FAMILY DISPUTE RESOLUTION: CHARTING A COURSE FOR THE FUTURE

This article summarizes ideas for future directions in the field of family dispute resolution, as discussed by legal experts, social scientists, and other participants at the Indiana University–Bloomington conference on family dispute resolution. Five major categories of future directions were discussed: (1) clarifying differing goals for work in this field; (2) recognizing, understanding, and assessing for heterogeneity among couples and families facing divorces, break ups in adult relationships, and reconfigurations of adult relationships with the children ("relationship dissolution"); (3) testing our assumptions and commonly held beliefs about relationship dissolution; (4) empirically testing the efficacy of interventions for families experiencing relationship dissolution; and (5) disseminating research findings to those on the frontline.     

Prediction of women's utilization of resistance strategies in a sexual assault situation: a prospective study

The present study prospectively explored the predictors of resistance strategies to a sexual assault situation. Participants were assessed at the beginning of an academic quarter on a number of variables, including past history of sexual victimization, perceived risk of sexual victimization, and intentions to use specific types of resistance strategies. Only women who reported being victimized over the interim (N=68) were included in the analyses, which suggested that women's Time 1 intentions to utilize assertive resistance strategies (e.g., physically fight, run away) and offender aggression predicted women's use of assertive resistance strategies in response to the assault that occurred over the follow-up. Women's utilization of nonforceful verbal resistance (e.g., reason, plead, quarrel) was predicted by perpetrator aggression and previous sexual victimization. Women's immobility (e.g., turn cold, freeze) during the assault that took place over the interim was predicted by experiences of childhood sexual victimization and previous sexual victimization.     

International terrorism and mental health: recent research and future directions

International terrorism has become a major global concern. Several studies conducted in North America and Europe in the aftermath of terrorist attacks reveal that international terrorism represents a significant short-term and long-term threat to mental health. In the present article, the authors clarify the concept and categories of terrorism and then present central findings from studies conducted in the United States and Europe, which mainly focus on negative impacts on mental health, such as emotional stress and PTSD. Furthermore, the authors outline experiments that focus on social interaction processes thought to be triggered by international terrorism and which are assumed to be related indirectly to mental health processes. Next, they highlight the potential positive outcomes on the resilience side, in line with the current theory on posttraumatic growth in adversity. Finally, theoretical and practical implications as well as limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Does Racial Balance in Workforce Representation Yield Equal Justice? Race Relations of Sentencing in Federal Court Organizations*

Increasing racial and ethnic group representation in justice‐related occupations is considered a potential remedy to racial inequality in justice administration, including sentencing disparity. Studies to date yield little evidence of such an effect; however, research limitations may account for the mixed and limited evidence of the significance of justice workforce racial diversity. Specifically, few studies consider group‐level dynamics of race and representation, thus failing to contextualize racial group power relations in justice administration. To consider these contextual dynamics we combine court organizational and case‐level data from 89 federal districts and use hierarchical models to assess whether variably “representative” work groups relate to district‐level differences in sentencing. Using district‐specific indexes of population and work group dissimilarity to define representation, we find no relationships between black judge representation and sentencing in general across districts, but that districts with more black representation among prosecutors are significantly less likely to sentence defendants to terms of imprisonment. We also find in districts with increased black representation among prosecutors, and to a lesser degree among judges, that black defendants are less likely to be imprisoned and white defendants are more likely to be imprisoned, with the effect of narrowing black‐white disparities in sentencing. Consistent with the “power‐threat” perspective, and perhaps “implicit racial bias” research, findings encourage modeling diversity to account for relative racial group power in processes of social control and suggest that racial justice may be moderately advanced by equal representation among authorities.     

The problem of human trafficking in the U.S.: Public frames and policy responses

Nine years after the passage of federal anti-trafficking legislation in the United States, fewer incidents of trafficking have been identified than original estimates of the problem predicted. Some scholars and commentators suggest that changes in the public framing of the trafficking problem aimed at advancing particular agendas are to blame. Yet no studies to date had measured such a reframing process and its attendant consequences. Using a natural history of social problems model (Spector & Kitsuse, 1973) as the theoretical framework to examine the framing of trafficking, this study analyzed text from U.S. newspaper articles about human trafficking from 1990 to 2006. Findings suggest the public framing of human trafficking has changed over time corresponding with the adoption of policies focused on national security and the identification, apprehension, and criminal prosecution of trafficking perpetrators. Challenges following such definitional shifts are discussed.     

Do Prophylactics Prevent Inflation? Post-identification Feedback and the Effectiveness of Procedures to Protect Against Confidence-inflation in Earwitnesses

After viewing or hearing a recorded simulated crime, participants were asked to identify the offender’s voice from a target-absent audio lineup. After making their voice identification, some participants were either given confirming feedback or no feedback. The feedback manipulation in experiment 1 led to higher ratings of participants’ identification certainty, as well as higher ratings on retrospective confidence reports, in both the immediate and delay groups. Earwitnesses who were asked about their identification certainty prior to the feedback manipulation (experiment 2) did not demonstrate the typical confidence-inflation associated with confirming feedback if they were questioned about the witnessing experience immediately; however, the effects returned after a week-long retention interval. The implications for the differential forgetting and internal-cues hypotheses are discussed.     

Legal Outcomes of Suspected Maltreatment Cases Evaluated by a Child Abuse Pediatrician as Part of a Multidisciplinary Team Investigation

Child abuse pediatricians often carry the stigma that their sole role is to diagnose maltreatment. In reality, child abuse pediatricians use their clinical experience and current evidence-based medicine to make the best medical diagnoses for the children they evaluate. To better understand the legal conclusion of suspected maltreatment cases with medical examinations, this study sought to: (i) evaluate the percentage of children seen for suspected maltreatment that led to a clinical diagnosis of maltreatment, (ii) determine the number and type of criminal charges associated, and (iii) analyze the legal outcomes of cases as they proceeded through the judicial system. This study retrospectively reviewed the legal outcomes of 1698 children medically evaluated in 2013–2014 as part of an investigation by a multidisciplinary team at a children’s advocacy center in a mid-sized city in Oklahoma. Data were collected from electronic medical records, the district attorney’s office, and a public court docket. Of the original cohort, 477 (28.09%) children yielded a medical diagnosis of at least one type of maltreatment. Further analysis yielded 115 unique court cases involving 138 defendants and 151 children. A total of 286 charges were filed resulting in 190 convictions. While maltreatment allegations yield a high number of children that must be evaluated, a comprehensive medical evaluation helps determine which cases do not have sufficient medical findings for a diagnosis of maltreatment. The findings in this study indicate that a majority of suspected maltreatment cases seen by child abuse pediatricians did not result in criminal court outcomes.     

Democracy and minority language recognition: tyranny of the majority and the conditional effects of group size

What explains minority language recognition? Why are some governments more responsive than others to minority linguistic demands? While there are reasons to believe democracies – as protectors of civil liberties – are generally more likely to recognize minority demands, I argue only those without a sizable majority extend such recognition to the highest levels. This is because the dominance of one large linguistic group electorally impedes a democratic government’s ability to grant such benefits to the smaller ones. I test this argument by using a newly constructed measure of minority language recognition. This variable identifies whether a minority language is used in public education, and if so, it differentiates between instruction of and instruction in a minority language. I find that while democracies are indeed more likely to acknowledge minority languages, the effects are conditional: only those without a majority are able or willing to accommodate minorities to the fullest extent. Otherwise, when there is a tyranny of the majority, democracies behave no differently than their dictatorial counterparts. The results – robust to different measurements of majoritarian politics – hold important implications for our understanding of democracy and its ability to satisfy demands in divided societies.     

The Effects of Childhood and Adolescent Adversity on Substance Use Disorders and Poor Health in Early Adulthood

Childhood and adolescent adversity have been shown to predict later mental and physical health outcomes. Understanding which aspects and developmental timings of adversity are important, and the mechanisms by which they have their impact may help guide intervention approaches. A large subset of adolescents (N?=?457; Female 68.9?%) from the 10-year longitudinal Youth Emotion Project was examined to better understand the associations among childhood/adolescent adversity, substance use disorder, and later health quality. Adolescent (but not childhood) adversities were associated with poorer health in late adolescence/early adulthood, adolescent adversities were associated with subsequent onset of substance use disorder, and adolescent adversities continued to be associated with poorer health in late adolescence/early adulthood after accounting for the variance explained by substance use disorder onset. These associations were observed after statistically accounting for emotional disorders and socioeconomic status. Specific domains of adversity uniquely predicted substance use disorder and poorer health outcomes. In contrast with current recent research, our findings suggest the association between childhood/adolescent adversity and poorer health outcomes in late adolescence and emerging adulthood are not entirely accounted for by substance use disorder, suggesting efforts to curtail family-based adolescent adversity may have downstream health benefits.     

The rough guide to love: romance,history and sexualization in gendered relationship advice

Sexualization is changing the way we think about romantic love. According to recent research, young people are increasingly confronted by narrowing ideals of sexual attractiveness making romantic intimacy increasingly difficult forcing a choice between ‘raunch or romance’. This article investigates the alleged distinction between romance and sexualization, in the process challenging claims that the current crisis of sexualization is a product of societal change in late modernity. Responding to a call to consider sexualization from a hitherto neglected historical perspective, the paper employs critical discourse analysis to identify the formation of gendered meanings and practices in How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, a late medieval advice text for young women, and twenty-first-century advice from the MyBliss website. Focusing on sexualized clothing, contact with others, reputation and social status, the paper argues that in both medieval and modern advice, discourses of romantic love and sexualization are mutually dependent. In addition, similarities between medieval and modern advice reveal that our current sexualization crisis is not solely a product of modern life, but is part of a longer pattern of gender normativity and inequality.