Various polls and surveys seem to indicate that a substantial proportion of the Canadian public desires harsher penalties for crime. While various explanations have been offered for this punitiveness, emotional reactions to crime have been under-researched. The present research draws on a Canadian data set to test the hypothesis that the emotions of fear and particularly anger about crime are significant predictors of punitive attitudes once crime victimization, economic insecurity, internal attributions of crime causation and other variables are controlled for. This research also examines the possible indirect effects of economic insecurity, victimization and internal attributions of crime causation on punitiveness through their impact on fear and anger. The multiple regression results support the role of emotions, particularly anger, in explaining punitive attitudes. While indirect effects of victimization and economic insecurity were insignificant, 14 per cent of the effect of internal attributions was through anger.

This study extends previous research on ethnocultural differences in body image satisfaction by comparing two distinct Asian groups with a European descent group (N = 1471). Canadian undergraduates completed self-report body image measures. Participants descended from China reported the lowest levels of body satisfaction. Body satisfaction of participants descended from Indo-Asia was the next lowest, significantly lower than their European descent counterparts. The body satisfaction of women was lower than that of men across all groups and all participants expressed a desire to be thinner. The results suggest that one cannot generalize across Asian populations, as there may be significant differences between various ethnic minority groups.

This article tests linkages between internal and external attributions of crime and the public's goals of sentencing (i.e., deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation). Responses from 1,006 Canadians were obtained from telephone interviews. As expected, respondents who made internal attributions rated deterrence as more important and rehabilitation as less important, while respondents who made external attributions did the opposite. Also as hypothesized, null associations between retribution and external attributions as well as between incapacitation and external attributions were found. However, contrary to expectations, respondents who endorsed internal attributions also rated incapacitation and retribution as more important.

With disasters on the rise, counselors need to increase their cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills to work with affected communities. This study reports outcomes of a four-week immersion experience in southern Africa with six counselor-trainees. Data sources for this qualitative study were: daily journals and demographic forms. Outcomes suggest that sustained contact with community residents and daily supervision experiences served to improve cultural awareness. Recommendations include pushing through students' resistance using a non-linear dynamic model of transformation.

BackgroundIncreasing access to health and social services through service-integration approaches may provide a direct and sustainable way to improve health and social outcomes in low-income families.MethodsWe did a community-based randomized trial evaluating the effects of two service-integration practices (healthy family lifestyle and recreational activities for children) among low-income families in Alberta, Canada. These two practices in combination formed four groups: Self-Directed (no intervention), Family Healthy Lifestyle, Family Recreation, and Comprehensive (Family Healthy Lifestyle plus Family Recreation programs). The primary outcome was the total number of service linkages.ResultsWe randomized 1168 families, 50 % of which were retained through the last follow-up visit. The number of service linkages for all three intervention groups was not significantly different from the number of linkages in the Self-Directed group (Comprehensive 1.15 (95 % CI 0.98–1.35), Family Healthy Lifestyle 1.17 (0.99–1.38), and Family Recreation 1.12 (0.95–1.32) rate ratios). However, when we explored the number of linkages by the categories of linkages, we found significantly more healthcare service linkages in the Comprehensive group compared to the Self-Directed group (1.27 (1.06–1.51)) and significantly more linkages with child-development services in the Family Healthy Lifestyle group compared to the Self-Directed group (3.27 (1.59-6.74)). The monthly hours of direct intervention was much lower than the assigned number of hours (ranging from 5 to 32 % of the assigned hours).ConclusionsOur findings are relevant to two challenges faced by policymakers and funders. First, if funds are to be expended on service-integration approaches, then, given the lack of intervention fidelity found in this study, policymakers need to insist, and therefore fund a) a well-described practice, b) auditing of that practice, c) retention of family participants, and d) examination of family use and outcomes. Second, if child-development services are widely required and are difficult for low-income families to access, then current policy needs to be examined.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00705328. Registered on 24 June 2008.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1444-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.