Effects of jurors' identification with the victim depend on likelihood of victimization

Courtroom lore suggests that jurors identifying with rape victims will show antidefendant biases, but empirical findings do not unequivocally support this supposition. On theoretical bases, it was predicted that identification with the victim's gender would bias judgment against the defendant when the circumstances of the crime are likely to be encountered in the daily life of the juror or a related potential victim. Parents of female-only (PFs) or of male-only children (PMs) judged defendants in an alleged rape, occurring either in a library, where the victim had engaged in normal routine, or in a street, under unusual and risky conditions. PEs were more conviction-prone and punitive than PMs only for the library case. Findings support theories of defensive attribution (Shaver, 1970) and of attribution of actors and observers (Jones & Nisbett, 1972) but are inconsistent with a variant of defensive attribution (Walster, 1966) based on denial of chance occurrence of threatened harm. The systematic exclusion of jurors with certain characteristics from particular cases based on suppositional criteria is questioned, rigor of juror assessment notwithstanding. It is suggested that research concentrate on discovering the conditions under which biases are, or are not manifested, and on developing means of reducing bias effects in impaneled jurors.     

Schismatics and Sceptics

Santiago Carrillo: ’Eurocommunisme’ et Etat. Flammarion, Paris, 1977. 252 pp. n.p. [English translation published by Lawrence and Wishart, 1977. n.p.].

Fernando Claudin: L'eurocommunisme. Francois Maspero, Paris, 1977. 151 pp. n.p.

Annie Kriegel: Un autre communisme? Hachette, Paris. 1977. 183 pp. n.p.

G. R. Urban, ed. Euro‐communism. Its roots and future in Italy and elsewhere. Maurice Temple Smith, London. 1978. 287 pp. £7.00.

Hermann Vogt. Eurokommunismus. Ein Reader. Berlin Verlag, Berlin. 1978. 224 pp. n.p.     

Strict Liability for Police Nonfeasance? The Kinghan Report on the Riot (Damages) Act 1886

The Riot (Damages) Act 1886 imposes a no‐fault obligation on police forces to compensate owners of property damaged in rioting. Following the riots across England in 2011 an independent Home Office review, the Kinghan Report, concluded that the fundamental principle of the Act should be retained, while the machinery should be modernised. The Report conceives of the Act as a useful, if highly unusual, compensation scheme that may ease socio‐economic problems in riot‐prone areas. This article questions that position. Strict liability offers potential advantages in contentious claims against public authorities, providing an incentive for the police to perform their duty to keep the peace while averting the questioning of police decision‐making that claims in negligence would inevitably require. The best alternative to negligence liability might not be ‘no liability’ (the general position now at common law), or liability based on ‘serious fault’ (as the Law Commission proposed in 2008), but liability without fault.     

Regulating CCTV?: We Can’t Solve Problems by Using the Same Kind of Thinking We Used When We Created Them

This paper considers the lack of a universal CCTV policy across the United Kingdom and Europe and how this apparent omission is being addressed in the context of increased surveillance, and the omnipresence of CCTV in particular. Special attention is paid to the role of academics within the apparently long, drawn-out process of a current move from fragmented to collective regulation. What it seems exists is individual, independent policy that implicates wider legislation. What it seems is desired is a more comprehensive and codified decree. Starting with the issues that underpin CCTV and surveillance in general, this paper acknowledges the opposing arguments that CCTV can be helpful to policing as those that demonstrate how well it can facilitate a means of social control. The paper moves to consider the possibility of a ‘surveillance policy’ applicable and effective for CCTV’s balanced regulation, and discusses the means by which this might be realised, paying special attention to who is involved and to what extent, especially where this involves academic input. Academic input to date is problematized on one hand on account of its arguably narrow scope (source/personnel) and the trends yet ostensible wavering it entails on the other. Therefore, the author’s reservations around the place of academics in the process, especially because they appear to be key to developments, whilst variously demonstrating both influential flippancy and seriousness, lead to the conclusion that there is difficulty with trying to solve the ‘problem’ with the same thinking that created it.     

The role of adolescent physical abuse in adult intimate partner violence

This study's primary aims were to examine whether a sample of young adults, aged 23 to 31, who had been documented as physically abused by their parent(s) during adolescence would be more likely to aggress, both physically and verbally, against their intimate partners compared with nonabused young adults and whether abuse history was (along with other risk factors) a significant predictor of intimate partner physical and emotional violence perpetration or victimization. In this longitudinal study, 67 abused and 78 nonabused adults (of an original sample of 198 adolescents) completed the Modified Conflict Tactics Scale and the Jealousy and Emotional Control Scales. Nonabused comparison adolescents were matched for age, gender, and community income. As adults, participants with abuse histories had significantly higher rates of intimate partner physical violence and verbal aggression than did comparison participants. Multivariate logistic regressions indicated that adults with histories of physical abuse were more than twice as likely to be physically violent and almost six times more likely to be verbally aggressive to their intimate partners than were comparison participants. Having had an alcohol use disorder, being married to or living with a partner, and perceiving one's partner as controlling were also significantly associated with physical violence. Jealousy and feeling controlled by one's partner were also significant predictors of verbal aggression. These findings underscore the importance of preventing adolescent abuse as a means of decreasing the incidence of intimate partner physical violence in adulthood.     

Inmate Attitudes Toward Treatment: Mental Health Service Utilization and Treatment Effects

This study examined inmate attitudes toward treatment, mental health treatment utilization, and treatment effects that maximize treatment effectiveness. Participants consisted of 278 incarcerated male adult offenders from the Kansas Department of Corrections. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that inmate attitudes toward treatment were predictive of the number of mental health treatment sessions (dosage) inmates received. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated positive help-seeking attitudes were associated with institutional behavior (decreased number and severity of disciplinary infractions) and scores on a measure assessing risk for future criminal behavior; however, the amount of mental health treatment an inmate received (treatment dosage) was associated with problematic institutional behavior (i.e., increased severity and number of disciplinary infractions). These results indicated that treatment dosage and behavioral outcomes were impacted by inmate attitudes toward treatment. As a result, correctional psychologists may be better able to predict which inmates will receive the most benefit from services. Implications of these findings for practitioners and policy makers are discussed.     

The problems and possibilities in regulating technological frontiers: the politics of the new anxiety?

The revolution in science, biotechnology and medicine of the past 30 years demands a revisitation of old institutional forms and responses, including those of law itself. Scientific citizenship requires that law develop a moral vision and vocabulary so that we shape the moral dimensions of the emergent bioeconomy. Chief among those in the field of biotechnology are technologies of human reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning and stem cell research using human embryos. Where there are deep pluralist divisions is in relation to therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research. Regulatory flexibility may be opportune in delimiting the extent to which government need stray into this realm of "moral politics". As Brownsword has written, an important developmental vector is what has become known in administrative and public law literature as the concept of "smart regulation". This concept is examined and an attempt to apply it to these fields is made. The enlarged nature of human action -- enlarged in magnitude, reach and novelty -- raises moral issues beyond interpersonal ethics and requires reflection; responsibility is centre stage and calls for lengthened foresight -- what has been called a "scientific futurology". This is also examined.     

Multiple transfers of particulates and their dissemination within contact networks

The application of social network theory to understanding the nature and occurrence of multiple transfers of particulate evidence is demonstrated to be a useful means of identifying the prevalence of such transfers. Four experimental scenarios of increasing complexity empirically demonstrate that this trace particulate evidence exhibits behaviour in accordance with that previously identified for hair and fibre evidence. However, the utilisation of social network concepts is demonstrated to add valuable insights into the behaviour of this form of evidence and is shown to be a useful tool in highlighting the complexity of evidence dynamics. The identification of the networks within which trace evidence is transferred has implications for the robust interpretation of particulate evidence during the process of crime reconstruction.