The hidden persistence of witchcraft

Today, we have come full circle from the Salem Witchcraft Trials—accusations of deviant behaviour; an ever-widening investigation conducted in an atmosphere of increasing hysteria; investigation procedures that assume the outcome and encourage accusations, leading to accusations of increasing numbers of individuals for a growing and ever more varied pattern of deviant behaviour; collapse, either before or after the initiation of the criminal process, of the ensuing web of accusations; and, finally, the emotional, financial, or reputational ruin of the accused with no possibility of redress.Underlying the legal conundrum that these Satanic abuse episodes pose is the problem of power—the power to make our world that is an attribute of our social existence, and the potentially corrupting influence of that power. The problem of power is that it threatens the autonomy the hierarchical structure toward which society inevitably tends (in however fluid a manner) and from the power exercised by the loose and shifting majoritarian consensus that often dominates a community.The dilemmas inherent in our legal world arise from two paradoxical circumstances—that we, as politically autonomous, liberty-endowed individuals, are nevertheless socially constructed, and that the law, though it must be autonomous of collective values in order for individual freedom to be possible, must nevertheless reflect who we are in order to command our assent. The problem of false accusations expresses these dilemmas in an especially acute way, and the law must address these dilemmas more carefully if individual rights and collective power are to be maintained in tolerable tension.The Frances Lewis Law Centre of Washington & Lee Law School generously provided support for the research that underlies this essay. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of David Caudill, Alison Kitch, and Judith McMorrow.     

The hidden origins of enorm lesion

Plato's Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy and Reform in Greek Penology. Trevor J. Saunders. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1991. xvii + 414pp. (incl. Indexes). £50 hb. ISBN 0 19 814893 3.

Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the time of Cicero to the time of Ulpian. Susan Treggiari. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1991. xv + 578pp. (incl. Indexes). £65 hb. ISBN 0 19 814890 9.

Marriage, Divorce and Children in Ancient Rome. Edited by Beryl Rawson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. xiv + 252pp. (incl. Index). £35 hb. ISBN 0 19 814918 2.

Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. J.A. Brundage. University of Chicago Press, 1987. xxiv + 674pp. (incl. Index). £21.50 pb. ISBN 0 226 07784 5.

Church Courts, Sex and Marriage, in England, 1570–1640. M. Ingram. Past and Present Publications, Cambridge University Press, 1987. xiii + 412pp. (incl. Index). £45 hb. ISBN 0 521 386551.

The Medieval Canon Law. Teaching, Literature and Transmission. (The Sandars Lectures in Bibliography: 1987–1988). Dorothy M. Owen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. xii + 82pp. £25 hb. ISBN 0 521 39313 9.

Notaries Public in England since the Reformation. C.W. Brooks, R.H. Helmholz and P.G. Stein. Norwich: The Erskine Press for the Society of Public Notaries of London, 1991. ix + 148pp. (incl. Index). £60.00 hb. £29.95 pb. ISBN 1 85297 0340.

The Common Law and English Jurisprudence 1760–1850. Michael Lobban. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. xvi + 315pp. (incl. Index). £35.00 hb. ISBN 019 825293 5.

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The utility of the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory with offenders

Self-report instruments can provide useful information as part of a thorough clinical assessment. However, their use in forensic settings can be problematic. The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) has recently been proposed as an effective instrument for screening and outcome measurement in anger management programs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of this instrument in a sample of both voluntary and court-ordered anger-management clients, all of whom were determined through diagnostic interviews to have significant anger problems. Contrary to findings in nonforensic samples, the STAXI Trait Anger scale identified only about half of the participants as having anger-management problems severe enough to require intervention. Supplemental analysis with two additional scales did not significantly improve sensitivity. In addition to thorough diagnostic interviewing, forensic use of the STAXI (like similar assessment methods) may require additional validity scales to detect denial or socially desirable response patterns.     

Juvenile detention: The hidden closets revisited

This is the first national study of juvenile detention in more than a decade. The findings indicate that these facilities are undergoing a fundamental and substantial change. The consensus of professional opinion as well as recommendations from national standard-setting bodies indicate that juvenile detention centers should be reserved for those youth who present a clear and substantial threat to the community and who need to be confined until they appear in court. Now these facilities are assuming an added function by serving as short-term commitment options for juvenile court judges. In addition, the study found that the excessive use of detention continues to be a major problem.     

The hidden cost of some trustees-trustee commissions

There is a widespread variation in trustees’ approachto the taking of commissions for investing trust money and therequirements to disclose these commissions to beneficiaries.The net result is that settlors, beneficiaries and their advisersneed to be aware that a trustee's remuneration may not be clear,even from a set of audited accounts and that there may be arisk of conflict between the trust terms and a duty or regulatoryobligation to disclose.     

The Impact of Anger on the Intimate Partner Violence Decision-Making Process

McFall’s (1982, 1989) Social Information Processing (SIP) model outlines different stages in cognitive processing and decision-making that may be deficient in men who engage in interpersonal violence (IPV). A decision-making task was developed to assess the utility of abusive and nonabusive behaviors among 32 men who engage in mild IPV, 32 maritally distressed men, and 32 nondistressed men. Because anger impacts appraisal and decision-making (e.g., Lerner and Tiedens in Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 19, 115-137, 2006), all participants were randomly assigned to an anger induction or neutral induction condition. As hypothesized, the perceived utility for abusive behavior was greater for angry abusive men and the perceived utility of control appeared to significantly contribute to this difference. Specific deficits in the IPV group were found, supporting a SIP model of IPV, aiding in understanding the function of violent behavior. Despite study limitations, these findings have implications for enhancing specific skill training components of treatment for abusive men.     

Anger, Child Behavior, and Family Distress: Further Evaluation of the Parental Anger Inventory

Presumably, anger is a common experience of parenting. Although practitioners and researchers recognize the role of anger in various parenting situations, objective and standardized measures of parental anger have been notably lacking in the field. This study examined the Parental Anger Inventory (PAI), a measure developed specifically to assess parental anger in response to child misbehavior. A diverse sample of 98 parents participated in the study, including (a) physically abusive or neglectful parents, or both, n = 44; (b) nonmaltreating clinic parents seeking assistance for child behavior problems, n = 24; and (c) nonmaltreating, non-help-seeking community parents, n = 30. Results support the internal consistency, temporal stability, and convergent validity of the PAI. Findings also demonstrate the PAI's potential utility when working with maltreating and help-seeking parents. Results highlight the importance of assessing parental anger toward children and support the use of the PAI in assessment, treatment, and research.     

The psychometric properties of the Anger Bodily Sensations Questionnaire (ABSQ)

The Anger Bodily Sensations Questionnaire (ABSQ) is a newly developed self-report instrument for measuring bodily sensations related to anger in interpersonal situations. In this study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the ABSQ in a sample of 70 offenders and a sample of 100 secondary vocational students. Results indicated that the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the instrument were good. An explorative factor analysis carried out on the ABSQ data of the combined sample yielded three factors. Support was found for the concurrent validity of the instrument. In both samples, the total score of the ABSQ showed positive correlations with measures of bodily awareness, social anxiety, anger, and aggression. Altogether, results suggest that the ABSQ appears to be a reliable and valid questionnaire. Further research is needed to examine the psychometric properties of the ABSQ in larger offender and non-clinical samples.     

Cross-Cultural Lessons on Anger and Social Connectedness

I first started thinking about anger and its role in the experiences of people who have fought in wars when I was in Sierra Leone, about a year after the cease-fire ended the civil war. I was working as a research assistant on a study with girls who had been child soldiers and who had given birth to children during the war. We were living in a community in the west, on the border with Guinea. At first, we met only a few young women. We listened to their stories—about the war, and about what life had been like for them and their children since the end of hostilities.

As days passed, word got around in this rural community that women had come to listen to the experiences of young mothers who had been child soldiers. Girls and young women living in small huts in the jungle surrounding the town, or sharing a house on the edge, began to come with their babies and introduce themselves and tell us their stories. Amid the grief and despair, the worry about how they would have enough food for the next day, I could hear a simmering rage from many young women: anger at not just what had occurred during the war, but how they had been treated when they returned.     

Hot Cognition in Investigative Judgments: The Differential Influence of Anger and Sadness

The authors predicted that the cognitive appraisal tendencies associated with sadness and anger would exert different influences on investigators' crime-related judgments. Supporting evidence was found in an experiment with 61 experienced criminal investigators. First, when judging the reliability of a witness statement, sad participants relied on their perception of both witness and situational variables, whereas angry participants relied only on their perception of witness variables. This corresponds to the emphasis placed on situational and individual control in the appraisals associated with sadness and anger, respectively. Second, when making judgments of the case, sad participants were sensitive to the consistency of a witness statement with the central hypothesis of the investigation, indicating substantive processing, whereas angry participants were unaffected by statement-hypothesis consistency, indicating heuristic processing. The findings suggest that the process of reliability assessment can be better understood by consulting theories of attribution and information processing.     

Sanctions,Perceived Anger,and Criminal Offending

In articulating models of offender decision-making, researchers have tended to focus on either deterrence/rational choice or situational/emotional considerations. In this paper, we merge these two lines of inquiry and examine how rational choice considerations and perceived angry reactions inter-relate in predicting assaultive violence. Using data collected on a random sample of young adults, we assess three hypotheses. First, that both rational choice and perceived anger exhibit additive effects on assault. Second, that perceived anger influences how rational choice considerations are interpreted. Third, that rational choice considerations influence assault under different levels of perceived anger, and in particular, that the effect of sanction threats fall apart under high perceived anger. Future theoretical and empirical directions are outlined.     

The neuropsychology of impulse control: New insights into violent behaviors

Environmental stressors, especially within penal environments, have led to increased violence within correctional settings. Knowledge of the neuropsychology of impulse control needs to be within the scope of knowledge of correctional officials at all levels. In this article we attempt to present the basics of neuropsychology of aggression along with the corresponding diagnostic classifications and general recommendations for environmental controls which may serve as strategies for reducing the incidence of disruption within the correctional setting.     

The hidden electoral connection: analysing parliamentary questions in the Chilean Congress

Legislators in presidential countries use a variety of mechanisms to advance their electoral careers and connect with relevant constituents. The most frequently studied activities are bill initiation, co-sponsoring, and legislative speeches. In this paper, the authors examine legislators’ information requests (i.e. parliamentary questions) to the government, which have been studied in some parliamentary countries but remain largely unscrutinised in presidential countries. The authors focus on the case of Chile – where strong and cohesive national parties coexist with electoral incentives that emphasise the personal vote – to examine the links between party responsiveness and legislators’ efforts to connect with their electoral constituencies. Making use of a new database of parliamentary questions and a comprehensive sample of geographical references, the authors examine how legislators use this mechanism to forge connections with voters, and find that targeted activities tend to increase as a function of electoral insecurity and progressive ambition.     

The hidden trillions: Secrecy,corruption, and the offshore interface

This paper considers the role of secrecy jurisdictions in creating a supply-side stimulus for corrupt practices and explores the use of the newly created Financial Secrecy Index as a tool for assessing and ranking such jurisdictions. Secrecy jurisdictions are a prominent feature of international financial markets, providing a combination of low or zero tax rates, lax regulation, weak international judicial cooperation, and—above all—legalised secrecy facilities. Citing the case of Barbados, this paper shows how an environment of legalised secrecy is purposefully created by not requiring disclosure of ownership information for corporations, trusts, foundations and other legal entities; through non-participation or ineffective participation in judicial cooperation and information exchange; and through laws to protect banking secrecy arrangements. Taken in combination these factors make secrecy jurisdictions attractive conduits for illicit cross-border financial flows and the harbouring of dirty money. Using secrecy jurisdictions as platforms for their operations, legal and financial intermediaries create complex and opaque offshore structures to facilitate economic crime and impede investigation. Current international efforts to stem the activities of secrecy jurisdictions are largely ineffective, but civil society is raising pressure for effective action to be taken against offshore secrecy.