When Juveniles Commit Sexual Offenses: Considerations and Recommendations for Judges

Considering sexual offenders’ impact on victims, families, and communities, one cannot understate the importance of utilizing evidence‐based dispositions with juvenile offenders adjudicated for sexual offenses. This proves difficult, however, as the body of literature regarding juvenile sexual offenders is complex and often misunderstood. Research on how juvenile sexual offenders experience – broadly construed – the juvenile justice process is particularly sparse. The research that is available about juvenile sexual offender treatment, recidivism, and outcomes in general tends to be mixed as to the best way to deal with this distinctly stigmatized population. Thus, the purpose of this review article is primarily educational in that we summarize the highlights of current research and thinking in regards to juvenile sexual offenders with which judges should be familiar, and subsequently offer practice recommendations. The ultimate goal in offering and applying these recommendations in juvenile court settings is to help alleviate potential collateral consequences, increase positive long‐term outcomes for juveniles, and increase public safety.     

Accurate STR allele designations at the FGA and vWA loci despite primer site polymorphisms

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based STR DNA typing systems are used extensively in the field of human identification. Under optimal PCR conditions, the amplicon yield from both alleles of an STR locus is expected to be approximately equivalent. However, it is reasonable to expect that rare genomic sequence polymorphisms will co-localize with well-designed primer sets and induce allele imbalance or "dropouts". Two samples were identified in the course of genotyping thousands of individuals with AmpF/STR Profiler Plus that showed strong disparity in amplitude peak height of heterozygous peaks at the loci vWA and FGA. These samples were reamplified at reduced annealing temperature in an attempt to balance the peak heights. Nucleotide sequencing documented polymorphisms at the PCR primer binding sites of the affected alleles. The results indicate that reducing the annealing temperature to improve primer-binding efficiency at the mismatch and employing an alternative multiplex enhanced the data from both samples. Reducing annealing temperatures could provide a simple general solution to improving data quality for samples where polymorphisms are suspected to cause allele imbalance. Finally, we report on additional polymorphisms surrounding the vWA locus in a genetically diverse population.     

Creating a political image: Shaping appearance and manipulating the vote

The key question addressed is whether political consultants can shape a candidate's appearance in such a way as to influence voters' preferences. To explore this question, an attempt was made to discover the components of a favorable political image and then use that information to manipulate voters' preferences. Photographs of over 200 women were analyzed and the features of the women's appearance which affected the quality of the image projected were isolated. Using this information, a make-up artist and photographer were employed to shape the appearance of six women. Photographs of the women were then placed on campaign flyers along with information on the women's political party affiliation and their position on several key issues. Pairs of flyers were used to create mock elections. The result of these elections suggest that it is possible to shape a political candidate's image in a way which may effect electoral outcomes. The implications of this for electoral politics are discussed.     

Problem discovery,divergent thinking,and the creative process

Previous empirical research suggests that problem discovery is an important step in the creative process. The present investigation was conducted to examine the role of problem discovery in the divergent thinking and creative performance of adolescents. Three divergent thinking tests were administered to a group of adolescents. Each test contained three presentedproblems and one discoveredproblem. The discovered problem allowed the adolescents to think of a problem and then to provide solutions. Comparisons indicated that the adolescents generated significantly more responses to the discovered problems than the presented problems. Most important was that the unique variance of the discovered problems (controlling the variance shared with scores from the presented problems) was reliable and significantly related to five indices of creative performance. These results support the componential theory of divergent thinking and creativity, and are consistent with the developmental view of problem finding.Received Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the Claremont Graduate School. Research interests include the psychometrics of creativity and giftedness, and the developmental antecedents of eminence and genius.Current interests include gifted children and creativity.     

Consequences of legal risk communication for sanction perception updating and white-collar criminality

Objectives

Scholars have long emphasized that communicating, or “advertising”, information about legal sanction risk is necessary for the success of deterrence-based crime policies. However, scant research has evaluated whether direct communications about legal risk can cause sanction perception updating, the updating of ambiguity in sanction perceptions, or changes in persons’ willingness to offend. No prior studies have evaluated sanction perception updating for white-collar crimes.

Methods

To address this research void, the current study analyzes data from an experiment embedded in a recent national survey (N?=?878). Multivariate regression models estimate the effect of providing participants with information about the “objective” arrest risk for white-collar offenses on their sanction perceptions.

Results

The findings provide the first evidence that such information, when it is inconsistent with individuals’ prior beliefs, causes them to update: (1) their perceptions of the certainty of arrest; (2) their ambiguity about arrest risk; and, indirectly, (3) their willingness to commit white-collar crimes.

Conclusions

The results imply that individuals are willing to incorporate relevant information into their subjective beliefs about sanction risks. Importantly, however, they also make meaningful distinctions about the value of new information for understanding criminal risks.

     

Democracy as a Latent Variable

We apply formal, statistical measurement models to the Polity indicators, used widely in studies of international relations to measure democracy. In so doing, we make explicit the hitherto implicit assumptions underlying scales built using the Polity indicators. Modeling democracy as a latent variable allows us to assess the "noise" (measurement error) in the resulting measure. We show that this measurement error is considerable and has substantive consequences when using a measure of democracy as an independent variable in cross-national statistical analyses. Our analysis suggests that skepticism as to the precision of the Polity democracy scale is well founded and that many researchers have been overly sanguine about the properties of the Polity democracy scale in applied statistical work.     

Diffraction,transrational perspectives,and peace education: new possibilities

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on the theoretical lens of diffraction to conceptualize a new approach to transrational peace education theory and praxis in the post-2016 posttruth political era and Industry 4.0 economic period. The paper reviews foundational concepts and approaches from key founders of the field – Paulo Freire and Betty Reardon – before turning to two contemporary peace education scholars – Wolfgang Dietrich and Hilary Cremin – to investigate the contributions of recent scholarship toward diverse diffractive possibilities for transrational peace education. In this sense, diffraction offers pluralistic views and transformative possibilities for transrational peace education in varied contexts. Transrational peace education builds upon peace education to integrate affective and aesthetic perspectives into peace education theory and praxis. Before concluding, we offer some theoretical implications and pedagogic responses for scholars seeking to work at diffractive transrational intersections. The contribution of the paper is toward theorizing new perspectives for transrational peace education theory and praxis in the 21^st century.     

A new way of measuring behavioural compliance for prevention programme interventions using KAP Score

KAP Score is an evaluation tool developed to enable aid and donor organisations to monitor and evaluate the outcome of interventions, particularly those where the link between programme activities and outcomes constitutes an “unknown”. This article articulates KAP Score and demonstrates how it has been applied to two separate interventions related to risk avoidance (human trafficking) and demand reduction (wildlife consumption) to generate quantitative evidence for assessing how they contributed to increasing compliance. The examples presented demonstrate how KAP Score attributed the effectiveness of these interventions to a proxy indicator that can measure incremental behavioural compliance.