The religious conversion and race of a prisoner: Mock parole board members' decisions,perceptions, and emotions

Parole board members (PBMs) decide whether to release inmates on parole. Decisions may be affected by in‐group bias or stereotypes regarding religion and race. Two experiments investigated whether religious conversions/secular lifestyle changes and race affect mock PBMs' release decisions, emotions, and perceptions. Mock PBMs read a case file of an inmate who was eligible for parole and decided whether to grant parole. Study 1 manipulated whether the inmate had converted to Christianity or Islam, had a secular lifestyle change, or had no lifestyle change. Study 2 also varied race (African American or Caucasian). Race was not a significant factor, possibly because the manipulation was not strong enough to influence participants or because participants did not want to appear racist. Conversions to Islam and Christianity impacted the parole decision, and effects were mediated by believability of the conversion. Secular lifestyle changes affected release decisions and were mediated by perceptions of the inmate and beliefs about his likelihood of recidivism. Such inmates were the most likely to be released and were perceived most positively; their conversions were the most believable. Inmates who made no changes were perceived least positively, indicating that any lifestyle change is better than none. Importantly, no bias towards either religion (Islam, Christianity) was found. Furthermore, conversion type affected how scared PBMs were of the inmate, but this fear did not impact release decisions.     

Fluorescence Imaging of Posterior Spiracles from Second and Third Instars of Forensically Important Chrysomya rufifacies (Diptera: Calliphoridae),

Entomological protocols for aging blowfly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae to estimate the time of colonization (TOC) are commonly used to assist in death investigations. While the methodologies for analyzing fly larvae differ, most rely on light microscopy, genetic analysis, or, more rarely, electron microscopy. This pilot study sought to improve resolution of larval stage in the forensically important blowfly Chrysomya rufifacies using high‐content fluorescence microscopy and biochemical measures of developmental marker proteins. We established fixation and mounting protocols, defined a set of measurable morphometric criteria and captured developmental transitions of 2nd instar to 3rd instar using both fluorescence microscopy and anti‐ecdysone receptor Western blot analysis. The data show that these instars can be distinguished on the basis of robust, nonbleaching, autofluorescence of larval posterior spiracles. High‐content imaging techniques using confocal microscopy, combined with morphometric and biochemical techniques, may therefore aid forensic entomologists in estimating TOC.     

Political Ambition in 14 Presidential Democracies

This article captures the nature of legislators' ambitions and explores to what extent their career paths within a context of party competition lead to progressive versus static ambition. The findings show that their previous career path and retrospective loyalty towards the party influences which offices they seek. Progressively ambitious legislators also seek offices in less competitive environments, but this finding holds for the regional executive branch or the presidency. An additional robust finding shows that ideologically conservative legislators tend to be statically ambitious. This is a first step towards mapping out ambitions in Latin America by drawing on cross‐national data.     

Assessing the Relationship Between a Peer-Mentoring Program and Case Outcomes in Dependency Court

Building successful family-centered programs to support families whose children have been removed can be especially challenging to child welfare agencies. Peer-mentoring programs match families new to the dependency system with a mentor who has successfully reunified with their children. The current study examines the relationship between a peer-mentoring program, Parent for Parent (P4P), engagement levels of parents, and case outcomes for these families. Findings revealed that participants in the peer-mentoring program experienced increased engagement levels and improved outcomes for their cases. Specifically, mothers and fathers who participated in P4P increased their compliance with case plans and visitation, as well as increased presence at court hearings. Reunification rates increased for all families who participated in the peer-mentoring program, compared to those who did not. Few associations were found between racial and ethnic groups and program participation. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

PREVENTING JUDICIALLY MANDATED ORPHANS

The courts intrude into the sancity of family relationships too often, especially with respect to impoverished families. Many circumtances found in such families, including economic factors, employment, and drug and alcohol abuse, are prevalent in poor communities. Instead of stripping children from their parents, the courts should aid families by targeting common problems and helping to preserve the parent-child relationship. This article focuses on the conflicting interests comprising the child protective system, some federal and state child welfare legislation, the idea of increasing the standard of proof in termination Not only is that proceedings, and the constitutionality of relecant legislation and its implementation. Not only is that legislation unconstitutional, but it is unfair to impovershed families, and not completely ineffective at reaching its goal.     

Confessions: a Model of Officials' Perspectives on Accepting Gifts from Clients in Post-communist Europe

There is widespread criticism of the behaviour of junior officials in post-communist Europe where they are often accused of treating citizens unfairly and soliciting presents or bribes to solve citizens' problems. To get the perspective of officials themselves we interviewed 1307 junior officials and state employees in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This paper focuses on their willingness to accept gifts from clients, their confessions to having done so, and the factors that lead some officials to accept gifts while others do not – factors such as occupational bargaining power and the (related) frequency of offers from clients, economic pressures, national and institutional cultures, fear of punishment, and moral perspectives on charging clients for favours. Economic pressures make officials more inclined to feel that they 'could not afford to refuse' gifts, but this motivation is only weakly related to actual behaviour. Occupational bargaining power and the frequency of offers from clients make them more likely to 'welcome' gifts or accept them 'out of politeness'– and these less excusable motivations are more strongly related to actual gift-taking.     

The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market

We propose a framework for understanding how the Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers' tendency to seek out media that conform to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we find that consumers of generally left‐of‐center (right‐of‐center) cable news sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news content to be interested in niche political issues.