When Scientists Deceive: Applying the Federal Regulations

Deception is a useful methodological device for studying attitudes and behavior, but deceptive studies fail to fulfill the informed consent requirements in the U.S. federal regulations. This means that before they can be approved by Institutional Review Boards, they must satisfy the four regulatory conditions for a waiver or alteration of these requirements. To illustrate our interpretation, we apply the conditions to a recent study that used deception to show that subjects judged the same wine as more enjoyable when they believed it had a higher price.     

Student perceptions of hate crimes

Estimates indicate hate crimes are a growing concern in the United States. This paper addresses how criminal justice students perceive victims of hate crimes. Survey findings show subjects are less likely to define certain groups of people as victims of hate crimes. Suggestions are made as to how criminal justice departments can heighten awareness of hate crime victims, multiculturalism, and gender diversity among criminal justice students.     

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.