Economic impact of Wicks v State Rail Authority (NSW) (2010) 84 ALJR 497

In Wicks v State Rail Authority (NSW) (2010) 84 ALJR 497 the High Court of Australia held that, among other things, plaintiffs (who establish that they suffer a recognised psychiatric illness as a result of the breach of duty of care owed to them by the defendant under s 32 of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW)) are entitled to recover damages for pure mental harm under s 30 if their psychiatric injury arose "wholly or partly from" a "series of shocking experiences" in the form of "a sudden and disturbing impression on the mind and feelings" in connection with witnessing at the scene "another person ('the victim') being killed, injured or put in peril by the act or omission of the defendant". The High Court construed the phrase "being ... injured or put in peril" to include plaintiffs who suffer pure mental harm by witnessing at the scene another person being injured through the process of suffering pure mental harm in the form of psychiatric injury occasioned by the defendant's negligent act or omission. The Wicks decision raises the question whether the expanded liability of defendants for pure mental harm is economically sustainable.     

REPRESENTATION DISPARITIES AND IMPARTIALITY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF PARTY PERCEPTION OF FEAR,PREPARATION, AND SATISFACTION IN DIVORCE MEDIATION WHEN ONLY ONE PARTY HAS COUNSEL

While other authors have regarded both the presence and the absence of attorneys in family law mediation as cause for concern, little attention has been given to the questions raised when one party is represented and the other is pro se. This article presents data on mediating parties' premediation concerns, fears, and feelings of preparedness, as well as their postmediation satisfaction with the mediation process. The mediating parties are grouped based on each couple's representation status, for example, both represented by attorneys, both pro se, or one attorney‐represented party and one pro se party (mixed representation cases). The data show that mixed representation cases are the most likely to report concern, fear, and unpreparedness. Mixed‐representation cases also reported the lowest levels of satisfaction after the mediation. Some implications for mediation practice are discussed, as are suggestions for future research.     

Validity and Determinants of Clinicians’ Return to Work Judgments for Individuals Following Whiplash Injury

Rehabilitation clinicians routinely make judgments about the capacity of individuals to return to work following whiplash injury, which can have serious implications for individuals’ continued access to salary indemnity benefits. The present study examined the validity and determinants of these judgments. During a standardized rehabilitation intervention, data regarding demographic factors, crash characteristics, pain severity, range of motion, pain-related psychological functioning, as well as change in the latter three factors over the course of treatment were collected for 104 whiplash-injured individuals (73 women, 31 men). Upon completion of the intervention, clinicians rated the number of hours each individual was capable of working per day. Follow-up data regarding the actual number of hours worked were collected 1 year later. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that clinicians’ judgments added significant unique variance to the return to work prediction beyond other predictive factors, and that clinicians were particularly influenced by patients’ pain severity and treatment-related change in pain severity in making these judgments. Although clinicians were significantly able to predict return to work, the limited variance accounted for by their judgments (12%) warrants caution in the use of these judgments in decisions related to access to services or indemnity. Factors predictive of clinician judgment and actual return to work are compared, and recommendations to enhance the utility of these judgments are made.     

Differences in Neuropsychological Functioning Between Homicidal and Nonviolent Schizophrenia Samples

Few studies have compared performance on neurocognitive measures between violent and nonviolent schizophrenia samples. A better understanding of neurocognitive dysfunction in violent individuals with schizophrenia could increase the efficacy of violence reduction strategies and aid in risk assessment and adjudication processes. This study aimed to compare neuropsychological performance between 25 homicide offenders with schizophrenia and 25 nonviolent schizophrenia controls. The groups were matched for age, race, sex, and handedness. Independent t‐tests and Mann–Whitney U‐tests were used to compare the schizophrenia groups’ performance on measures of cognition, including composite scores assessing domain level functioning and individual neuropsychological tests. Results indicated the violent schizophrenia group performed worse on measures of memory and executive functioning, and the Intellectual Functioning composite score, when compared to the nonviolent schizophrenia sample. These findings replicate previous research documenting neuropsychological deficits specific to violent individuals with schizophrenia and support research implicating fronto‐limbic dysfunction among violent offenders with schizophrenia.     

Business dynamics,industry productivity growth,and the distribution of firm-level performance: evidence for the role of ICT using Dutch firm-level data

We present evidence on industry productivity growth and business dynamics in Dutch industries for the period 2007–2012, and investigate whether there is a role for ICT intensity in explaining differences across industries. Moreover, we relate ICT intensity to various distributional characteristics of firm performance, such as the dispersion of labor productivity and turnover, concentration and turbulence of market shares, and the efficiency of resource allocation. In the first part of the paper we follow a decomposition approach, whereas in the second part we apply a regression based analysis. The results suggest that productivity growth is higher in ICT production and industries with high ICT usage, but that ICT also increases differences in firm performance and leads to concentration of markets. In addition, there is evidence that markets are more efficient in ICT intensive industries.     

To protect and collect: a nationwide study of profit-motivated police crime

This study is part of a larger research project on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those criminal offenses committed by sworn law enforcement officers who have the general powers of arrest. Profit-motivated police crime involves officers who use their authority of position to engage in crime for personal gain. This study reports the findings on 1,591 cases where a law enforcement officer was arrested for one or more profit-motivated crimes during the seven-year period 2005–2011. The profit-motivated arrest cases involved 1,396 individual officers employed by 782 state, local, special, constable, and tribal law enforcement agencies located in 531 counties and independent cities in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Our data is the first systematic study of profit-motivated police crime. The study describes the nature of this form of police misconduct in terms of several dimensions, including the characteristics of police who perpetrate these crimes, where it occurs, the specific criminal charges, and the contexts within which profit-motivated police crime is punished through police agencies and the criminal courts.     

An open trial of an anger management treatment in a correctional facility: preliminary effectiveness and predictors of response

Despite the prevalence of anger management programs in correctional settings, there is mixed support for their effectiveness, and little is known about who benefits most. This preliminary study aimed to (1) evaluate the effectiveness of anger management for inmates, and (2) examine baseline psychopathology and midtreatment variables as response predictors. Participants were 30 incarcerated men undergoing 12-session anger management groups. Post-intervention, inmate-reported anger, and disciplinary actions decreased. Increased reported emotion regulation strategies predicted anger reduction.     

Court Sentencing Patterns for Environmental Crimes: Is There a “Green” Gap in Punishment?

Objectives

This study examines sentencing patterns for environmental crimes and tests the assumption that “green” offenders receive more lenient treatment from criminal courts than non-environmental offenders.

Methods

We present two sets of analyses. First, we present an empirical portrait of environmental felony offenses convicted in a single state (Florida) over a fifteen-year period and the resulting criminal sanctions. Second, we use a precision matching analysis to assess whether environmental offenders receive more lenient treatment when compared to non-environmental offenders with the same characteristics and offense severity scores.

Results

Findings indicate that an overall small percentage of felony convictions in state courts stem from environmental crimes. We also find that punishments for environmental crimes are more lenient than sanctions assigned to comparable non-environmental offenses when the environmental crime is ecological, but that punishments are sometimes harsher when the environmental crime involves animals.

Conclusions

The findings provide general support for the argument that courts and other formal institutions of social control treat environmental crimes more leniently than non-environmental crimes. This paper also raises important questions about citizen and state actors’ perceptions of crimes against the environment and, more generally, about the ways in which theories of court sentencing behaviors apply to environmental crime sanctioning decisions.