Homelessness and the meaning of home: rooflessness or rootlessness?

This paper has several objectives. These are: (1) to analyse the meaning of homelessness in the light of recent contributions on the meaning of home: (2) to criticize some current perspectives on homelessness as a social problem; (3) to identify and explore a number of different dimensions of the meaning of home and homelessness; (4) to reassess the evidence on the context of home and homelessness, and re-examine the meaning of homelessness in the light of that reassessed evidence; and (5) to explain the political meaning of homelessness as expressed in official definitions, legislation and state provision (or lack of it)

Adaptive and maladaptive personality traits as predictors of violent and nonviolent offending behavior in men and women

he aim of this study was to assess both violent and nonviolent offending behavior in a single, mixed-sex population. The rationale for this is that the two types of offending are usually researched separately, despite evidence that they overlap. A comprehensive measure of general violence, intimate partner violence (IPV), and nonviolent offending behavior was administered to 116 men and 181 women, together with measures of personality and personality disorder (PD) traits, to investigate whether predictors of violent and nonviolent offending were similar or different for men and women. Men were found to perpetrate higher levels of general violence and nonviolent offenses than women, but women perpetrated significantly more IPV than men. Cluster B PD traits predicted all three offense types for women and also men's general violence and nonviolent offending. Women's general violence and men's non-violence also had one unique risk factor each, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness, respectively. The main difference was for IPV, where men's IPV was predicted by cluster A PD traits, indicating that men's and women's risk factors for IPV may be different, although their risk factors for the other offense types were fairly consistent

The influence of event characteristics and actors' behaviour on the outcome of violent events: comparing lethal with non-lethal events

Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

Problematising the relationship between Teenage Boys and Parent Abuse: Constructions of Masculinity and Violence

Although research into parent abuse is scant in the context of the UK, there is now a burgeoning of interest into how this form of family violence fits into the historically well-defined arena of domestic violence research. This article investigates one aspect of the phenomena of parent abuse; that is, how teenage boys, who are often perceived as perpetrators of such violence due to problematic ‘cycle of violence’ or ‘intergenerational transmission of violence’ theories, are constructed in relation to it. These now widely discredited theories, which correlate being a man with being violent, are problematic, but may re-emerge as a possible explanation for parent abuse. This article questions these theories in the context of both domestic violence and parent abuse by demonstrating how they are based upon a culturally constructed notion of masculinity

Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence

Sociological and criminological views of domestic and gender-based violencegenerally either dismiss it as not worthy of consideration, or focus on specificgroups of offenders and victims (male youth gangs, partner violence victims). Inthis paper, we take a holistic approach to violence, extending the definition fromthat commonly in use to encompass domestic violence and sexual violence. Weoperationalize that definition by using data from the latest sweep of the CrimeSurvey for England and Wales. By so doing, we identify that violence is currentlyunder-measured and ubiquitous; that it is gendered, and that other forms of violence (family violence, acquaintance violence against women) are equally ofconcern. We argue that violence studies are an important form of activity forsociologists

Why women’s domestic violence refuges are not local services

In a context of Localism and public sector cuts in the United Kingdom, women’s domestic violence refuges are experiencing funding cuts and service restrictions. This article presents findings of a research project, quantifying, mapping and conceptualising the journeys women make to escape domestic violence; journeys which often include accessing a women’s refuge. Analysing administrative, survey and interview data it provides evidence of women travelling from everywhere to all types of places to access refuges, and that refuges are distinctively accessed across local authority boundaries. As a result, it is argued that women’s refuges should not be considered, planned and funded as local services; but as regional and national services, hosted locally