Editorial

Citation

Ireland, J.L. and Cramer, R.J. (2017), "Editorial", Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 1-1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-10-2016-0257

The current edition of JACPR proves particularly varied, capturing content ranging from school shootings to sexual sadism. It showcases the range of topics that JACPR handles and how varied a field we apply our science to. We commence with an invited paper on sexual sadism that presents an excellent outline of the state of knowledge and empirical data to demonstrate the wider offending potential. Indeed, the value of this paper is very much in the attention it gives to sexual sadism as a specific risk factor for non-sexual offending.

This is then followed by a piece on personality and its association with attitudes towards war and peace. Using a varied sample the study demonstrated a role less for personality in terms of core dimensions and more for authoritarianism, arguing for measurement of this concept to be captured within future research aiming to address war and peace. This is then followed by a paper that dedicates itself to exploring political order for peace, capturing political and security trajectories in Eurasia. The lack of research capturing this area is duly noted. For readers interested in rule of law, conditions of peace, and fuzzy space analysis this work will be of particular assistance.

Following is a paper on school shootings that focusses on sentencing perceptions for the juveniles involved. The authors demonstrate how social support and peer victimisation of the perpetrators were factors contributing to a tendency not to recommend custody. Race and gender also contributed, a finding not unique to this study but nevertheless re-confirming how influential such factors can be. Following this is a paper on contact sports and aggression, with a focus on provocation. What is interesting about this study was the finding that instrumental aggression was most associated with involvement in contact sport and not unregulated emotional aggression; what precedes or causes this is unclear but it could be speculated that the control taught within sports could be a useful factor to consider.

The edition then moves from a focus on adolescents to consideration of domestic violence and the use of the domestic abuse risk assessment tool (DASH) where perpetrators were monitored over a 12-month period. Two factors were identified as valuable in distinguishing between those that recidivated and those that did not, – criminal history and separation. This is unsurprising considering the importance of these particular risk items in the field, but it suggests importance in separating risk items from “essential” risk items.

Continuing with the theme of adult perpetration is the final paper of this edition, on workplace bullying. Over half the sample disclosed bullying with an association with mental health symptoms and counterproductive interpersonal behaviours demonstrated. The importance of a systems approach to managing workplace bullying was well considered. In many ways this brings us back to the importance of the earlier papers and the value in accounting for impact and context as we reach our judgements on the causes and management of aggression and the promotion of peace; in short, it is rarely about the individual and more about the systems.