Hyperbolic Time Discounting, Offender Time Preferences and Deterrence

Objectives

This study examines the phenomena of intertemporal decision making??decisions involving costs and benefits that occur at different points in time. Two models of intertemporal time discounting are the exponential and hyperbolic models. Previous work in behavioral economics and psychology is relied on to make the case that the discounting of delayed outcomes (both gains and losses) may be hyperbolic rather than exponential.

Methods

Data were collected from 478 university undergraduate students who responded to a hypothetical scenario involving drunk driving. The potential gains and losses of drunk driving were delayed at five different intervals from ??tonight?? to ??10?years from now??, respondents were also asked to provide estimates of both the risk they would get caught if they did drink and drive and the probability that they would drink and drive under the conditions described in the scenario.

Results

Our results imply that individuals have hyperbolic time preferences for both rewards and gains, and that??unlike severity, the effect of which may be muted by risk??these discount functions appear to be operating independently of changes in the risk certainty of detection. Consistent with hyperbolic discounting, for example, when the benefit of drinking and driving was delayed by 1?week the self-reported intention to drink and drive increased by nearly 10%, however, when the gain was delayed by one month, intentions to drink and drive increased by only 4%. A smaller effect was found for delayed costs.

Conclusions

Avenues for additional research include the possibility of negative discount rates and the implications of persons?? awareness of their discount rates.     

Nationalist Protests,Government Responses,and the Risk of Escalation in Interstate Disputes

While the existing literature emphasizes that elites often have incentives to pander to nationalist sentiment, much less attention has been paid to elite efforts to subdue popular nationalism, either to avoid domestic instability or international escalation. This article examines how different governments respond to nationalist protests and the resulting effects on the risk that interstate disputes will escalate to armed conflict. We argue that government responses to nationalist protests tend to vary in patterned ways across regime types. Nationalist protests present particular dangers in weakly institutionalized democracies, where demonstrations often pose serious threats of instability but are difficult or costly for the government to subdue, tempting or forcing leaders to escalate to appease domestic critics. We illustrate the theory with four cases representing a range of regime types: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines.     

Use of the MMPI-2 Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales in Detecting Criminal Malingering

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of criminal malingering on the MMPI-2 Restructured Clinical (RC) scales. Sixty undergraduate students were given the MMPI-2 twice. One administration was conducted according to the MMPI-2 manual, and the other was given with a special set of malingering instructions specific to a prison setting. The two MMPI-2 profiles for each participant were scored for both the Basic and RC scales. Eight participants were eliminated from the data analysis due to validity (VRIN or TRIN) concerns. Data from the remaining 52 participants were analyzed using a 2 × 2 repeated measures ANOVA. Results showed that, as expected, the participants achieved higher MMPI-2 scores in the malingering condition. Also, participants achieved higher scores overall on the Basic scales and a significant interaction showed that participants achieved higher scores on the Basic Scales in the malingering condition than on the RC scales in that condition. These results supported prior research, indicating that malingerers produce elevated RC profiles. However, the present results also suggest that the Basic scales may be more effective in actually detecting malingerers, mainly due to the much lower ceiling on the RC scaled scores. Further implications of these findings for research and clinical work are also discussed.     

Singapore justice

Singapore was brought to the world's attention in the spring of 1994, when it sentenced Michael Fay to six lashes with a cane. Many debated the issues presented by that case and there were many half‐truths released about Singapore and the eighteen year old male from Ohio. This research does not raise the issues of caning or corporal punishment. Rather, the research was done to explore ‘'Justice in Singapore'’ and how its system of justice really operates.

More specifically, this research will focus on this city‐state consisting of many divergent peoples, races, cultures, languages, and its thriving economy. The major part of the research focuses on crime related matters. The research compares U.S. and Singapore crime rates, and has found the overall U.S. rates to be 200% to 380% higher in the 1980s. Violent crime rates for ten years were also compared, and the U.S. rates range from 749% to 1,405% higher than Singapore. The paper also examines the ‘'drug problem'’ in Singapore and its response to it.

The last section of this paper explores why there is generally very strong support for police in Singapore (little corruption and few acts of police brutality). The court structure was also explored and an analysis has been done on how it functions. Lastly, the prison system is examined and its operations are presented. Justice in Singapore works very well, but it is also very different from other nations of the world.     

“We All Have to Eat”: Experiential Learning in Courses on Food and Hunger

Community-based learning offers students the opportunity to understand important concepts through their own experiences. Two courses on food and hunger in society, one a first-year seminar of 12 students and one an upper-level psychology course of 20 students, made site visits to local farms, markets, and a soup kitchen while reading about the issues and discussing them in class. At the end of the semester, each student wrote a short self-evaluation in which they were invited to discuss the aspects of the course that affected them most. Student responses suggest that the experiential component of the course was disproportionately powerful, impelling many of them to make changes in their lives as a result.     

Moving Beyond North–South Theatre

The North–South divide is counterproductive to the generation of norms and policies geared toward ensuring human security in a globalising world. Moreover, developing countries productively abandon Southern solidarity when it is in their perceived interests to do so. This article provides an historical overview of the origins of the geographical labels attached to the two main groups of countries and examines how the various constructed roles on the international stage in the global theatre are played by actors from the two major troupes, North and South. It concludes with some encouraging examples of changed stances within the supposedly ironclad categories.     

The future UN development agenda: contrasting visions,contrasting operations

‘Sustainable development’ – as currently and politically correctly formulated – provides an inappropriate basis on which to frame a future-oriented UN agenda, and risks perpetuating patterns of assistance in which most UN organisations perform poorly and in the shadow of alternative and more able multilateral and bilateral sources. UN operations should take as their point of departure the comprehensive agenda outlined by the two world summits of 2000 and 2005. This agenda recognises the value-based UN as the only universal-membership organisation, which combines the concerns of satisfying human needs while ensuring security, human rights, justice and sound governance. The post-2015 agenda should not look only at development and environment but aspire to what a million global voices canvassed by the UN in ‘the world we want’ campaign are clamouring for.