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While many police departments across the country have adopted a more punitive approach to the enforcement of immigration law, some are much more welcoming towards immigrants. In new research which surveys more than 280 police departments, Linda M. Williams categorizes law enforcement agencies as "welcoming", "neutral" and "unwelcoming". Exploring these categories in detail, she finds that welcoming police departments are more likely to have bilingual officers, engage in outreach efforts, collaborate with non-law enforcement partners, and engage in community policing.

AbstractStudies of local law enforcement actions toward immigrants show that while some cities engage in enforcement, many others do not. The extent and determinants of enforcement have been assessed, but these studies have not evaluated the full range of practices, including welcoming practices, toward immigrants. This article introduces the concept of "welcomeness," develops a framework for measuring it, and, using a nationwide survey of local police departments, examines how widely departments are welcoming (or unwelcoming) to immigrants. The data show that many police departments have consciously and deliberately developed practices intended to foster positive relationships between the police and immigrants and to encourage immigrants to call the police for assistance.Practitioner Points
Welcomeness encompasses a range of practices toward immigrants that are often intentionally created, thoughtfully implemented, and found in a variety of communities.
The dimensions of welcomeness provide a framework for police departments to assess their practices and provide a model for police departments that want to engage positively with immigrants.
Welcoming practices may improve interactions between police officers and immigrants and may improve immigrants' perceptions of local law enforcement.
Welcoming police departments often have a deeper commitment to community policing.

This dissertation examines the local construction of law on the street regarding immigrants. Local agencies play a key role in immigration enforcement and in providing services to immigrants. They are increasingly the face of the state to immigrants, a face that varies across localities and regions and ranges from friendly to hostile. In the context of climate change, immigration to the United States is likely to increase and place greater pressure on public services in many areas. While much attention has been focused on punitive responses to immigration, this dissertation's basic thesis is that many local government agencies have adopted surprisingly welcoming policies toward immigrants. The dissertation develops this thesis in three phases. First, it develops the concept of welcomeness of public agencies toward immigrants. Welcoming policies are policies and practices that are designed to improve interactions between local administrative agencies and immigrants, encourage immigrants to settle in the community and protect undocumented immigrants from being victimized or harassed. Second, the dissertation develops a framework for measuring the degree of welcomeness of particular agencies. Third, it examines how widely local agencies are welcoming (or unwelcoming) to immigrants and what are the conditions that shape the degree of welcomeness. Drawing on nationwide surveys of local police departments and public libraries and interviews with department leaders and frontline employees, the dissertation shows that many agencies have consciously and deliberately developed policies and practices that are intended to develop positive relationships between the agency and immigrants, encourage immigrants' use of the agency and help immigrants integrate into the community. While libraries, as a service agency, might be expected to emphasize equality of service, police departments' mission is regulatory and they might be expected to adopt a more punitive (and thus less welcoming) orientation. The evidence that welcoming ...

Based on qualitative research completed in the United States on pathways into and out of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), this article focuses on themes of harm, resilience and survival-focused coping by prostituted teens and makes recommendations for policy and practice. The research on which it is based takes a life-course perspective on pathways into and out of CSEC. Analyses of the narratives of homeless, runaway and sexually victimised (prostituted and trafficked) teens suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding of both harm and survival that has important implications for practice and policy communities responding to human trafficking within and across borders.

Given the prevalence of victimization, especially among college-age populations, we all have students who have experienced their own victimization or the victimization of someone close to them. Violent victimization rates are highest among those age 18 to 24, an estimated one in four to five women experience an attempted or completed sexual assault during their college career, and most victims of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner were first victimized before the age of 25. Some victims may be visible, in that they choose to share their experiences with you or the class, or their experience is otherwise public, but many will remain invisible. Course material related to victimization holds the potential to trigger emotional reactions, which are not limited to victims and survivors. Students who have experienced other types of trauma, such as military veterans, as well as any student with the emotional capacity for empathy, could have a strong reaction to materials on victimization. For example, realizing that engaging in preventive efforts cannot guarantee safety can be very unsettling. Given this reality, how can we teach about the often complicated nature of victimization in a manner that does not inflict additional harm?

Literature on gender and child sexual abuse (CSA) has highlighted patterns of similarity and difference among survivors and the need for further research. This study relied on gender analysis of 128 women and 69 men, obtained through an examination of childhood hospital records, to further examine gender differences in mental health outcomes among abuse survivors and correlates of mental health outcomes including professional help seeking, family environment, and other trauma exposure. Overall, men and women were similar in the context and consequences of CSA. The role of the characteristics of CSA and contextual variables in explaining variance in mental health for 106 male victims and nonvictims was also examined. Among male participants, number of incidents of sexual abuse, injury at the hands of a caregiver, and exposure to other traumas significantly explained higher levels of an array of mental health symptoms. Implications for future research are discussed.

The current study examined (a) maternal depression as a mediator between mothers' complex trauma exposure and parenting difficulties and (b) protective factors within a sample of adult survivors of complex child and adult trauma. Participants were a sample of 152 women selected from 174 women interviewed in the third wave of a longitudinal study of a hospital sample of girls. The women in the current study represent a subsample that includes all participants who had given birth to a child. Measures included assessments of women's own trauma history and parenting outcomes. Higher rates of trauma exposure were related to decreased parenting satisfaction, reports of child neglect, use of physical punishment, and a history of protective service reports. These links were partially mediated by the relationship between trauma exposure and increased maternal depression. Exploratory analyses were also conducted to examine protective factors for fewer parenting problems within a further subsample of trauma survivors.

This study is a prospective investigation of adult sexual revictimization among 113 Black women with documented histories of childhood sexual abuse. The purpose was to obtain information on the frequency of sexual abuse in both childhood and adulthood and to determine which characteristics of the child sexual abuse were predictive of revictimization. Thirty percent of the participants were revictimized and physical force predicted subsequent victimization. This study also investigated possible sexual behavioral correlates of revictimization. Revictimized women reported more involvement in prostitution and partner violence. Finally, the present study considered the reproductive and sexual health correlates of revictimization. When compared to women abused in childhood only, revictimized women experienced more problems conceiving, repeated vaginal infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and painful intercourse. Suggestions for intervention are discussed.

The neutralization theory of Sykes and Matza (1957) posits that delinquent individuals attempt to continually reintegrate with society by mentally asserting that their deviant behavior is actually normative, via an excuse. Sykes and Matza gave five excuses, or techniques of neutralization: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties. Sykes and Matza were primarily concerned with the general concept of neutralization, rather than trying to understand the specific utilities of the different technique categories they labeled. The goal of this work is to determine which techniques may be most common, and under what circumstances (what crimes or deviant behaviors) neutralizations may be most effective. Using a factorial vignette survey design with a multinational sample of college students from Poland and the United States, we find neutralization utility varies by technique and circumstance, and the denial of responsibility technique is especially potent.