Effects of Defendant Sexual Orientation on Jurors’ Perceptions of Child Sexual Assault

We examined mock jurors’ reactions to a sexual abuse case involving a male teacher and a 10-year-old child. Because gay men are sometimes stereotyped as child molesters, we portrayed defendant sexual orientation as either gay or straight and the victim as either a boy or girl. Jurors made more pro-prosecution decisions in cases involving a gay versus straight defendant, particularly when the victim was a boy. In boy-victim cases, jurors’ emotional feelings of moral outrage toward the defendant mediated these effects. On average, women jurors were more pro-prosecution than were men. Results have implications for understanding social perceptions of cross- and same-gender child sexual abuse and juror decision making in child sexual assault cases perpetrated by homosexual and heterosexual men.

Mother–Child Contact during Incarceration: A Study Based on a National Survey of Women Prisoners

Based on quantitative data from a national survey of female inmates in Norway, the present article describes the self-reported frequency and type of mother–child contact before and during imprisonment and investigates to what extent this is influenced by mothers’ sociodemographic background as well as their drug abuse and previous criminal history. A total of 141 female inmates participated in the study, representing 75% of the total female inmate population. The findings indicated that 6 in 10 female inmates had children, most of them minors. Half of the mothers had an immigrant background. The mothers presented with serious problems in several welfare domains. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that preimprisonment contact remained an important contributor to mother–child contact during imprisonment after the other variables included in the study were controlled.     

Confession of Law? A Critical Perspective on Production of Child Subject in Hong Kong Law Controlling Child Sexual Abuse

Child protection has been one of the main concerns of Hong Kong Law in twenty-first Century. However, the definition of child and the related presumptions have never been meticulously investigated critically challenged. In the article, I employ the Deleuzean perspective in questioning the structure underlying the formation and production of the concept ‘child’ in law. I will then propose a reform strategy that can avoid certain problems created by the concept while providing more effective protection to the powerless. I will also examine the feasibility of the strategy in Hong Kong.     

Inoculation or Antidote? The Effects of Cognitive Interview Timing on False Memory for Forcibly Fabricated Events

This study examined whether a cognitive interview (CI) can counteract the effects of suggestive interviews involving forced fabrication. College students witnessed a filmed event and were later forced to fabricate answers to misleading questions about the event. All witnesses were interviewed with a non-leading CI or free recall (FR) either before or after the forced fabrication phase. A week later participants completed a recognition and source monitoring (SM) test of video content. Relative to FR, the CI administered before the forced fabrication interview increased reports of correct details and reduced false assents to fabricated items. A CI after resulted in false memory rates comparable to the FR group. Early interviews using CI techniques may protect against memory loss and misinformation effects.     

Child Abuse as a Catalyst for Wife Abuse?

This paper draws on Matza’s (1964/1990) theory of deviance to propose that the father’s current abuse of the child moderates the relationship between father’s patriarchal beliefs and current perpetration of husband violence in South Korea. Drawing on Matza’s concept of neutralizing beliefs, the paper argues that child abuse potentiates patriarchal beliefs, allowing husbands to extend rationalizations for child abuse to rationalizations for wife abuse, resulting in an interaction effect. The paper tests this hypothesized interaction effect using data from a nationally representative sample of 585 South Korean men. The paper then tests a competing alternative hypothesis that any type of violence (including violence outside the family) by the father acts as a moderator. Support is found for the child abuse as moderator hypothesis but not for the competing hypothesis.     

Does Perceived Injury Explain the Effects of Gender on Attributions of Blame for Intimate Partner Violence? A Factorial Vignette Analysis

Perpetrator and victim gender influence how blame is assigned in intimate partner violence (IPV) scenarios. Although men’s differential capacity to inflict and sustain harm is posited as the reason male perpetrators and victims receive more blame for IPV, it is possible that other aspects of the construct of gender, such as gender role beliefs, underscore these effects. Using a sample of 323 college students and a factorial vignette design that varied body sizes and genders of victims and perpetrators, we examined the extent to which perceptions of physical injury accounted for the effects of perpetrator and victim gender on blame attributions, and whether adherence to traditional gender roles moderated any influences of gender unassociated with perceived injury. For female perpetrators, participants estimated lower levels of perceived injury and greater victim blame, with the former effect predominantly accounting for the latter. Male victims were viewed as less injured and more blameworthy, but the latter finding was not predominantly driven by injury perceptions. Perceived physical injury also did not account for why females perpetrating against males were blamed least. Controlling for differences in perceived injury, those holding more traditional gender views blamed victims of female violence more than victims of male-perpetrated violence. Notably, variations in body physical size were not associated with injury perceptions or blame attributions. These findings overall suggest that gender does influence blame attributions by way of perceived physical injury, but other aspects of the construct of gender are also relevant to these evaluations.

     

Assessing a Child’s Experience of Multiple Maltreatment Types: Some Unfinished Business

Available research indicates that maltreated children frequently experience multiple types of maltreatment, although relatively few studies examine this issue directly. Review of existing studies also shows that, when investigated, maltreatment types are often correlated. However, from study to study the strength of associations among maltreatment types varies considerably, apparently due to methodological differences, such as differences in operational definitions of the maltreatment types, composition of samples and/or method of scaling used. Failure to account for overlap among maltreatment types can result in a misleading picture of a child’s trauma history. This in turn can lead to an inaccurate evaluation of the relationship between a child’s victimization experiences and later developmental outcomes. The wide variation in correlations among the maltreatment types from study to study raises questions about the validity of the different operational definitions used. Improving the construct validity of the maltreatment type measures is proposed as the means to obtaining more consistent results. Steps by which to achieve this objective are outlined. This project (1 RO1 HD049767-01A2) is co-funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). The authors wish to thank M. Jean Russo for reviewing a draft of this paper.     

Improving Children’s Interviewing Methods? The Effects of Drawing and Practice on Children’s Memories for an Event

In the present experiment, we were interested in the effects of drawings and practice on children’s memory performance. Younger (6/7-year-olds; n = 37) and older (11/12-year-olds; n = 44) children were presented with two videos that differed in complexity. Half of the children had to practice recalling an experienced event (i.e., last holiday) before remembering the two videos. The other half was not presented with such practice. Then, all children had to tell what they could still recollect about the first video. For the second video, all children were allowed to draw and tell during the recollection of the event. As expected, we found that for the complex video, making a drawing increased the completeness of children’s statements, but also reduced the accuracy of their statements. Although we found that including practice reduced the completeness of statements, it did not negatively impact the accuracy of children’s memory reports. Taken together, our results imply that interviewers should be cautious in using drawings as an interviewing method as it might elevate the production of incorrect information.     

Evaluating the Long-Term Effects of Prisoner Reentry Services on Recidivism: What Types of Services Matter?

We analyzed data collected for a large multi-site evaluation of 12 prisoner reentry programs in 12 states to examine the impact of pre-release services on time to rearrest and number of rearrests up to 56 months post-release for male offenders. A two-stage matching quasi-experimental design was used to define the comparison groups and multivariate models were used to examine the relationships among service and program receipt and recidivism. Participation in the reentry program was associated with longer time to arrest and fewer arrests after release. However, the specific services delivered as part of the program showed modest or inconsistent impacts on recidivism. Services that focused on individual change were more beneficial than services that focused on practical skills and needs. Practitioners should consider careful sequencing of program and service delivery in prison, linking in-prison services to post-release assistance, and evaluating all services and programs for fidelity and effectiveness.     

Can international law improve mental health? Some thoughts on the proposed convention on the rights of people with disabilities

This paper examines the promise of the proposed Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities to improve the position of people with mental illness. Proponents of the new Disability Convention argue that the state of human rights abuses experienced by people with disabilities is intolerable, that the existing international law is inadequate, that additional international law will increase the visibility of people with disabilities and will clarify the fundamental entitlement to equality, and that, as a result, the position of people with disabilities will be greatly enhanced. This paper questions the value of international law to achieve real change and warns against placing too much faith in the law. The potential of a new international law to rectify the wrongs experienced by people with psychiatric disabilities will depend on whether the new law specifically displaces the existing international law which undermines the rights of people with mental illness and on the final terms of the Convention with respect to recognition and enforcement. Ironically, it is the process of developing the Convention which has been empowering, and the utility of the new law will ultimately turn on the continuation of the momentum built through this process.     

Some comments on Antonelli and Quatraro’s paper of measuring effect of biased technology on TFP

The paper is a response to Antonelli and Quatraro’s paper named “The effects of biased technological change on total factor productivity: empirical evidence from a sample of OECD”. We point out that “so-called novel method” which is used to identify and disentangle the effects of the direction of technological change on total factor productivity (TFP) in the article is wrongly implemented. Antonelli and Quatraro introduce Solow’s methodology as part of his basic model to represent the effect of neutral technical change, ignoring the intrinsic consequence of Solow’s calculating which called technical progress productivity is far from neutral. Hence, his methodology has little significance, neither the empirical analysis. Lastly, we give a new method measuring whether the technology is appropriate to the factor endowments’ changing. That’s the effect of biased technology on TFP.     

Why don't courts treat hospitals like tanks for liquefied gases? Some reflections on health care antitrust enforcement

In this article, I use the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice 2004 report Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition as an occasion to comment on two specific issues that have arisen in health care antitrust: the recent string of losses by the enforcement agencies in hospital merger cases and an antitrust exemption for physicians to bargain collectively with health insurers. One of the more salient facts about health care antitrust enforcement is the notable recent lack of success of the enforcement agencies in hospital merger cases. This may be due to judges and juries holding views of hospital markets as being different from markets for other goods and services. My conclusion is that hospitals are an industry with unique attributes, but nothing about the specifics of the health care industry suggests that the unregulated use of market power in this industry is socially beneficial. As a consequence, the antitrust laws should be enforced here as in any other industry. Countervailing power is an issue that has come to the fore in health care antitrust. Physicians have explicitly asked for legislative exemption from the antitrust laws in order to bargain collectively with insurance companies, as a means of counteracting insurers' monopsony power. It is not clear that health insurers possess significant monopsony power. Even if they do, bestowing monopoly power on physicians will not necessarily improve matters. Active antitrust enforcement in insurance markets is the correct response, not blanket exemptions for providers.     

Does Self-Control Influence Maternal Attachment? A Reciprocal Effects Analysis from Early Childhood Through Middle Adolescence

Objectives

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study assesses the extent to which self-control and maternal attachment mutually influence one another. Second, it investigates whether this process continues to occur during adolescence. To date, studies of the etiology of self-control have yet to adequately address these issues, despite the fact that a number of theoretical perspectives emphasize the reciprocal nature of the parent-child relationship.

Methods

The current study seeks to shed light on these issues by examining the relationship between self-control and maternal attachment using structural equation modeling for eight waves of data spanning a period of time that encompasses early childhood through middle adolescence.

Results

The results yield two findings bearing on the adequacy of Gottfredson and Hirschi??s model of self-control development. First, measures of self-control and maternal attachment were found to mutually influence one another during childhood. Second, these effects were reduced to nonsignificance during adolescence.

Conclusions

This study finds that self-control emerges during childhood in a complex manner in which it both shapes and is shaped by parental attachment.     

A War on Cops? The Effects of Ferguson on the Number of U.S. Police Officers Murdered in the Line of Duty

Police agencies in the U.S. are currently facing a major legitimacy crisis resulting from a spate of high-profile use of force incidents, many involving minority citizens. Recent headlines emphasize that there is now a “war on cops” and that police officers are facing increasing levels of hostility and violence fueled by a growing anti-police sentiment. In the aftermath of events in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, some commentators claim that the number of police officers feloniously assaulted and killed in the line of duty has increased sharply. Using time series analysis of data from the Officer Down Memorial Page, we test whether events in Ferguson were associated with an increase in the number of police officers murdered in the line of duty. Our results provide no evidence for a “Ferguson Effect” on the number of U.S. police officers murdered in the line of duty as of March 2016.     

Recruiting Participants for Child Abuse Research: What Does It Take?

Recruiting participants for child abuse research and tracking them over time require extensive efforts and perseverance. This paper documents the results of strategies used in a longitudinal study of child abuse. The study sample consisted of a group of school-age abused children and their mothers and a matched comparison group of nonabused children and their mothers. Consent rates were lower for abusing families than for nonabusing comparison families. Among abusing families, those in the sexual abuse group were more difficult to recruit than those in the physical abuse or neglect groups. Even after obtaining consent, successfully completing interviews required persistence, particularly for the abuse group. Retention over time was highly successful as a result of considerable efforts to maintain contact with respondents. Researchers would benefit from more published accounts of study procedures regarding sample recruitment and maintenance.