The Impact of Psychological Injuries on Sexual Harassment Determinations

Although a plethora of studies focus on jury decision making in sexual harassment cases, few studies examine damage award assessments in such suits, and even fewer explore the impact of psychological injury on jurors’ liability and damage award assessments. In the present study, 342 undergraduates read a hostile environment sexual harassment case that manipulated the plaintiff’s psychological injury level (severe vs. mild vs. control) to investigate whether males and females made different damage decisions. Males using a reasonable person standard found more liability as the severity of the plaintiff’s psychological injury increased. However, males using a reasonable woman standard found less liability with the addition of any psychological injury information. Similarly, for mild and severe injuries, males using the reasonable woman standard awarded lower damages than males using the reasonable person standard. Females tended to find more harassment than males, but psychological injury and legal standard had little impact on females’ legal decisions. We discuss these findings in light of the positive relationship often observed between the plaintiff’s injury severity level and pro-plaintiff verdicts.     

Benford's Law for Quality Assurance of Manner of Death Counts in Small and Large Databases

To assess if Benford's law, a mathematical law used for quality assurance in accounting, can be applied as a quality assurance measure for the manner of death determination. We examined a regional forensic pathology service's monthly manner of death counts (N = 2352) from 2011 to 2013, and provincial monthly and weekly death counts from 2009 to 2013 (N = 81,831). We tested whether each dataset's leading digit followed Benford's law via the chi‐square test. For each database, we assessed whether number 1 was the most common leading digit. The manner of death counts first digit followed Benford's law in all the three datasets. Two of the three datasets had 1 as the most frequent leading digit. The manner of death data in this study showed qualities consistent with Benford's law. The law has potential as a quality assurance metric in the manner of death determination for both small and large databases.     

Police Strategies and Suspect Responses in Real-Life Serious Crime Interviews

This research focuses exclusively on real-life taped interviews with serious crime suspects and examines the strategies used and types of questions asked by police, and suspects’ responses to these. The information source was audio-tape-recorded interviews with 56 suspects. These recordings were obtained from 11 police services across England and Wales and were analysed using a specially designed coding frame. It was found that interviewers employed a range of strategies with presentation of evidence and challenge the most frequently observed. Closed questions were by far the most frequently used, and open questions, although less frequent, were found to occur more during the opening phases of the interviews. The frequency of ineffective question types (e.g. negative, repetitive, multiple) was low. A number of significant associations were observed between interviewer strategies and suspect responses. Rapport/empathy and open-type questions were associated with an increased likelihood of suspects admitting the offence whilst describing trauma, and negative questions were associated with a decreased likelihood.     

Effects of genetic and environmental explanations of psychopathy and gender on perceptions of criminal behaviors

Genetic/biological evidence is increasingly introduced into courtrooms but findings regarding its impact are mixed. This study integrates research on psychopathy and the use of genetic evidence in legal contexts by considering how information on genetic causal accounts of psychopathy affect perceptions of culpability, recidivism, amenability to treatment, and sentencing severity. Perpetrator gender was examined as a moderator. Two-hundred thirty-eight undergraduates read a hypothetical violent crime vignette and mock expert testimony regarding psychopathy. The testimony included a diagnosis only, or a diagnosis plus genetic or environmental explanations of the etiology of psychopathy. Results indicated that a genetic account of psychopathy was not clearly perceived as aggravating or mitigating such that participants were more lenient in their perceptions of culpability yet more punitive in their sentencing recommendations when perpetrators were described to have genetically-caused psychopathy. An environmental account of psychopathy was mitigating but only for sentencing severity. In addition, although participants were more lenient in sentencing male and female perpetrators when provided with an environmental cause of psychopathy, participants judged male perpetrators most harshly when provided with a genetic cause of psychopathy. Implications of the relations between etiology and gender in legal decision-making are discussed.     

Teacher victimization,turnover, and contextual factors promoting resilience

Teacher victimization is a relatively understudied phenomenon that may contribute to teacher turnover. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between teacher reports of victimization and teachers leaving their school and the profession. Using nationally representative data (n = 104,840) from the Schools and Staffing Survey, we examine the extent to which being threatened or attacked by students predicts higher rates of teacher turnover and whether this relationship differs due to factors that may promote teacher resilience. We utilize conditional multinomial logistic regression, implicitly controlling for school-by-year fixed effects. Findings suggest that perceived victimization predicts an increased probability of leaving the school and profession. School-level promoters of resilience are found to lessen this relationship. We discuss ways schools can mitigate the impact of victimization. This work contributes to a nascent body of literature on teacher victimization and informs a policy lever by which turnover may be reduced.     

A quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of bike-sharing stations on micro-level robbery occurrence

Objectives

To examine if the implementation of bike-sharing stations is linked to robbery occurrence in micro-level street corner units in Cincinnati, OH, USA.

Methods

Propensity score matching was used to select comparison street corner units. The effect of bike-sharing station implementation on robbery occurrence across weekly, biweekly, and monthly observations was estimated using repeated measures multi-level logistic regression models.

Results

Bike-sharing stations did not statistically significantly link to robbery occurrence in immediate or nearby street corner units after implementation.

Conclusions

Numerous explanations consistent with Crime Pattern Theory may explain the null effect of bike-sharing stations on robbery occurrence. Future research should continue to examine how changes in the urban backcloth, such as bike-sharing stations, impact geographic crime patterns.

     

Our Baby,Her Choices: The Need for Enforcement of Gestational Surrogate Contracts

Many women in the Unites States have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a baby to term. As a result, many couples turn to gestational surrogacy. Surrogacy became public in the United States in the late 1970s. In the mid 1980s, disputes began to arise and are still prevalent today. Courts first attempted to resolve these disputes by looking for public policy guidelines. However, the results were inconsistent. Still today, there is no uniform law. Even in states where surrogate contracts are legal, courts have refused to order specific performance to enforce abortion or reduction provisions. However, courts should not shy away from this. This Note proposes a federal statute mandating that gestational surrogate contracts be enforced thus protecting the rights of intended parents.     

Are we interested? a trend analysis of sex offender internet registries

Traditional research on community awareness and use of sex offender registries relies upon random digit dialing and other survey instruments. While important sources of data, these sources have limitations and attempts to improve on these measures are bound to funding limitations impeding the collection of larger samples. Analyzing internet search query data associated with interest in sex offender registries from 2006–2016, we explore regional and temporal trends associated with interest in sex offender registries. Results substantiate prior research using mail and telephone surveys, and that of other similar methodologies, showing that interest in sex offender registries display low to moderate interest, which are relatively stable overtime and declining in interest.