What were they thinking? An exploration of child sexual offenders’ beliefs using a lexical decision task

Abstract

Cognitive distortions have been afforded a key role in the offending behaviour of child sexual offenders. While the mechanisms underlying cognitive distortions are not fully understood, they are generally thought to reflect entrenched beliefs that distinguish child sexual offenders from other individuals. We investigated this hypothesis using a robust experimental technique called the lexical decision task. Child sexual offenders, offender controls, and non-offender controls completed a lexical decision task in which they responded to words that completed sentences in either an offence-supportive or nonoffence-supportive manner. Contrary to predictions, child sexual offenders did not respond faster to words that were consistent with offence-supportive beliefs, relative to controls. However, they did show accelerated recognition for word stems supporting external locus of control beliefs. These results highlight the need to use cognitive experimental methods to study child sexual offenders’ beliefs, and the importance of investigating potential alternative drivers of cognitive distortions.     

Global Birthright Citizenship Laws: How Inclusive?

Netherlands International Law Review - The principal way in which formal citizenship status is acquired is on the basis of birth, whether by descent (ius sanguinis) or territory of birth (ius...     

Human and fundamental rights: What are they about?

Conclusion Human rights, distrusted by Bentham, through emergence ofGesellshaft, have sometimes been identified with rights of market men and gradually on an ad hoc basis and so have been given a relational or relativist character for that reason. Such a view ignores the test of humanness or the tele of human rights surviving any political association and the need for full development of human personality as an autonomous being inherent in full respect for all as moral persons. This disposes of the view of human rights in terms of rules of a game, or of connection between human rights and human action, or of the standard of the prudent man or, finally, of the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie. Equally, that very test of humanness disposes of criticisms of the human rights theory based on a concern for implementation of rights, on concentric circles based on the specific and concrete, on the impossibility of liking the billions, on the distinction between negative, positive and administrative rights, on the condition of being able to make valid claims and thereby denying human rights to the deprived millions in poor countries, on the social justice model, on the potential for violence and conflict and, finally, on the vagueness or subjectivity of human rights. An eclectic synthesis not between good and evil nor between right and wrong but between the extremes of the views presented in such critical explanations e.g. between the New Right and the New Left and between Hobbes and Rousseau) is what is needed in order to present a workable theory of human rights in the modern-day world.     

Mental health specialized probation caseloads: Are they effective?

With the large and growing number of persons with mental illnesses under probation supervision, a form of specialized probation called specialized mental health caseload (SMHC) has been implemented. This study explores the effectiveness of a prototypic SMHC implemented statewide. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare criminal justice, mental health, and community engagement outcomes among three caseloads: a newly established SMHC supervising no more than 30 clients per officer (N = 1367); an established SMHC supervising roughly 50 clients per officer (N = 495); and a traditional caseload of clients receiving mental health treatment and supervised by officers with average caseloads of over 130 clients (N = 5453). Using a mixed methods approach, we found that the SMHC was implemented with high adherence to fidelity, and comparisons based on different caseload samples generally support the effectiveness of the specialized mental health caseload, particularly on criminal justice outcomes. Future studies using random assignment are needed to examine the connection among mental health symptoms, compliance with treatment and probation supervision, and recidivism.     

University mission and academic freedom: Are they irreconcilable?

Educational freedom, rightly understood, depends upon the freedom to shape - and (for individuals) to choose to study in or teach in - distinctive educational institutions. This implies an obligation upon faculty who have chosen to commit themselves to such an institution to teach in a way that engages positively with its educational project. Policies which provide scope and encouragement for schools and universities to represent distinctive and coherent viewpoints are an essential condition of educational freedom in a pluralistic society. These issues are discussed with reference to the ‘values project‘ of Free University in Amsterdam and to debates, in the Netherlands and the United States, over the distinctive character of schools. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Public Charitable Collections: Are they a Worthwhile Cause?

This article examines one of the most long-established methods of fund-raising for charitable causes in the UK – public charitable collections – and looks at changing patterns in this method of fund-raising in recent years. There have been changes both in the method of collection, which now extends beyond cash donations collected by unpaid volunteers to direct debits and credit card donations collected by paid collectors, and also in the chosen locations for collections, with a preference for supermarkets and other off-street sites. These changes have brought with them difficulties in the regulation of such collections. The article gives a brief overview of current legislative provisions in the UK and the proposed new measures for England and Wales. It examines some of the practical problems involved with the implementation of legislative provisions, and considers some alternative ways of combating potential fraud.     

Comprehending disclosure: must patients understand the risks they run?

It is well known that competent patients must be told about the risks of proposed medical procedures. This paper argues that recent professional guidelines and the law of negligence now take matters further by requiring doctors to take reasonable steps in an attempt to ensure that patients understand the risks they are being invited to run, so facilitating meaningful choices and the opportunity to give a properly informed consent.     

Rolling the Dice: How Many Occurrences Have Occurred?

The insurance litigation that followed from the World Trade Center tragedy has produced two decisions. The two decisions are diametrically opposed. First, the court found that for those insurance policies that contained a definition of the policy term “occurrence,” the collapse of the two buildings constituted a single occurrence. SR International Business Insurance Co., Ltd. v. World Trade Center Properties LLC, et al., 222 F. Supp. 2d 385 (S.D.N.Y. 2002), aff'd, World Trade Center Properties, LLC, et al. v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co., et al., 345 F.3d 154 (2d Cir. 2003). Then, after a trial involving those policies that did not define the term “occurrence,” the jury held that the collapse of the two buildings constituted two occurrences. This incongruous result demonstrates two truths. First, when the insurance industry wants to, it can define the term ‘occurrence’ in a totally unambiguous manner:

Occurrence shall mean all losses or damages that are attributable directly or indirectly to one cause or to one series of similar causes. All such losses will be added together and the total amount of such losses will be treated as one occurrence irrespective of the period of time or area over which such losses occur.

See WilProp form insurance policy for the World Trade Center, cited at 345 F.3d at 160.     

The impact of sex offender residence restrictions: 1,000 feet from danger or one step from absurd?

Several states have enacted public policies that prohibit sex offenders who have abused children from living within close proximity to a school, park, day care center, or school bus stop. The purpose of this exploratory study was to describe the impact of residence restrictions on sex offender reintegration and to better understand sex offenders' perceptions of these laws. A survey of 135 sex offenders in Florida was conducted. Most of the molesters who responded to the survey indicated that housing restrictions increased isolation, created financial and emotional stress, and led to decreased stability. Respondents also indicated that they did not perceive residence restrictions as helpful in risk management and, in fact, reported that such restrictions may inadvertently increase triggers for reoffense. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Religiosity and violence: Are they related after considering the strongest predictors?

The present study was designed to examine the significance of religiosity and of church attendance after considering the effects on violence of sociodemographic variables and elements of control, strain, and social learning theories. The sample was comprised of inmates, aged fifteen to forty-seven years, at the only boot camp for adults in Arkansas.Logistic regression procedures indicated that religiosity, and not church attendance, maintained a significant inverse relationship to violence after other study factors were held constant. Implications of these findings were discussed.