REVIEWS

Beyond Complacency; Administrative Law (Fifth Edition). By H. W. R. Wade. Principles of Public International Law. Third Edition. By Ian Brownlie. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Jeremy Bentham. Edited by J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. Courts, Prosecution, and Conviction. By M. McConville and J. Baldwin. Making Good: Prisons, Punishment and Beyond. By Martin Wright.     

Consistency in policy thinking

This study examines consistency in opinion on a variety of important state and national policy questions. The data come from a two-wave panel study of adult Floridians conducted in 1981 and 1982. Wide variations in consistency of opinion over the 1-year period are found. Salience has an important impact on consistency, with respondents who find an issue salient almost always exhibiting more consistent opinions, but salience cannot explain the variations in consistency across issues. The level of government on which the issue is focused (national or state) has no bearing on consistency. Most important, the particular nature of the issue itself, especially how central it is to the individual and how long it has occupied the political agenda (maturity), affects consistency of opinion. Centrality and maturity both contribute to issue attitude consistency and even can compensate for one another. Both highly central new issues and remote old issues can produce consistent attitudes, but deficiences in centrality seem to override issue maturity. These findings illustrate the value of looking beyond opinion distributions to the meaning of the survey response. With information on consistency and its sources, the public opinion analyst can interpret polling results intelligently, and the study of public opinion can become more objective and scientific.     

The RECON typology of stalking: reliability and validity based upon a large sample of North American stalkers

A new typology of stalking, RECON (relationship and context-based), is proposed, based upon the prior relationship between the pursuer and the victim, and the context in which the stalking occurs. The static typology yields four groups: Intimate, Acquaintance, Public Figure, and Private Stranger. The typology was tested on a large (N = 1005) nonrandom sample of North American stalkers gathered from prosecutorial agencies, a large police department, an entertainment corporation security department, and the authors' files. Interrater reliability for group assignment was 0.95 (ICC). Discriminant validity (p < 0.01) was demonstrated on a variety of demographic, clinical, pursuit, threat, and violence characteristics among and between groups. Findings confirm and extend the work of other researchers, most notably the very high risk of threats and violence among prior sexually intimate stalkers, the very low risk of threats and violence among public figure (celebrity) stalkers, and the negative relationship between stalking violence and psychosis.     

Evaluating the accuracy and precision of cranial morphological traits for sex determination

Sex determination is a key analysis that forensic anthropologists perform in order to construct a biological profile of human remains. The techniques used in forensic investigations must meet the Mohan or Daubert criteria, for admissibility in a court of law. In this study, the precision and accuracy of 21 morphological characteristics of the skull were tested on a modern sample of 50 adult crania of European White ancestry. The following craniofacial features are identified as high-quality traits, defined by intraobserver error or=80%: mastoid size, supraorbital ridge size, general size and architecture, rugosity of the zygomatic extension, size and shape of the nasal aperture, and gonial angle. Ninety-six percent accuracy and 92% precision were achieved using 20 traits in combination. Fisher's exact probability tests revealed no significant differences (p=0.05) in the levels of precision or accuracy between age categories. Sex-related bias in accuracy was found for the following cranial features: ramus symphysis (p=0.009), zygomatic extension (p=0.0016), and occipital markings (p=0.0013). These traits demonstrated a greater tendency to be scored male than female.     

Use of aquatic insects in determining submersion interval

Although its potential is great, the use of aquatic insects in determining submersion intervals at death-scene investigations has not been exploited in the past. Aquatic environments have no known true specific indicator species, as do terrestrial habitats. However, aquatic environmental studies show that organisms may colonize a substrate dependent on factors such as size, position, exposure to current, water temperature, current speed, water depth, the presence of algal communities, or detritus. Certain aquatic insects such as the chironomid midges (Diptera, Chironomidae), and the caddisflies (Trichoptera), are capable of colonizing immersed bodies; and with the known biology of a specific species of insect for a certain geographic area, time intervals of submersion can be established.