Report on Domestic Violence and Law Enforcement in a Rural Setting: The Case of Eastern Kentucky

A report submitted by Neil Websdale to the Research and Creative Productions Committee in 1992 on domestic violence and the criminal justice response to that violence in Eastern Kentucky

I spy with my little eye: a history of the policing of class and gender relations in Eugene, Oregon (USA)

My thesis is that local police in Eugene and Lane County, Oregon,\ud have been integral parts of a process of governmentality which was\ud directed at the constitution and reconstitution of various forms of\ud social order. In terms of class relations we find police mediating and\ud managing a number of antagonisms. This management role took both\ud coercive and consensual forms and was largely concerned with the historical\ud regulation of the proletariat. We witness a more passive role\ud for police in the field of patriarchy. Here law enforcement strategies\ud were non-interventionist vis a vis domestic violence, rape and prostitution.\ud This passivity tended to reproduce the sovereign powers of men\ud over women. In order to grasp the historical function of policing I\ud argue that we must consider its utility in terms of both class and\ud gender relations. While selective policing served to ensure the ongoing\ud governability of the increasing numbers of male wage workers, it also\ud allowed men in general to remain as sovereigns within families.\ud In Section I I draw upon Marxism, Feminism, Poststructuralism and\ud Phenomenology to make explicit my theoretical and methodological\ud approach. My recognition of the importance of human agency is reflected\ud in my use of qualitative sources such as oral histories, government\ud documents, newspapers and court archival material. These sources are\ud augmented by a guarded quantitative analysis of census data, crime\ud statistics and police annual reports. Sections II and III provide\ud historical outlines of national, state and local levels of class (II)\ud and gender (III) relations respectively. In Section IV I discuss the\ud rise of local policing and its relationship to other forms of\ud governmentality. This leads me into a detailed appreciation of the\ud policing of class (V) and gender conflict (VI).\u

Made by hand

Although the mainstream animation industry has adopted digital production methods, the attraction of laborious hand-made methods for making animation persists in the independent sector. The chapter considers how ‘craftivist’ opposition to mechanical, technological and digital techniques is validated in this community of practice through ideas that haptic knowledge by skilled physical labour and an exploration of materiality, autographic mark-making and imperfection (Wabi-sabi) are guarantors of authenticity and individuality that can only be carried out by hand. Why is this? What ideas and assumptions can be seen to underpin the notions of craft and crafting? Tracing connections between craft and activism since the Industrial Revolution, this chapter critically reflects on discourses of craft and the handmade through reference to Ruskin (1851), Morris (1892), Hobsbawm (2000), Thompson (1980), Benjamin (1935), Krauss (2000) and Takahashi (2005). Whereas the experimental animation community privileges analogue, handmade processes that appear to oppose and critique commercial animation production, building upon Warburton (2016) and Frayling (2017) it is argued here that this approach is underpinned by nostalgia and often faked. What looks like a hand-painted animation could actually be a simulation that was ‘painted’ in a software package: a pastiche of manual labour. Aesthetics alone do not guarantee that a work of art opposes the mainstream. Instead of recycling the past to create ‘artistic’ animation, it is argued in the conclusion that contemporary practitioners can equally investigate issues of labour and materiality through digital tools and virtual materials such as in the ‘ugly’ CGI animation of Nikita Daikur (2017)

‘A victim, and that’s all’: the construction of Meredith Kercher in the British national newspapers

What journalistic techniques are employed to construct a newsworthy female murder victim in the age of social media? Focusing on Meredith Kercher’s murder, this article examines how Kercher’s victim persona was fashioned by the British national press before the arrests of Amanda Knox and two others. Contrary to prevailing perspectives, we argue that the newsworthy murder victim is not necessarily an ideal victim. Murder victim status in a news story is a multi-facetted construction, contingent on whatever will magnify newsworthiness. The Kercher case is the first example of British journalists using the murder victim’s Facebook content as the primary news resource, adding “authenticity” to the text and images used, since it originated from the victim herself. The research findings illustrate how Kercher was sexualized through the application of misogynist victim-blaming templates used in the reporting of sex crimes. It was the degradation of her ideal victim status that drove the initial newsworthiness of the murder story

The domestic violence fatality review clearinghouse: introduction to a new National Data System with a focus on firearms

Abstract Background In the US more than 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner. The most severe violence, violence that ends in death, disproportionately affects women. Current or former male intimate partners commit the majority of homicides of females and fifty to 60 % of these homicides are perpetrated with firearms. Most murder-suicides involve intimate partners and the vast majority of these cases are women murdered by intimate partners using a firearm. Little data exist to illuminate the social and legal circumstances surrounding firearm use in intimate partner homicide. Here we describe US Domestic Violence Fatality Review Teams and the planning and development of a National Clearinghouse for Domestic Violence Fatality Reviews. Among other things, the National Clearinghouse will centrally record and harmonize reviews across the US through standardized reporting templates and protocols for gathering de-identified intimate partner homicide case information. Conclusion Domestic violence fatality reviews provide a promising yet underutilized data source to understand the links between firearms and domestic violence related deaths. The nascent Clearinghouse can inform policy approaches to address intimate partner homicide as well as firearm-related violence in the United States