The Views of Psychologists,Lawyers, and Judges on Key Components and the Quality of Child Custody Evaluations in Australia

This study aimed to understand the expectations of and the agreement between professional groups regarding the quality of single‐expert reports written by psychologists (known as child custody evaluations in the United States). 13 psychologists, 18 family lawyers, 26 children's lawyers, and 8 judges (N = 65) in New South Wales, Australia, rated the overall quality of reports and the quality of various components of them. Interprofessional congruence on importance ratings allowed key components to be derived. The results revealed that the overall quality of reports was rated positively, however, significant discrepancies were found between importance and quality ratings on the various components, indicating that reports fall short of expectations in many areas.     

Territorial Justice and Devolution

The concept of territorial justice has a long history in studies of the spatial distribution of welfare state services in the UK. Since the inception of the devolution process, territorial justice has maintained support as a principle to guide policy and has been promoted recently as an objective for the reform of the financial arrangements for the devolved administrations. The first part of the article argues that the standard version of territorial justice is premised on the UK as a unitary state and is unworkable as a political principle of justice after devolution. An alternative version of territorial justice is developed to accommodate a union state. The final part discusses several policy issues post-devolution in terms of different versions of territorial justice: intergovernmental fiscal relations; health care policy including access to medicines; and free community care for the elderly.     

Commentary on “Studying Eyewitness Investigations in the Field”: A Look Forward

Schacter et al. (2007, this issue) address the controversy surrounding an Illinois pilot project that attempted to compare sequential versus simultaneous police lineup formats. The statement by these experts will guide the design and execution of future field lineup experiments. This commentary discusses three aspects of field studies that pose challenges as lineup experiments are interpreted: the imprecise meaning of the dependent measure (eyewitness decisions), the limitations of single studies, and the necessity to devise public policy from incomplete knowledge. A combination of laboratory and field information provides the means to determine best practices in eyewitness identification procedures.