Is violence increasing or decreasing?: a new methodology to measure repeat attacks making visible the significance of gender and domestic relations

The fall in the rate of violent crime has stopped. This is a finding of an investigation using the Crime Survey for England and Wales, 1994–2014, and an improved methodology to include the experiences of high-frequency victims. The cap on the number of crimes included has been removed. We prevent overall volatility from rising by using three-year moving averages and regression techniques that take account of all the data points rather than point to point analysis. The difference between our findings and official statistics is driven by violent crime committed against women and by domestic perpetrators. The timing of the turning point in the trajectory of violent crime corresponds with the economic crisis in 2008/09

Consultation on high frequency repeat victims in the Crime Survey - our response

The current methodology for handling repeat victimisation in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is capping. Repeat victimisations for any series of crimes are capped at maximum of 5 crimes before the data is used to produce crime rate estimates for England and Wales. The new proposals merely shift the level of this cap. Capping produces inaccurate estimates of crime which are systematically biased in specific ways, no matter what level the cap is set at. It is possible to increase the accuracy of crime estimates from the CSEW by deriving them from all reported crimes, and without increasing volatility by utilising three-year rolling averages. A move away from capping to deriving crime estimates based on all reported crimes would increase: relevance, accuracy, clarity, coherence and comparability of crime statistics and would better conform to ONS quality principles. A capping methodology does not conform to these ONS quality principles

The decline in the rate of domestic violence has stopped: removing the cap on repeat victimisation reveals more violence

• The decline in the rate of domestic violence since the mid-1990s has stopped, although violent crime by other perpetrators is still falling • The most reliable data on domestic violence is from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), rather than police recorded crime since there is no statutory category of domestic violence • Official published CSEW data ‘caps’ the maximum number of incidents in a series at 5, so further recorded incidents are not included in official estimates• Analysis of CSEW finds that when the cap is removed there are 60% more violent crimes. • The increase due to removing the cap is concentrated on violent crime against women (70% increase) rather than men (50% increase) and on violent crime by domestic relations (70% increase) and acquaintances (100% increase) rather than by strangers (20% increase)

Young people's attitudes to religious diversity : quantitative approaches from social psychology and empirical theology

This essay discusses the design of the quantitative component of the ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ project, conceived by Professor Robert Jackson within the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, and presents some preliminary findings from the data. The quantitative component followed and built on the qualitative component within a mixed method design. The argument is advanced in seven steps: introducing the major sources of theory on which the quantitative approach builds from the psychology of religion and from empirical theology; locating the empirical traditions of research among young people that have shaped the study; clarifying the notions and levels of measurement employed in the study anticipating the potential for various forms of data analysis; discussing some of the established measures incorporated in the survey; defining the ways in which the sample was structured to reflect the four nations of the UK, and London; illustrating the potential within largely descriptive cross-tabulation forms of analysis; and illustrating the potential within more sophisticated multivariate analytic models

Growth or decline in the Church of England during the decade of Evangelism: did the Churchmanship of the Bishop matter?

The Decade of Evangelism occupied the attention of the Church of England throughout the 1990s. The present study employs the statistics routinely published by the Church of England in order to assess two matters: the extent to which these statistics suggest that the 43 individual dioceses finished the decade in a stronger or weaker position than they had entered it and the extent to which, according to these statistics, the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Evangelical tradition differed from the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Catholic tradition. The data demonstrated that the majority of dioceses were performing less effectively at the end of the decade than at the beginning, in terms of a range of membership statistics, and that the rate of decline varied considerably from one diocese to another. The only exception to the trend was provided by the diocese of London, which experienced some growth. The data also demonstrated that little depended on the churchmanship of the diocesan bishop in shaping diocesan outcomes on the performance indicators employed in the study

Survey Instrument for Gender Based Violence

This is a proposal for the design of a survey on gender-based violence across Europe. It introduces the purpose of the survey, which shapes the priorities embedded in the proposed design. It identifies the major issues involved in operationalising the concept of gender-based violence for a survey. It identifies some technical issues and how they are best addressed. The focus is on the questionnaire, largely leaving to one side the design of the survey and its strategy for issues such as sampling. This proposal draws on experience of a wide range of surveys and draws on selected parts of the architecture and questionnaire of the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), modified to fit the present priorities

Quasars in the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release

Using the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release, we have searched for near infrared counterparts to 13214 quasars from the Veron-Cetty & Veron(2000) catalog. We have detected counterparts within 4 arcsec for 2277 of the approximately 6320 quasars within the area covered by the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release. Only 1.6% of these are expected to be chance coincidences. Though this sample is heterogeneous, we find that known radio-loud quasars are more likely to have large near-infrared-to-optical luminosity ratios than radio-quiet quasars are, at a statistically significant level. This is consistent with dust-reddened quasars being more common in radio-selected samples than in optically-selected samples, due to stronger selection effects against dust-reddened quasars in the latter. We also find a statistically significant dearth of optically luminous quasars with large near-infrared-to-optical luminosity ratios. This can be explained in a dust obscuration model but not in a model where synchrotron emission extends from the radio into the near-infrared and creates such large ratios. We also find that selection of quasar candidates from the B-J/J-K color-color diagram, modelled on the V-J/J-K selection method of Warren, Hewett & Foltz (2000), is likely to be more sensitive to dust-obscured quasars than selection using only infrared-infrared colors.Comment: To be published in May issue of Astronomical Journal (26 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables) Replaced Figure 6 and

Religious diversity, empathy, and God images : perspectives from the psychology of religion shaping a study among adolescents in the UK

Major religious traditions agree in advocating and promoting love of neighbour as well as love of God. Love of neighbour is reflected in altruistic behaviour and empathy stands as a key motivational factor underpinning altruism. This study employs the empathy scale from the Junior Eysenck Impulsiveness Questionnaire to assess the association between empathy and God images among a sample of 5993 religiously diverse adolescents (13–15 years old) attending state maintained schools in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and London. The key psychological theory being tested by these data concerns the linkage between God images and individual differences in empathy. The data demonstrate that religious identity (e.g. Christian, Muslim) and religious attendance are less important than the God images which young people hold. The image of God as a God of mercy is associated with higher empathy scores, while the image of God as a God of justice is associated with lower empathy scores

Critical appraisal of bepotastine in the treatment of ocular itching associated with allergic conjunctivitis

Bepotastine besilate 1.5% solution is an H1-antihistamine recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the topical treatment of ocular itching associated with allergic conjunctivitis. Several clinical studies have demonstrated its safety as well as its efficacy versus placebo. This review finds that bepotastine besilate 1.5% solution is a suitable alternative to other agents within the class of H1-antihistamines, but there are no clinical trial data to suggest that it holds any specific advantages over other agents