Police Perceptions of Irrational Unstable Behaviours and Use of Force

Police identification of people experiencing mental illness is usually based on either the person having an official contact history with police or through observing behavioural indicators commonly associated with mental illness during an encounter. Police have voiced concerns with their ability to identify and respond to people experiencing mental illness in a timely way and report that they commonly resort to more coercive tactical options to resolve encounters. The present study employed a mixed method design to examine 286 police use of force incidents to investigate the association between force used on and by offenders displaying irrational-unstable behavioural characteristics. The irrational-unstable offenders were two times more likely to be perceived by police to have an apparent mental disorder and almost four times more likely to have a known mental health history; one in six had an official record of contact with mental health services. There were few differences in police and offender use of force, considering force as both a categorical and a continuous variable, while incident-level comparisons suggested that police force was generally proportional to offender resistance. Implications are discussed in terms of the need to redress limitations with the traditional police approach style.     

On Jordan Peterson,Postmodernism, and PoMo-Bashing

Jordan Peterson says that postmodernists say no interpretation is better than another. I would no sooner identify Peterson’s adversaries as those who have been misled by “postmodernism” than I would identify them as misled by “sustainability,” “diversity,” “multiculturalism,” or “intersectionality.” Such fare is mainly symptomatic. “Postmodern” invocations are often like “sustainability” invocations: inessential. This piece is not a defense of postmodernism. It is a critique of PoMo-bashing.     

赖声川戏剧中的台湾外省人形象及身份认同

赖声川在有关台湾外省人形象的剧作中,呈现了外省人第二代在身份认同上的心路历程。这些外省人形象,折射出他们从最初承继父辈的大中华观念,至意识到这种观念的现实障碍,再从两代人不同的生命体验出发,重新思考、调整对自身处境的认知,理性地容纳对台湾的在地情怀和对大陆的民族血缘、中华文化的精神传承。对此客观、准确的解读有助于我们对台湾社会的一个重要侧面之理解,为理解和把握两岸关系提供有益的启示。     

President-Elect Trump: Is the Past Prologue?

There is worldwide interest and concern over the pending US Presidency of Donald Trump. This article recounts the experience of the author and entrepreneur Merv Griffin with Trump in his business career and suggests clues for examining his exercise of the power of the Presidency. His choices for his cabinet and his advisers may well determine his success or failure. The evidence thus far is troubling.