Lying About Terrorism

Conventional wisdom holds that terrorism is committed for strategic reasons as a form of costly signaling to an audience. However, since over half of terrorist attacks are not credibly claimed, conventional wisdom does not explain many acts of terrorism. This article suggests that there are four lies about terrorism that can be incorporated in a rationalist framework: false claiming, false flag, the hot-potato problem, and the lie of omission. Each of these lies about terrorism can be strategically employed to help a group achieve its desired goal(s) without necessitating that an attack be truthfully claimed.     

Change over Tenure: Voting, Variance, and Decision Making on the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Existing scholarship on the voting behavior of U.S. Courts of Appeals judges finds that their decisions are best understood as a function of law, policy preferences, and factors relating to the institutional context of the circuit court. What previous studies have failed to consider, however, is that the ability to predict circuit judge decisions can vary in substantively important ways and that judges, in different stages of their careers, may behave distinctively. This article develops a theoretical framework which conceptualizes career stage to account for variability in voting by circuit judges and tests hypotheses by modeling the error variance in a vote choice model. The findings indicate that judges are more predictable in their voting during their early and late career stages. Case characteristics and institutional features of the circuit also affect voting consistency.     

Predictors of sexually coercive behavior in a nationally representative sample of adolescent males

Data from male participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health are used to examine childhood predictors of late adolescent and early adulthood sexually coercive behavior and adolescent mediators of these relationships. A path analysis shows that experiencing sexual abuse as a child has a direct effect on perpetrating subsequent coercion that is partially mediated by early sexual initiation. Involvement in delinquent activities in adolescence was the only additional significant predictor of sexually coercive behavior and completely mediated the relationship between physical abuse in childhood and later sexual coercion. Of note, more than half of men reporting sexually aggressive acts had no history of childhood victimization, so pathways to sexually coercive behavior for this group remain unidentified. In addition to the universal prevention approaches currently in use in the field, these findings suggest that targeted prevention programs need to be formulated for youth with histories of childhood sexual or physical abuse.     

Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology: age-at-death

A great deal has previously been written about the use of skeletal morphological changes in estimating ages-at-death. This article looks in particular at the pubic symphysis, as it was historically one of the first regions to be described in the literature on age estimation. Despite the lengthy history, the value of the pubic symphysis in estimating ages and in providing evidence for putative identifications remains unclear. This lack of clarity primarily stems from the fact that rather ad hoc statistical methods have been applied in previous studies. This article presents a statistical analysis of a large data set (n = 1766) of pubic symphyseal scores from multiple contexts, including anatomical collections, war dead, and victims of genocide. The emphasis is in finding statistical methods that will have the correct "coverage."Coverage" means that if a method has a stated coverage of 50%, then approximately 50% of the individuals in a particular pubic symphyseal stage should have ages that are between the stated age limits, and that approximately 25% should be below the bottom age limit and 25% above the top age limit. In a number of applications it is shown that if an appropriate prior age-at-death distribution is used, then "transition analysis" will provide accurate "coverages," while percentile methods, range methods, and means (+/-standard deviations) will not. Even in cases where there are significant differences in the mean ages-to-transition between populations, the effects on the stated age limits for particular "coverages" are minimal. As a consequence, more emphasis needs to be placed on collecting data on age changes in large samples, rather than focusing on the possibility of inter-population variation in rates of aging.     

Sexual dimorphism in America: geometric morphometric analysis of the craniofacial region

One of the four pillars of the anthropological protocol is the estimation of sex. The protocol generally consists of linear metric analysis or visually assessing individual skeletal traits on the skull and pelvis based on an ordinal scale of 1-5, ranging from very masculine to very feminine. The morphologic traits are then some how averaged by the investigator to estimate sex. Some skulls may be misclassified because of apparent morphologic features that appear more or less robust due to size differences among individuals. The question of misclassification may be further exemplified in light of comparisons across populations that may differ not only in cranial robusticity but also in stature and general physique. The purpose of this study is to further examine the effect of size and sex on craniofacial shape among American populations to better understand the allometric foundation of skeletal traits currently used for sex estimation. Three-dimensional coordinates of 16 standard craniofacial landmarks were collected using a Microscribe-3DX digitizer. Data were collected for 118 American White and Black males and females from the W.M. Bass Donated Collection and the Forensic Data Bank. The MANCOVA procedure tested shape differences as a function of sex and size. Sex had a significant influence on shape for both American Whites (F = 2.90; d.f. = 19, 39; p > F = 0.0024) and Blacks (F = 2.81; d.f. = 19, 37; p > F = 0.0035), whereas size did not have a significant influence on shape in either Whites (F = 1.69; d.f. = 19, 39; p > F = 0.08) or Blacks (F = 1.09; d.f. = 19, 37; p > F = 0.40). Therefore, for each sex, individuals of various sizes were statistically the same shape. In other words, while significant differences were present between the size of males and females (males on average were larger), there was no size effect beyond that accounted for by sex differences in size. Moreover, the consistency between American groups is interesting as it suggests that population differences in sexual dimorphism may result more from human variation in size than allometric variation in craniofacial morphology.     

Patient-centered psychiatric care for youth in foster care: a systematic and critical review

Youth in the U.S. foster care system are prescribed risky psychotropic medications at high rates. In response, state child welfare agencies have developed policies, yet there is little research to inform patient-centered care (PCC) approaches. To fill this gap, we aimed to identify (1) the perspectives of youth in or formerly in foster care and their caregivers and providers regarding how psychiatric care aligns or does not align with PCC, and (2) effectiveness of interventions aiming to improve PCC within this context. We conducted a systematic review of the literature based on PRISMA-P guidelines, searching four databases and gray literature. Eleven studies met inclusion criteria and quality appraisal benchmarks, none of which were interventions. We applied narrative synthesis techniques to six studies that described youth/former youth perspectives. They described a pervasive lack of knowledge, perceived little voice in decision-making, and described imbalanced power between patients and providers and weak therapeutic relationships, whereas feeling understood by providers and being provided autonomy in decisions were helpful. Systemic barriers also contributed to many concerns. We make a limited number of recommendations to leaders and policy-makers based on our synthesis, however, many critical research steps are needed.     

Networking in the Shadow of the Law: Informal Access to Legal Expertise through Personal Network Ties

Civil legal problems are common in everyday life, but the costs of obtaining legal representation create barriers to legal action and contribute to disparities in access to justice. Some individuals, however, may have informal access to legal assistance through personal network ties with lawyers, enhancing their responses to justiciable problems. In this study, we draw from theories of social capital and network formation to examine the distribution and mobilization of network‐based legal expertise. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that network‐based access to lawyers is widespread, and most people who have ties to lawyers expect to informally mobilize legal assistance when facing a problem. But people who are most likely to afford formal legal representation are also most likely to have informal access to lawyers. Thus, while informal access to lawyers may shape responses to legal problems, it may also exacerbate inequalities in experiences with civil justice events.     

An Examination of the Influence of Veteran Status on Offense Type Among an Inmate Sample

The current study examines the relationship between military service and criminal behavior of veterans, both combat and non-combat, compared to non-veterans using a nationally representative sample of inmates. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between veteran status and crime type among inmates in state and federal institutions. While the relationship between military service and criminal behavior of veterans has received considerable attention, many have failed to differentiate between veterans who have seen combat versus those who have not. Therefore, a subsample of veterans who experienced combat during their military service is examined to better inform our understanding how combat experience might influence this relationship. Multiple counterfactual methods, including propensity score matching, were used on data from the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004. Some significant differences exist in the types of offenses committed based on veteran status and combat experience, but in some cases contrary to expectations. Veterans were more likely to have committed a violent offense, but less likely to have committed drug offenses; whereas, combat veterans were more likely to commit a drug offense and less likely to commit a violent offense than non-combat veterans. Policy implications and recommendations for future research are explored.     

Who Benefits? The Interactional Determinants of Microfinance’s Varied Effects

Since its emergence as a development tool, scholars and practitioners have questioned microfinance’s short- and long-term impacts but have had insufficient empirical evidence to assess them. To address this gap, this paper draws on mixed method research to assess the effects of microfinance loan and educational services over time. It explores why, even within the same microfinance institution (MFI), some borrowers benefit from microfinance services more than others in the short-term, and examines how this translates into long-term impacts. The article identifies understudied sources of intra-group variation: the diversity and choices of borrowers and MFI employees interacting with each other and their broader contexts.     

Paying for Violence? Spousal Abuse and Son Preference in India

We find a puzzling correlation in the data on domestic violence and children’s outcomes in India. Using the 2005–2006 National Family and Health Survey, we see that girls in families experiencing spousal violence are less worse off than boys when only fathers report a son preference while the gender bias reverses when only mothers report having a son preference. To shed light on the puzzle in the data, we present a non-cooperative theoretical framework based in economic theories of domestic violence, whereby differing parental son preference and bargaining over investments in girl and boy children potentially explains the observed relationship.