Context for specific episodes of marital violence: Gender and severity of violence differences

The present study was designed to evaluate the context of marital violence through husbands' and wives' accounts of the worst violent episode in the year prior to assessment. The primary objective was to examine severity (mild or severe) and gender (husbands or wives) differences in reports of the worst episode of marital aggression using a functional analysis conceptualization. That is, within the specific episode, current stressors, setting events, outcome, and function of aggressive behavior(s) and victimization experiences were evaluated. Sixty-two couples, who presented for marital treatment over a three year period and also reported at least one episode of physical aggression in the past year, participated. In most cases, marital aggression appeared to reflect an outgrowth of conflict between both partners. However, wives consistently reported that their aggressive husbands had engaged in more psychological coercion and aggression than they as a marital conflict escalated to physical violence. Further, there was a tendency for wives to use severe physical aggression in self-defense more often than husbands.     

CROSSOVER KIDS

This article considers the plight of the child found both abused and delinquent in the American legal system. Discussed in detail are the difficulties attorneys representing these children face, including ethical issues of confidentiality and attorney-client privilege, maintaining a permanent placement for an abused child found delinquent and the paramount importance of determining appropriate jurisdiction. These difficulties are presented through interviews with three children's attorneys who represent abused children and/or delinquent children in Wisconsin, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The article finds that the needs of abused delinquents are not being adequately addressed for a number of reasons. Lack of communication between the two systems and lack of statutory guidelines are both considered and improvements for these issues suggested. Although not directly addressed, the question of whether there is a causal connection between abuse and delinquency is considered in analyzing the techniques and theories of the three interviewed attorneys.     

The Politics of Memory/Errinerungspolitik and the Use and Propriety of Law in the Process of Memory Construction

The post-Second World War trial for the crime against humanity from the start assumed pedagogical proportions, with the tribunals involved conscious that their legal verdicts would represent historical pronouncement and national values. The newly defined crime has been asked to institutionalize far more than the traditional task of adjudicating the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The trials themselves are meant to define the past, create and crystallize national memory, and illuminate the foundations of the future. I suggest that, by placing a burden on law that it is not designed to bear,we risk deforming law and legal principle. We risk creating an edifice that will not be equal to the task of memory, that will trivialize the memory it seeks to establish and fortify and, worst of all, that may betray law itself by subverting it from within. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Book reviews

Barton Whaley, Codeword Barbarossa. Cambridge, Mass, and London: The MIT Press, 1973. x + 376 pp. $10.00 £4.50.

Dietrich A. Loeber, Diktierte Option: Die Umsiedlung der Deutsch‐Balten aus Estland und Lettland 1939–1941. Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz Verlag, 1972. 787 pp. DM 96.—

N. Valentinov (Volsky), The New Economic Policy and the Party Crisis after the Death of Lenin. Reminiscences of my Work at the VSNKh during theNEP (in Russian). Edited by J. Bunyan and V. Butenko. With an Introduction (in English) by Bertram Wolfe. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University, Hoover Institution Press, 1971. (Foreign Language Series 7.) xix + 256 pp. $9.50.

William C. Fletcher, Religion and Soviet Foreign Policy 1945–1970. London. Published for Chatham House by OUP, 1973. x + 179 pp. £3.50.

Paul Dibb, Siberia and the Pacific. A Study of Economic Development and Trade Prospects. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. xxii + 288 pp. £7.25.

Mervyn Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1972. xviii + 366 pp. £3.50.

Roger A. Clarke, Soviet Economic Facts 1917–1970. London: Macmillan, 1972. xi + 151 pp. £3.95.

Alan Abouchar, Soviet Planning and Spatial Efficiency. The Prewar Cement Industry. (Russian and East European Series, Vol. 39.) Bloomington and London: Indiana UP, 1971. x+134 pp. $5.50 (paperback). £2.60 (paperback).

Theodor Berthold, Die Agrarpreispolitik der DDR. Ziele, Mittel, Wirkungen. Osteuropastudien der Hochschulen des Landes Hessen Reihe I. Giessener Abhandlungen zur Agrar‐ und Wirtschaftsforschung des europaischen Ostens, Band 53. Berlin: In Kommission bei Duncker & Humblot, 1972. 295 pp. DM 45.— (paperback).

Geza Peter Lauter, The Manager and Economic Reform in Hungary. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) xv ‐f‐189 pp. £6.25.

T. M. Podolski, Socialist Banking and Monetary Control. The Experience of Poland. London: Cambridge UP, 1973. xiii + 392pp. £9.50. $28.50.

Ryan C. Amacher, Yugoslavia's Foreign Trade. A Study of State Trade Discrimination. New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) xii + 185 pp. £5.75.

Institute for the Study of the USSR, Who Was Who in the USSR. Metuchen : Scarecrow Press, 1972. 677 pp.     

Review essay / defending sexual autonomy

Stephen J. Schulhofer, Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, xii + 284 pp.     

A dedicated automated system for extraction, quantification and STR amplification of forensic evidence samples

Forensic DNA analysis is a multi-step process involving extraction of DNA, quantification of human DNA in the extract, amplification using multiplex STR systems, separation of products, and data analysis. The backlog of forensic casework is increasing worldwide. Automation is one significant way to alleviate the bottleneck of sample processing in forensic labs. The HID EVOlution™ Combination System described here is a robust, reliable sample processing platform, easily adapted to forensic laboratory workflows. Using a variety of forensic sample types including: blood stained FTA paper, cotton fabric and denim, dried blood spiked with known PCR inhibitors, saliva on cotton swabs, and semen stains, we found that yields of human DNA and STR profiles obtained with AmpFlSTR^® Idenitfiler^® kits were complete, highly reproducible, and equivalent to results obtained using the manual PrepFiler™ reagent extraction method. Automated operation was clean, and no cross-contamination was detected between extraction blanks and interspersed high DNA content samples.     

Sexual Assault Case Outcomes: Disentangling the Overlapping Decisions of Police and Prosecutors

The rape reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s was designed to improve the likelihood of prosecution and conviction in sexual assault cases. However, there is evidence that the attrition rate for sexual assaults reported to the police remains high, and that the locus of case attrition is arresting and charging decisions. In this paper, we analyze police and prosecutorial decision-making in sexual assault cases using quantitative data on sexual assaults reported to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2008. We argue that decisions made by police and prosecutors should not be examined in isolation from one another and that researchers who analyze arrest decisions by examining only cases that are formally cleared by arrest or who focus only on charging decisions that follow the arrest of a suspect may be ignoring important aspects of police and prosecutorial decision-making. This is confirmed by the results of our study, which reveal that a significant proportion of cases in which the police appear to have probable cause to make an arrest do not result in the arrest of the suspect and that a substantial number of cases are rejected for prosecution by the district attorney before an arrest is made. Moreover, the factors that predict arrest and charging vary depending upon the way in which the outcome is operationally defined. These results have a number of important policy implications for police and prosecutors handling sexual assault cases.