Teaching police ethics: An experiential model

Attempts have been made in recent years to decrease police misconduct and improve police performance in areas of ethical decision-making. One attempt has been to provide ethics instruction to police officers at training academies and in-service training sessions. Experiential case studies have been used to help students apply theoretical concepts to practical situations. An evaluation of the experiential teaching model for police ethics was made in a quasiexperimental research design with two groups of police officers. The results supported the experiential approach for teaching police ethics. Police officers were found to better differentiate between ethical and unethical conduct in both an idealistic and realistic manner.     

American forensic psychiatrists who work in state institutions

The authors surveyed a sample of American forensic psychiatrists who work in state institutions. As a group, their respondents tended to be middle-aged, white men, who had little formal training in forensic psychiatry, felt somewhat alienated from their peers, yet who were Board certified in general psychiatry. They tended to be involved primarily in the direct treatment of patients, and most often expressed concerns about the care-and prominent lack of aftercare--received by forensic patients. They also perceived a sense of patient futility in the institutional forensic setting. The authors conclude by recommending that AAPL take a more active role in appealing to and representing such forensic psychiatrists.     

Effects of Partner Violence and Physical Child Abuse on Child Behavior: A Study of Abused and Comparison Children

This study tests a model of the effects on child behavioral outcome of the child's exposure to partner violence and child abuse, in children who have experienced the two forms of victimization either separately or together. Recognizing that family contextual factors play an important role in influencing child outcome, an ecological model is proposed that designates family stress as the principal exogenous factor, with effects on child outcome mediated through caretaker distress, partner violence, and child abuse. The sample consists of 100 confirmed cases of physically abused New York City schoolchildren, ages 9 to 12 years, and their families, and 100 nonmaltreated classmates, matched for gender, age, and, as closely as possible, for race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and their families. Child behavioral outcome is assessed by classmates for antisocial, prosocial, and withdrawn behavior and by parents and teachers for externalizing and internalizing problem behavior. Results are generally consistent with the hypothesis that partner violence and caretaker distress, both associated with family stress, increase the risk for child abuse and thereby raise the child's risk for poor outcome. Implications of differences among raters for the model's applicability, and implications of the results for clinical intervention, are discussed.     

新老法律现实主义:“今非昔比”

追溯从1920—1930年代的法律现实主义流派到“法与社会研究”40年的学术发展史,可以看到今天的法律、政治或社会环境与早期法学现实主义所处的环境已全然不同,在“法与社会研究学会”成立40年之后,新法律现实主义作为社会环境和法律界观念变革的结果应运而生,预示着一种法学研究的新趋势。新法律现实主义将努力克服前辈的局限性和不足,积极倡导一种自下而上的经验研究方法,强调对法律作用的认识和制度的建构应该从事实出发,主张进一步推进法与社会的互动,以及法律教育与法律职业的改革。今天,时代开始转变,更多的人开始关注法律是如何运作的,而不是仅仅拘泥于上诉法院的判例和精美的理论。随着社会科学和经验性研究的方法逐步被法学界所接受,法学和法律教育的变革已经开始。     

Profligacy Or Prudence? Changes in Employment and Compensation of State and Local Government Workers

As the 1990s began, state and local governments across the country found themselves in a situation of fiscal stress. That stress has been attributed to several sources. Recently, it has been suggested that governments themselves brought on the fiscal squeeze by their own profligacy —a profligacy rooted in excessive increases in employment and compensation of government workers during the 1980s. After summarizing some arguments presented for and against describing state and local practices of the 1980s as profligate, this article compares its evidence on the growth of employment and compensation and notes some different interpretations. The article concludes that a strong statement of the profligacy position has not been proved.