International Edition Volume 8 (2018)


The European Union in the Colombian Peace Process. Quo vadis Colombia?

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Yvonne Rieser

In October 2016, the Colombian people were asked by the government to ratify the peace agreement negotiated over many years between the government and the FARC guerrilla. Contrary to all forecasts, the vote was negative. The peace process is faltering for the time being. A "No" to peace? The country is splitting itself into two camps, thus lingering in a dangerous state of uncertainty. Many local people are asking themselves whether the "No" to the peace treaty will lead to renewed unrest and the FARC taking up arms once again. At the beginning of 2016, the conflicting parties succeeded in a first unilateral, then two-sided ceasefire. The European Union accompanied and supported the peace process in all its phases. The key points of the negotiations included the issues of justice and reparation – two points that many Colombians found lacking in the final text of the peace treaty. At the same time, President Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. It will be interesting to see how the political situation will continue to develop.

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Intercultural Qualification of Police Officers. A model proposal

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Hans-Joachim Asmus, Thomas Enke

The proposed training modules for strengthening and improving intercultural competence(s) are based on the findings of the Saxony-Anhalt investigation "Police handling of migrant victims". The interpretive reconstruction of interviews and group discussions with police officers at all hierarchical levels with victims, victim advisors and victim counsellors (e.g. interpreters) revealed the systemic insensitivity of operational forces towards migrants who have been victims of crime. On this basis, there are two starting points for (paradigmatic) novel intercultural training. The first and fundamental points of reference are the police's internal mechanisms that produce and reproduce an insensitive approach to migrants (victims). The second points of reference are the thought and action patterns of the hierarchical levels (immediate supervisors and senior officials), which stabilise the attitudes of the operational forces in a communicative interaction. In the first case, the goal of the training is to reappraise work performed in interculturally lacking situations, reflecting beyond any moralisation, e.g. with the Critical Incident Method. This makes the self-evident aspects of police behaviour and thinking conscious and changeable. The second point of reference serves to differentiate the groups of people, topics and goals in the training. As a result of the intercultural qualification of police officers at every level of the hierarchy, we expect in the medium term a significant increase in sovereign professional intervention, taking into account the protection of victims and opening the police organisation up to diversity.

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The Anger of the Police. The French National Police – both heroised and hated by the French population

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Stefanie Tränkle, Dirk Herzbach

Thousands of police officers from the National Police have been demonstrating on the streets for weeks. This article examines where the anger of the security forces originates from and embeds the current events in an analysis of the relationship between the citizenry and the state power. Police work in France is currently in a perpetual state of emergency, among other things in connection with counter-terrorism, which is putting an extreme strain on human resources. This work is further burdened by an ambivalent relationship between the National Police and the population; the security forces are experiencing heroisation as well as hatred, manifesting itself in mutual violence. The article outlines why a rapprochement between the population and the police hardly seems in sight beyond short-term solidarity effects after attacks due to political and social circumstances on the one hand and internal structures on the other.

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The Crucial Question or “How do you feel about Corruption?” Results of the BAK study “Attitudes towards corruption in Austria”

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Ruth Linssen, Angelika Schäffer, Frank Heber

The work and impact of the police is largely dependent on the confidence of the population. Corruption could shake this trust in the long term. Thus, it was only logical that the Austrian Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAK), in cooperation with the Hannover and Münster Universities of Applied Sciences, initiated the study "Attitudes towards corruption in Austria", in which the attitudes of police officers and other groups to corruption were measured. The aim of the study is to gain insights into corruption risks in order to develop and implement more appropriate prevention concepts. In the study "Attitudes towards corruption in Austria", the BAK interviewed 1,687 people about their attitudes towards corruption; about half of them were cadets of the Austrian Federal Police and the other half were students of the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck from the Faculties of Law and Psychology. The survey tool used was the Hannover Corruption Scale (HKS 38), a questionnaire that measures attitudes towards corruption and, in the case of group measurements, enables conclusions to be drawn regarding these groups’ susceptibility to corruption. The questionnaire distinguishes three areas (conative, affective and cognitive) in the attitudes towards corruption. The results show that the respondents from the police are less prone to corruption than the comparison groups, however, a detailed analysis of the three areas also provides promising starting points for new, evidencebased prevention concepts that can support police work.

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The Grasp Reflex in Adults. The forensic significance of other neurosurgical and neurological subjects

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M. C. Silke Brodbeck, M. Sinikka Brodbeck, Juha Öhman

In some gunshot wound cases, grasp reflexes are given as triggers for "accidentally fired shots", i.e. accidental gunshot wounds inflicted by the shooting party. The specification of a reflex should underline the accidental nature of a shooting event. This article deals with the question of what exactly a grasp reflex is and what its significance is in the forensic context of gunshot wounds. In addition, the medical knowledge of individual specialist disciplines is growing and is leading to a considerable increase in the amount of data and further sub-specialisations in the various medical specialist disciplines. Thus, it is necessary to highlight clinical focuses of the neurological and neurosurgical disciplines with the lack of knowledge that may arise due to missing clinical relevance in the forensic consideration.

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Evolution and Human Migration. Policy implications of anthropological evidence

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Alexander Schahbasi, Martin Fieder

Considering the overwhelming evidence that our behavior is deeply rooted in our evolutionary past, an understanding of the principles of evolutionary biology is necessary to comprehend human behavior. In particular, applying these findings to the study of migration and reflecting upon the migration of Homo sapiens around the globe allows a more rational analysis of the implications of contemporary migration flows.

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The Way to a Better Life? Human trafficking in Austria – a bilateral research project

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Edith Huber, Silke Birgitta Gahleitner, Katharina Gerlich, Heidemarie Hinterwallner, Walter Hötzendorfer

Human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a widespread problem globally. Many of those affected see few escape opportunities, despite national and international measures. The question then arises as to how support systems can better meet the needs of the women concerned. The German-Austrian research project "Prevention and intervention of sex trafficking" ("PRIMSA") has made an up-to-date survey in order to develop a multidisciplinary prevention and intervention concept. The project is funded on the German side by the funding programme "Research for civil security II" of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and financed on the Austrian side within the security research funding programme KIRAS of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT). This article gives an insight into the project's two lines of research, a file analysis of the court records on the subject in Austria and the results of 30 interviews with affected women. Both substantive and research methodological conclusions can be drawn from the results. From a research methodological point of view, it becomes clear that different approaches enable very different results and that interdisciplinary and comprehensive projects are more suitable for researching this project. In terms of content, it becomes clear how much acute intervention in the field of trafficking in women depends on the appropriate trauma and relationship competence of the specialists employed. The two results are correlated with the current state of the literature.

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Self-Determination Skills, Mental Health and Sex Work

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Stefan Tschöke, Brendan Snellgrove, Dana Bichescu-Burian, Raoul Borbé

The reasons given by women for their decision to work in the sex industry are manifold. Economic reasons are mentioned first and foremost. The extent to which it is a question of a free, selfdetermined decision is controversial. Opinions vary between two extremes: "business women" and "victims of violence". Conducting studies on this clientele is generally difficult, as it is a mobile, heterogeneous population that changes rapidly and, to a not inconsiderable extent, operates illegally. Due to better accessibility, available data often comes from women working in the field of street prostitution. Representative sample surveys from the entire heterogeneous range of activities are not yet available. Social science issues dominate thematically, psychiatric issues on mental health are rare. The situation of the investigated sex workers is characterised by a high prevalence of a) persistent interpersonal violence, b) a life history with sexual abuse in childhood and c) mental disorders, above all disorders due to repeated trauma and addiction disorders. Possible links between sex work, mental health and the question of selfdetermination ability will be discussed on the basis of a narrative review. It is postulated that the protagonists in the sex industry occupy a continuum between the two poles of "business woman" and "victim of violence". The ability to make a self-determined decision is the decisive criterion here; this can be a measure of the need for help.

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