A Question of Authority: Religion and Cultural Conflict in the 2004 Election

In this study I adopt a view of cultural conflict that extends beyond the usual set of controversial “moral” issues like abortion and gay rights to include symbolic issues related to patriotism and group affect. Using a set of survey items asking about respondents’ preferences in child-rearing, I create a measure of individuals’ orientations toward authority that proves to be a potent predictor of attitudes on cultural issues, affect toward social groups, party identification, and vote choice. This authority effect persists even in the presence of extensive multivariate controls for demographic and religious variables. I find that both authority measures and religion measures shape political attitudes, suggesting the need for a multi-faceted approach to understanding cultural conflict.

Heat Waves,Droughts, and Preferences for Environmental Policy

Using data from a new household survey on environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences, we find that current weather conditions affect preferences for environmental regulation. Individuals who have recently experienced extreme weather (heat waves or droughts) are more likely to support laws to protect the environment. We find evidence that the channel through which weather conditions affect policy preference is via perceptions of the importance of the issue of global warming. Furthermore, environmentalists and individuals who consult more sources of news are less likely to have their attitudes toward global warming changed by current weather conditions. These findings suggest that communication and education emphasizing consequences of climate change salient to the individual's circumstances may be the most effective in changing attitudes of those least likely to support proenvironment policy. In addition, the timing of policy introduction could influence its success.     

Who’s the Party of the People? Economic Populism and the U.S. Public’s Beliefs About Political Parties

Some observers of American politics have argued that Republicans have redrawn the social class basis of the parties by displacing the Democrats as the party of the common person. While others have addressed the argument by implication, we address the phenomenon itself. That is, we examine whether the populist rhetoric used by conservatives has reshaped the American public??s perceptions about the social class basis of American political parties. To this end, we used NES data and created novel survey questions for examining the class-based images of the parties. We examine whether the public holds populist images of the Republican Party and whether the working class and evangelical Christians are especially likely to hold this belief. Contrary to this argument, most Americans view the Democrats as the party of the people. Furthermore, working class and evangelical Christians are no less likely to hold this belief.     

Federal legislative activism in Australia: a new approach to testing Wagner’s law

This paper considers the relationship between government growth and real GDP per capita by developing models of federal legislative output in Australia since 1901. Growth in legislation is found to be negatively related to growth in real income per capita in the short-run, implying that legislation responds to temporary economic shocks, but without a robust long-run relationship with the level of income. The growth in the number of pages of legislation enacted and legislative complexity also show a negative short-run relationship with growth in real national income per capita and a positive long-run relationship with the level of income.     

Further investigations into the speed of cerebral swelling following blunt cranial trauma

An anesthetized sheep model of traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been developed to assess early changes in intracranial pressure (ICP) following closed head injury. Immediately after TBI, a transient (<10 min) hypertensive response occurred, followed by significant and prolonged systemic hypotension. ICP demonstrated a biphasic response, being seven times baseline values of 8 ± 2 mm Hg 10 min after injury, decreasing to 25 ± 2 mm Hg by 30 min, and then increasing to values exceeding 30 mm Hg by 4 h postinjury. ICP was always significantly higher than baseline values, which combined with hypotension, reduced cerebral perfusion pressure to less than 60% of normal. This early and sustained increase in ICP after craniocerebral trauma acutely alters cerebral perfusion pressure and brain oxygenation and provides a potential pathophysiological explanation for immediate clinical manifestations in humans following significant TBI.     

Treating offenders with mental illness: a research synthesis

The purpose of this research synthesis was to examine treatment effects across studies of the service providers to offenders with mental illness. Meta-analytic techniques were applied to 26 empirical studies obtained from a review of 12,154 research documents. Outcomes of interest in this review included measures of both psychiatric and criminal functioning. Although meta-analytic results are based on a small sample of available studies, results suggest interventions with offenders with mental illness effectively reduced symptoms of distress, improving offender's ability to cope with their problems, and resulted in improved behavioral markers including institutional adjustment and behavioral functioning. Furthermore, interventions specifically designed to meet the psychiatric and criminal justice needs of offenders with mental illness have shown to produce significant reductions in psychiatric and criminal recidivism. Finally, this review highlighted admission policies and treatment strategies (e.g., use of homework), which produced the most positive benefits. Results of this research synthesis are directly relevant for service providers in both criminal justice and mental health systems (e.g., psychiatric hospitals) as well as community settings by informing treatment strategies for the first time, which are based on empirical evidence. In addition, the implications of these results to policy makers tasked with the responsibility of designating services for this special needs population are highlighted.     

Assessment and management of risk for intimate partner violence by police officers using the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a crime that is present in all countries, seriously impacts victims, and demands a great deal of time and resources from the criminal justice system. The current study examined the use of the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide, 2nd ed. (SARA; Kropp, Hart, Webster, & Eaves, 1995), a structured professional judgment risk assessment and management tool for IPV, by police officers in Sweden over a follow-up of 18 months. SARA risk assessments had significant predictive validity with respect to risk management recommendations made by police, as well as with recidivism as indexed by subsequent contacts with police. Risk management mediated the association between risk assessment and recidivism: High levels of intervention were associated with decreased recidivism in high risk cases, but with increased recidivism in low risk cases. The findings support the potential utility of police-based risk assessment and management of IPV, and in particular the belief that appropriately structured risk assessment and management decisions can prevent violence.     

Short and long-term prediction of recidivism using the youth level of service/case management inventory in a sample of serious young offenders

The present investigation examined the predictive accuracy of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) for youth and adult recidivism in a Canadian sample of 167 youths (93 males, 74 females) charged with serious offenses who received psychological services from a community mental health outpatient clinic. Youths were followed for an average of 7 years in the community, and predictive accuracy was examined for several recidivism outcomes as a function of gender, ethnicity, and developmental age group. YLS/CMI total scores significantly predicted all recidivism categories in the overall sample (area under the curve values ranged from 0.66 to 0.77) although the instrument as a whole, and its criminogenic needs, demonstrated somewhat stronger and more consistent predictive accuracy for youth outcomes. The YLS/CMI also demonstrated significant predictive accuracy within demographic subgroups. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the use of risk-need assessment tools in providing clinical assessment, treatment, and case management services to diverse young offender groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Reducing juvenile recidivism with cognitive training and a cell phone follow-up: an evaluation of the realvictory program

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effects of a cognitive training and cell phone intervention on the recidivism of 70 juvenile offenders. Median days to rearrest were 106 for the control group, 191 for the class-only group, and 278 for the class plus cell phone group. Using rearrest as the survival criterion, the survival ratios of the class-only and class plus cell phone groups were 2.64 and 2.94 times longer than the control group, respectively. After controlling for gender, prior arrests, and risk score, the Poisson regression indicated that the class-only and class plus cell phone groups were 51% lower in total arrests than the control group. These results suggest that cognitive training supplemented with a cell phone coach is an effective and cost-efficient intervention for reducing recidivism.