title: Conversing with ‘monsters’? Narratives about men who sexually abuse(d) children

authors: Young-Hauser, Amanda Maria

subjects: child sexual abuse

abstract: This research has examined multiperspectival narratives told about and by men who sexually abuse(d) children. Drawing on institutional, public and private narratives, I have explored how men who sexually abuse(d) children are characterised, how meanings about these men are created, and how their reintegrative prospects are understood. The project has encompassed five research elements: historical narratives evident in archival materials; media narratives evident in news articles; public discourse reflected in five focus groups; the accounts of support people of men who sexually abused reflected in one focus group; and the stories of ten men imprisoned for sexually abusing children elicited through pre-release and post-release conversations. These multiple levels of narration have allowed me to look within and across these settings to establish links and to demarcate points of convergence and departure of these diverse narratives. Results have suggested a mismatch between narratives about men who offend(ed) with those evident in the stories of support persons and the men themselves. The latter are anchored in, but contest the former; in particular the narrow representations of these men as inherently evil and not rehabilitatable. Subtle disruptions that question commonly held assumptions about men who sexually abuse(d) children and tell of alternative possibilities are evident in some narratives. My research shows that narratives can accumulate and reinforce assumptions over time and in many respects be discriminatory and exclusionary as well as being liberatory, enveloped in healing and open to change. By locating these men in their social environment and contextualising the crime, I examine the issues of child sex abuse from various angles. This research offers a more inclusive perspective on men who offend(ed) against children that can contribute to broadening public dialogue regarding the characterizations of these men, issues of community reintegration and repairing people’s lives.

text: Conversing with ‘monsters’? Narratives about men who sexually abuse(d) children This research has examined multiperspectival narratives told about and by men who sexually abuse(d) children. Drawing on institutional, public and private narratives, I have explored how men who sexually abuse(d) children are characterised, how meanings about these men are created, and how their reintegrative prospects are understood. The project has encompassed five research elements: historical narratives evident in archival materials; media narratives evident in news articles; public discourse reflected in five focus groups; the accounts of support people of men who sexually abused reflected in one focus group; and the stories of ten men imprisoned for sexually abusing children elicited through pre-release and post-release conversations. These multiple levels of narration have allowed me to look within and across these settings to establish links and to demarcate points of convergence and departure of these diverse narratives. Results have suggested a mismatch between narratives about men who offend(ed) with those evident in the stories of support persons and the men themselves. The latter are anchored in, but contest the former; in particular the narrow representations of these men as inherently evil and not rehabilitatable. Subtle disruptions that question commonly held assumptions about men who sexually abuse(d) children and tell of alternative possibilities are evident in some narratives. My research shows that narratives can accumulate and reinforce assumptions over time and in many respects be discriminatory and exclusionary as well as being liberatory, enveloped in healing and open to change. By locating these men in their social environment and contextualising the crime, I examine the issues of child sex abuse from various angles. This research offers a more inclusive perspective on men who offend(ed) against children that can contribute to broadening public dialogue regarding the characterizations of these men, issues of community reintegration and repairing people’s lives.

year: 2010

title: Macroclimate and topography interact to influence the abundance of divaricate plants in New Zealand

authors: Lusk, Christopher H.

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: The abundance of the divaricate growth form in New Zealand has been interpreted as either (a) the response of an isolated flora to cool, dry, Plio-Pleistocene climates; or (b) a defense against large browsing birds (moa) that were hunted to extinction shortly after human arrival during the last millennium. We used patterns of divaricate plant abundance across present-day landscapes to test a novel synthetic hypothesis: that the divaricate form is of most value to plants on fertile soils that attract herbivores, on sites where climatic constraints prevent plants from quickly growing out of the browse zone. This hypothesis predicts that divaricate species should be most abundant on terraces (landforms that are both fertile and frost-prone) in regions that are cold and dry, and should be scarce across all topographic positions in the warmest (largely frost-free) regions. To address our hypothesis, we first tested the influence of topography on frost regimes and nutrient levels by measuring temperatures and soil total C, N, and P at four standard topographic positions at five localities differing widely in macroclimate. We then extracted a dataset of 236 surveys comprising 9,877 relevé plots from the New Zealand National Vegetation Survey databank. We calculated the proportion of arborescent species with a divaricate growth form and the proportion of total arborescentcover contributed by divaricates on each plot; we then fitted linear mixed-effect models predicting these response variables as functions of topographic position and climate. The number of frosts recorded averaged <1 yr–1 at the warmest of the five sites studied, to >60 yr–1 on all topographic positions at the coldest site. Terraces were subject to more frequent and harder frosts than any other topographic position. Topography had no significant influence on total N or C:N, but total P was higher on terraces and in gullies than on faces or ridges. Frost-free period was the dominant influence on both species representation and cover of divaricate plants throughout the country. The effect of topography was also significant, but weaker. The effect of frost-free period was stronger on sites with water deficits than on sites where precipitation exceeded evapotranspiration. Divaricates made their largest contributions on terraces in cold, dry regions; as predicted, they were scarce on all topographic positions on sites with frost-free periods >300 days. Our hypothesis was generally supported, although the effect of topography on divaricate abundance was not as strong as some previous studies led us to expect. Divaricates made their largest contributions to arborescent species richness and cover on sites where climatic restrictions on growth coincide with relatively high nutrient availability. The contemporary distribution of the divaricate form across New Zealand landscapes thus appears to be reasonably well explained by the hypothesized interaction of climate and fertility-mediated browsing, although experiments may provide more conclusive tests of this hypothesis.

text: Macroclimate and topography interact to influence the abundance of divaricate plants in New Zealand The abundance of the divaricate growth form in New Zealand has been interpreted as either (a) the response of an isolated flora to cool, dry, Plio-Pleistocene climates; or (b) a defense against large browsing birds (moa) that were hunted to extinction shortly after human arrival during the last millennium. We used patterns of divaricate plant abundance across present-day landscapes to test a novel synthetic hypothesis: that the divaricate form is of most value to plants on fertile soils that attract herbivores, on sites where climatic constraints prevent plants from quickly growing out of the browse zone. This hypothesis predicts that divaricate species should be most abundant on terraces (landforms that are both fertile and frost-prone) in regions that are cold and dry, and should be scarce across all topographic positions in the warmest (largely frost-free) regions. To address our hypothesis, we first tested the influence of topography on frost regimes and nutrient levels by measuring temperatures and soil total C, N, and P at four standard topographic positions at five localities differing widely in macroclimate. We then extracted a dataset of 236 surveys comprising 9,877 relevé plots from the New Zealand National Vegetation Survey databank. We calculated the proportion of arborescent species with a divaricate growth form and the proportion of total arborescentcover contributed by divaricates on each plot; we then fitted linear mixed-effect models predicting these response variables as functions of topographic position and climate. The number of frosts recorded averaged <1 yr–1 at the warmest of the five sites studied, to >60 yr–1 on all topographic positions at the coldest site. Terraces were subject to more frequent and harder frosts than any other topographic position. Topography had no significant influence on total N or C:N, but total P was higher on terraces and in gullies than on faces or ridges. Frost-free period was the dominant influence on both species representation and cover of divaricate plants throughout the country. The effect of topography was also significant, but weaker. The effect of frost-free period was stronger on sites with water deficits than on sites where precipitation exceeded evapotranspiration. Divaricates made their largest contributions on terraces in cold, dry regions; as predicted, they were scarce on all topographic positions on sites with frost-free periods >300 days. Our hypothesis was generally supported, although the effect of topography on divaricate abundance was not as strong as some previous studies led us to expect. Divaricates made their largest contributions to arborescent species richness and cover on sites where climatic restrictions on growth coincide with relatively high nutrient availability. The contemporary distribution of the divaricate form across New Zealand landscapes thus appears to be reasonably well explained by the hypothesized interaction of climate and fertility-mediated browsing, although experiments may provide more conclusive tests of this hypothesis.

year: 2020

title: Risk assessment for family violence aggressors in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Jolliffe Simpson, Apriel D.

subjects: Family violence

abstract: In recent decades Family Violence (FV) researchers have developed risk assessment instruments to enable practitioners to identify the people who are most likely to commit FV in the future, and the families who are most likely to experience ongoing harm. Indeed, risk assessments have become a standard procedure for FV practitioners who are frequently required to make decisions with potential ramifications for families’ safety and wellbeing. Yet, despite considerable developments in risk assessment research and practice, risk assessment instruments have limitations that curb their value to FV practice. In addition, such instruments should be empirically validated, but there is limited evidence for the validity of risk assessment instruments used by agencies that respond to FV in Aotearoa New Zealand. Therefore, in this thesis, we examined the risk assessment procedures that New Zealand Police and the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) used for FV, with the purpose of contributing to the evidence base about risk assessment for FV in New Zealand and identifying strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
This thesis contains three manuscripts either published in or submitted to peer-reviewed academic journals; as well as supplementary chapters that support, extend, and integrate the research findings. In the first manuscript, we examined the predictive validity of risk categories from the Dynamic Risk Assessment for family violence (DYRA) and Static Assessment of Family Violence Recidivism (SAFVR)—the two risk assessment instruments that New Zealand Police use when responding to FV cases—for a sample of 2,115 cases with FV episodes reported to police in Waikato and parts of Canterbury between 1 November – 9 December 2018 (1,817 of which had complete risk categories). We examined the instruments’ ability to predict recurrence (i.e., a further FV-related call for police service) at three intervals (3 days, 12 weeks, and 24 weeks), and found both instruments had a poor ability to discriminate between aggressors who had a recurrence and those who did not, with the SAFVR outperforming the DYRA, and the DYRA performing especially poorly for non-intimate partner cases, and aggressors who were Māori or women. 
In the second manuscript, we explored the risk assessments that Integrated Safety Response (ISR) triage team members conducted for a sub-sample of 842 cases with FV episodes reported to police between 1 – 14 November 2018. We examined the relationship between the factors triage teams recorded during their risk assessments and the risk categories the teams assigned, then tested the association of both the factors and categories with recurrence and physical recurrence within 24 weeks. The predictive validity of ISR triage teams’ risk categories was comparable to the results produced for the DYRA and SAFVR in manuscript one. The ISR risk categories again performed poorly for aggressors who were women, Māori, and for non-intimate partner cases; and overall, fewer than half of the factors triage teams recorded were associated with recurrence or physical recurrence. Then, in an additional chapter, we explored the triage teams’ factors’ utility for case management and found the factors could be used to create three sub-groups of cases with potential implications for their treatment and management. 
Finally, in the third manuscript, we modeled the behavioral patterns of 2,115 aggressors with a FV episode reported to police in Waikato and parts of Canterbury between 1 November – 9 December 2018, by collecting reports for further FV episodes involving those aggressors during the two years after the index episode. We used this information to describe three latent states behind the information reported to police and identified four common pathways through the latent states over time. We concluded this manuscript by discussing changes that could contribute to improvements in how risk for FV aggressors is conceptualized, assessed, and communicated in practice.
In each chapter, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, before integrating those findings and implications in a general discussion chapter. Taken together, the results presented herein indicate that the risk assessment instruments used in New Zealand can predict risk for FV recurrence better than chance, but that those assessments should be further developed to improve their value to FV practice and ensure they adequately capture risk for different types of FV cases and groups of people. This thesis advanced our understanding of the limitations of—and opportunities in—risk assessment research and contributed to the evidence base for risk assessment for FV in New Zealand.

text: Risk assessment for family violence aggressors in Aotearoa New Zealand In recent decades Family Violence (FV) researchers have developed risk assessment instruments to enable practitioners to identify the people who are most likely to commit FV in the future, and the families who are most likely to experience ongoing harm. Indeed, risk assessments have become a standard procedure for FV practitioners who are frequently required to make decisions with potential ramifications for families’ safety and wellbeing. Yet, despite considerable developments in risk assessment research and practice, risk assessment instruments have limitations that curb their value to FV practice. In addition, such instruments should be empirically validated, but there is limited evidence for the validity of risk assessment instruments used by agencies that respond to FV in Aotearoa New Zealand. Therefore, in this thesis, we examined the risk assessment procedures that New Zealand Police and the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) used for FV, with the purpose of contributing to the evidence base about risk assessment for FV in New Zealand and identifying strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
This thesis contains three manuscripts either published in or submitted to peer-reviewed academic journals; as well as supplementary chapters that support, extend, and integrate the research findings. In the first manuscript, we examined the predictive validity of risk categories from the Dynamic Risk Assessment for family violence (DYRA) and Static Assessment of Family Violence Recidivism (SAFVR)—the two risk assessment instruments that New Zealand Police use when responding to FV cases—for a sample of 2,115 cases with FV episodes reported to police in Waikato and parts of Canterbury between 1 November – 9 December 2018 (1,817 of which had complete risk categories). We examined the instruments’ ability to predict recurrence (i.e., a further FV-related call for police service) at three intervals (3 days, 12 weeks, and 24 weeks), and found both instruments had a poor ability to discriminate between aggressors who had a recurrence and those who did not, with the SAFVR outperforming the DYRA, and the DYRA performing especially poorly for non-intimate partner cases, and aggressors who were Māori or women. 
In the second manuscript, we explored the risk assessments that Integrated Safety Response (ISR) triage team members conducted for a sub-sample of 842 cases with FV episodes reported to police between 1 – 14 November 2018. We examined the relationship between the factors triage teams recorded during their risk assessments and the risk categories the teams assigned, then tested the association of both the factors and categories with recurrence and physical recurrence within 24 weeks. The predictive validity of ISR triage teams’ risk categories was comparable to the results produced for the DYRA and SAFVR in manuscript one. The ISR risk categories again performed poorly for aggressors who were women, Māori, and for non-intimate partner cases; and overall, fewer than half of the factors triage teams recorded were associated with recurrence or physical recurrence. Then, in an additional chapter, we explored the triage teams’ factors’ utility for case management and found the factors could be used to create three sub-groups of cases with potential implications for their treatment and management. 
Finally, in the third manuscript, we modeled the behavioral patterns of 2,115 aggressors with a FV episode reported to police in Waikato and parts of Canterbury between 1 November – 9 December 2018, by collecting reports for further FV episodes involving those aggressors during the two years after the index episode. We used this information to describe three latent states behind the information reported to police and identified four common pathways through the latent states over time. We concluded this manuscript by discussing changes that could contribute to improvements in how risk for FV aggressors is conceptualized, assessed, and communicated in practice.
In each chapter, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, before integrating those findings and implications in a general discussion chapter. Taken together, the results presented herein indicate that the risk assessment instruments used in New Zealand can predict risk for FV recurrence better than chance, but that those assessments should be further developed to improve their value to FV practice and ensure they adequately capture risk for different types of FV cases and groups of people. This thesis advanced our understanding of the limitations of—and opportunities in—risk assessment research and contributed to the evidence base for risk assessment for FV in New Zealand.

year: 2023