The relationship between attachment styles and Cluster B personality disorders in prisoners and forensic inpatients

The relationship between attachment styles and Cluster B personality disorders were examined among prisoners, forensic inpatients and controls from the general population. Forensic inpatients and prisoners reported significantly less frequently the secure attachment style (Relationship Questionnaire) and significantly more the fearful attachment style compared to the normal controls. Both forensic groups could not be distinguished from each other. Further, prisoners, forensic inpatients and controls could not be differentiated on the basis of the dismissing nor the preoccupied attachment style. With respect to personality pathology, almost all relationships between Cluster C pathology, on the one hand, and attachment styles, on the other, were significant. Cluster A pathology was clearly related to the secure and fearful attachment style. With respect to cluster B pathology, the results were more specific but also less clear. The results were strongly dependent on the way the personality pathology variables were treated, as either categorical or dimensional. None of the cluster B personality pathology variables were associated with the fearful attachment style and histrionic personality pathology was negatively associated with the dismissing attachment style. Antisocial personality features were associated with a dismissing attachment style. Borderline personality pathology, when treated as a categorical variable, was significantly related to the preoccupied attachment style. These results show that (1) cluster A and cluster C pathology are more strongly associated with attachment than cluster B, (2) treating personality data as either dimensional or categorical is of major importance to the conclusions that can be drawn, (3) it is important to control for the influence of co-morbid personality pathology when examining the relationship between (Cluster B) personality pathology and attachment.     

Epidemiology of homicide-suicide events: Oklahoma, 1994-2001

In Oklahoma, all nonnatural deaths must be reported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (ME), whose trained investigators report cause of death using a centralized, statewide, standardized reporting system. The purpose of this study was to determine temporal trends of Oklahoma homicide-suicide events and characterize the epidemiology of these events. By reviewing all ME reports of homicides and suicides from 1994 through 2001, we identified 73 homicide-suicide events resulting in 73 suicides and 89 homicides. Suicidal perpetrators of homicide-suicide events were most often white men aged >or=30 years who killed a current or ex-spouse or intimate partner. Homicide victims tended to be younger women the same race as their killer. Firearms were the predominant method of death in both homicides and suicides, with handguns used most frequently. Divorce/estrangement was the main contributing factor to these events, and the most common relationship type was possessive. The existence of a statewide, centralized, and computerized ME system and the ability to access the detailed information in the ME narratives were critical to identifying homicide-suicide events and obtaining the type of detailed information necessary to fully investigate these events.     

Testing the Trauma Model of Violence

The present study sought to explore the relationship between trauma and violence, as measured by the Traumatic Events Questionnaire and the Conflict Tactics Scale. Using Multiple Regression Analysis, several types of traumatic experiences were studied as predictors to violent behavior in 55 graduate students. Results suggest that trauma as a set, as well as being the victim of a violent crime, are significantly related to future violent behavior. However, no other individual predictor variable, including being the victim of childhood physical abuse, significantly predicted future violence. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Background and Causes of the Genocide in Rwanda

This article begins with an account of significant events andsocio-political relationships in the history of Rwanda, leadingto mass murder and genocide in 1994. An explanation is thenoffered of these crimes, based on an analysis of certain ecological,economic, cultural and political factors specific to Rwanda,but shared to an important extent by much of East Africa.     

Bringing Political Science to Bear on Tropical Conservation

With the renewed international emphasis on governance for sustainable development, political scientists wishing to have an impact on global environmental problems will find significant opportunities to collaborate with practitioners. These collaborations can be very rewarding, but academics should enter them with their eyes open to the associated challenges. Bridging the worlds of research and practice entails tensions between what is true according to the research, and what is possible given the constraints of specific organizations; between the problems that practitioners need solved and the puzzles that researchers find appealing; and, importantly, between the divergent cultures that shape the expectations and incentives of academics and their counterparts.     

On the Complexity and Accuracy of Geographic Profiling Strategies

Geographic profilers have access to a repertoire of strategies for predicting a serial offenders home location. These strategies range in complexity—some involve more calculations to implement than others—and the assumption often made is that more complex strategies will outperform simpler strategies. In the present study, we tested the relationship between the complexity and accuracy of 11 strategies. Data were crime site and home locations of 16 UK residential burglars who had committed 10 or more crimes each. The results indicated that strategy complexity was not positively related to accuracy. This was also found to be the case across tasks that ranged in complexity (where complexity was determined by the number of crimes used to make a prediction). Implications for police policies and procedures, as well as our understanding of human decision-making, are discussed.To whom correspondence should be addressed. Phone: +1-709-737-3101; E-mail: bsnook@play.psych.mun.ca     

Forecasting Recidivism in Mentally Ill Offenders Released from Prison

Little research has focused on assessing the risk of mentally ill offenders (MIOs) released from state prisons. Here we report findings for 333 mentally ill offenders released from Washington State prisons. Logistic regression identified sets of variables that forecasted felony and violent reconviction as accurately as state-of-the-art risk assessment instruments. Sums of simple recoded versions of these variables predicted reoffense as well as complex logistic regression equations. Five of these 9 variables were found to be relative protective factors. Findings are discussed in terms of the value of stock correctional variables in forecasting risk, the need to base actuarial risk assessments on local data, the importance of protective factors in assessing MIO risk, and the need for dynamic, situational, and clinical variables that can further sharpen predictive accuracy of emergent risk in the community.     

Autonomy and audit--striking the balance

The Data Protection Act 1998 purports to implement European legislation which aims to protect the privacy of individuals. There were such concerns about the implications of the Act for certain research and audit that it became necessary to enact further legislation to enable such essential activities to continue. Although this empowers the Secretary of State for Health to approve proposals for these purposes, there should still be a requirement that the use of identifiable personal information without consent must be justified on compelling public interest grounds. It is this that can confound those seeking to rely on such justification. There can either be too cavalier an approach to the issue, and/or there is little sense of what considerations should come into play. This paper attempts to highlight some of the difficulties that are theoretically raised by some audit activities and set out the legal framework within which they must operate. However, the key focus is on how ethical considerations might inform the public interest argument.     

Erroneous gender identification by the amelogenin sex test

Human gender identification, based on the amelogenin gene, has important applications in forensic casework, prenatal diagnosis, DNA databasing, and blood sample storage. However, we report on the first known case, in the Israeli population, of an amelogenin sex test failure on a phenotypically normal male. He was typed as a female by both the AmpFlSTR SGM plus and GenePrint kits. Subsequent, karyotyping of the soldier's blood sample showed no abnormalities. These results suggest that the determination of sex, based on the amelogenin test, should be interpreted cautiously.