Anxiety and Depression Among Law Students: Current Knowledge and Future Directions

Increased psychology–law collaboration has yielded great strides over the past 20 years. However, one area of research that remains overlooked involves the psychological well-being of law students. The purpose of this article is to review and evaluate the existing literature on anxiety and depression among law students. This literature suggests that self-reports of anxiety and depression are significantly higher among law students than among either the general population or medical students. Recommendations for advancing knowledge in this area include developing hypothesis-driven research, using measures that adequately discriminate between anxiety and depression, and testing alternative hypotheses regarding the origins of law student distress.     

促进研究诚信：定义、当前的认识和未来方向

美国密西根大学的尼古拉·斯丹尼克教授对科研诚信问题有过深入研究。其撰写的“ Fostering integrity in research： definitions, current knowledge, and future directions ”一文，对“负责任的研究行为”、“研究伦理”和“研究诚信”作了更精确的定义，并得出了优先要做的事的一般结论和更有效地回应不端行为并促进更高标准的研究诚信措施建议。     

Mapping Activist Responses and Policy Advocacy for Street Harassment: Current Practice and Future Directions

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research - This article presents findings from a comprehensive mapping exercise of activist responses to, and policy advocacy for, street harassment across...     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Current Concepts and Controversies

The diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sometimes is raised in compensation claims, in tort settings, and in other medical–legal settings. Accordingly, health-care and legal professionals working in these areas need to be familiar with the current findings and controversies concerning the disorder. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we review the most important findings concerning the clinical features, etiology, and treatment of PTSD. Second, we examine six major controversies concerning the disorder that are relevant to psychologists and other medical–legal practitioners: (a) the issue of what qualifies as a traumatic stressor, (b) the question of whether traumatic stress causes brain damage, (c) the validity of the concept of delayed-onset PTSD, (d) the recovered memory controversy, (e) the question of whether PTSD can arise when the person has no memory of the trauma (e.g., due to concussion), and (f) issues concerning PTSD malingering. Throughout this article we offer recommendations for psychological and other medical–legal practice in relation to the evaluation of PTSD claims.     

Caregiver Issues and Concerns Following TBI: A Review of the Literature and Future Directions

Psychological Injury and Law - Survival following traumatic brain injury (TBI) has increased following advances in medical care. However, TBI survivors often experience significant deficits in...     

Population Heterogeneity and State Dependence: State of the Evidence and Directions for Future Research

Criminological research has consistently uncovered a positive correlationbetween past and current criminal behavior. Continuity in offending overtime can be attributed to at least two processes—populationheterogeneity and state dependence. A population heterogeneity processattributes stability in offending over time to differences in ananti-social characteristic (self-control, impulsivity, psychopathicpersonality) across persons that is established early in life andtime-stable thereafter. An implication of a population heterogeneityexplanation for continuity in offending over time is that the anti-socialcharacteristic is likely to have reverberations throughout life, takingmany manifestations later in life (unemployment, drug addiction, maritalinstability). Any observed correlation between these later life events andcriminality, therefore, is spurious rather than causal, due to the factthat they are all the effects of a common cause. A state dependenceexplanation, in contrast, attributes observed stability in criminaloffending to a process of contagion. That is, criminal behavior has agenuine causal effect on subsequent criminality by eroding constraintsand strengthening incentives to crime. The implication of a statedependence process is that criminal conduct may be influenced by laterlife events. In this paper, we draw a connection between populationheterogeneity and state dependence processes and extant criminologicaltheory. We also review the literature that has investigated theplausibility of these two processes. Finally, concluding that weknow very little about them we make recommendations for future researchon population heterogeneity and state dependence.     

Social Disorganization Theory in Contemporary China: a Review of the Evidence and Directions for Future Research

Asian Journal of Criminology - This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results from the empirical research on social disorganization and crime-related phenomena at the neighborhood level...     

Organizational Justice Across Cultures: A Systematic Review of Four Decades of Research and Some Directions for the Future

This review aims to provide an overview of the main frameworks and findings of cross-cultural organizational justice research and some directions for future research. We systematically reviewed the literature and analysed 74 papers, which include more than one country, from the justice receiver perspective. We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, our analysis of methodological aspects highlights some limitations: most studies compare two countries, mainly China and the USA; cross-cultural equivalence checks are rare; and most studies do not directly measure culture, rather tend to use collectivism and power distance as post hoc explanations of country differences. Second, we offer a broad view of country differences by investigating contextual effects that go beyond national values. Our analysis of the influence of sociocultural influence levels shows that culture, socioeconomic development, organizational, situational, and individual characteristics interact to predict the development of and reactions to (in)justice across countries. A greater integration of levels is important for the advancement of research. Across cultures, more positive justice perceptions are related to positive outcomes, but are achieved differently, so organizations should be aware of sociocultural influences on employees’ perceptions of justice.     

Forensic Applications of the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (MFAST): Screening for Feigned Disorders in Competency to Stand Trial Evaluations

Forensic evaluations must systematically assess malingering and related response styles. In the criminal forensic domain, competency to stand trial evaluations are the most common referrals. Effective screens for feigned incompetency would be valuable assets for forensic evaluations. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (MFAST) as a screen for feigned incompetency. Using a simulation design, the MFAST was tested on jail and competency-restoration samples. Most notably, recommended MFAST cut score (6) was useful for the identification of feigning cases in competency evaluations. Recommendations for forensic practice, including the advantages and disadvantages of systematic screens, are discussed.     

Jeffrey Ian Ross and Francesca Vianello (eds): Convict Criminology for the Future

Critical Criminology -     

(Dis)order in the Court: Examining Neighborhood Disorder Prosecutions in Miami-Dade County

Abstract

This study examines race, space, perceptions of disorder, and nuisance crime prosecution in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Research has examined nuisance policing, yet little attention has been devoted to nuisance crime prosecutions, especially at the neighborhood level. Aggregating data on defendants arrested for nuisance offenses from 2012 to 2015 up to the neighborhood level, we estimate count models for pretrial detention, case acceptance, conviction, and sentencing outcomes in neighborhoods. We find two patterns of nuisance crime prosecution. Drug disorder prosecutions are concentrated in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods with large Black defendant populations, suggesting a more suppressive treatment of these “marginalized” spaces. In contrast, greater enforcement of homelessness and alcohol nuisance crimes in White non-Hispanic neighborhoods suggests disorder prosecutions are also used to impose order and containment in more economically “prime” spaces. These countervailing patterns highlight the spatial contingency of nuisance enforcement, whereby prosecutors differentially enforce nuisance crimes in prime and marginalized spaces.     

Detecting Domestic Violence: Italian Validation of Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-2)

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health problem that requires valid assessment tools. The aim of the study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-2) in a sample of 209 women (143 from the general population and 66 IPV victims). Based on factor analysis, five subscales were proposed, partially corresponding to the original scales: negotiation, violence, extreme violence, injury, and sexual coercion. The reliability of the subscales was good, ranging from 0.78 to 0.96. The discriminant capacity of the scores was assessed comparing victims versus non-abused women, and extreme violence correlated positively with depression, injury and negotiation but negatively with alexithymia. These results indicate that the Italian version of CTS-2 scale can be recommended for use in research and clinical programs.