Simultaneous Lineups,Sequential Lineups,and Showups: Eyewitness Identification Decisions of Adults and Children

Two experiments were conducted comparing the identification accuracy of children aged 3–15 years (N = 307) and undergraduates (N = 384) using target-present and target-absent simultaneous and sequential lineups and showups. Correct identification rates tended not to vary across either age of subject or identification procedure. However, children show a significant tendency to guess as indicated by their lower rate of correct rejection when the target is absent. The tendency for children to make false positive choices was particularly evident with showups.     

Navigating Get-Tough and Support-Oriented Philosophies for Improving School Safety: Insights from School Administrators and School Safety Staff

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Schools in the United States are increasingly faced with the challenge of navigating two seemingly contradictory approaches to school safety. On the one hand,...     

Risk-Taking,Recklessness and HIV Transmission: Accommodating the Reality of Sexual Transmission of HIV Within a Justifiable Approach to Criminal Liability

This paper examines the issue of justifiability of risk-taking with regard to the transmission of HIV. It considers a number of factors, such as seriousness of risk, likelihood of risk occurring, social utility of conduct involved, ability to use precautions and victim awareness of the risk and willingness to accept it, which combined help to determine whether the taking of a risk is reasonable or not. It argues that by considering the issue of justifiability in this way, it is possible to accommodate the wider social, psychological and public health realities of HIV. It further argues that a criminal law which fails to take account of such considerations is not only overly broad in its application but ultimately risks punishing those who are not in fact deserving of punishment. I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft.     

Spanish Language Training for Law Enforcement Officers: Study Aid Use,Motivation, and Need to Use Correlate with Vocabulary Retention

Job-related Spanish courses are available across the country for a variety of professions. Blandino and Rivardo (Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 21(2):68–82, 2006) assessed the effectiveness of the Officer Safety and Communication Spanish Level I (OSCSLI) (Alentado 1995) course for law enforcement officers, but did not have data beyond 6-months post course and were unable to fully assess potential benefits of study aid use. In a follow-up study, 200 law enforcement officers completed a questionnaire and quiz up to 10 years following course completion. Those who used study aids had higher quiz scores than those who did not. Multiple regression analyses indicated that past need to use Spanish and motivation to learn Spanish were significant predictors of quiz performance, further supporting long term course effectiveness.     

Behavior on the ward of personality-disordered inpatients and chronically psychotic inpatients during a three-year stay in a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital

To gain insight into the behavior of a group of personality-disordered patients and a group of chronically psychotic patients during their stay in a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital, data on these patients were collected biannually for seven years. Three aspects of the patients’ behavior were examined: the prediction of institutional behavior shortly after admission, changes in the patients’ behavior on the ward during their stay in hospital, and the prediction of these changes. In the personality-disordered patients, observed irritation/anger and aggressive behavior on the ward turned out to be positively related to psychopathy, the PCL-R lifestyle and antisocial facets, and the neuroticism domain. A positive relationship was also found between aggressive behavior on the ward and trait anger. In the chronically psychotic patients, a positive relationship was found between irritation/anger and the PCL-R interpersonal and lifestyle facet. During a stay of three years, the aggressive behavior of both patient subgroups, which was already low at the start, did not decrease further, but their prosocial behavior increased. In the personality-disordered patients, relatively high scores on the antisocial facet of the PCL-R indicated an increase in prosocial behavior, whereas in the chronically psychotic patients no relationship was found between any PCL-R facet and behavior change. Effect studies on treatment programs for forensic psychiatric inpatients have to contend with the problem of a low base rate of institutional aggression. Therefore, we advise that such studies focus not only on a decrease in negative behaviors but also on an increase in positive behaviors.