interviews with two South African men who committed serial murder were undertaken and analysed alongside archival data. Their imagoes formed the focus of the analysis. This analysis included a consideration of how the individual’s motivations and developmental patterns were reflected in their crime scenes. This study demonstrated that imagoes play a significant role in the motives for offending, and development of offence behaviours, in men who commit serial murder. The imagoes help create motives; then embody these motives by encouraging and justifying certain types of behaviour in the individual. Interactions between imagoes were particularly significant in this regard. The dominant imago associated with the individual’s self was also associated with the development of a behavioural template for offending, and was thus especially significant in embodying motive. The development of offending was further encouraged by the separation between imagoes involved in offending and those that are not. However differences between the case studies were also observed, such as the extent to which imagoes develop in interaction with others and the roles played by their imagoes in the developmental narrative of their offending. These findings shed novel theoretical light on the study of serial murder in South Africa. It suggests directions for research into the role of narrative and culture in offending, and for the study of the imago as an embodied mode of interpersonal interaction. It also offers opportunities for research aiming to support offender profiling, and proposes a possible synthesis of competing conceptions of serial murder. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (PhD (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Practical Theology / PhD / unrestricted