The effects of visual priming on information processing in child sexual offenders

Abstract

Child sexual offenders are hypothesized to hold offence-supportive beliefs that set them apart from others. The current study seeks support for this view via a cognitive-experimental approach. Child sexual offenders and offender controls were exposed to pictures of semi-clothed children (priming condition) or clothed, mature adults (control condition). Participants then read ambiguous sentences describing children's actions that could be interpreted in a sexualized manner. Next, participants completed a surprise recognition test in which half the sentences were re-presented in an unambiguously sexual form, and half in an unambiguously non-sexual form. Contrary to hypotheses, primed and/or control child sexual offenders did not show a memory bias for sexualized sentences, suggesting that they did not interpret the original sentences in line with offence-supportive beliefs. Results raise questions about whether child sexual offenders universally hold abnormal beliefs that facilitate their offending. Results also highlight the need for further experimental research within this field.     

To Crack or Crumble: Use of the Thin Skull and Crumbling Skull Rules

The psycholegal and medicolegal assessment of injury-related physical and psychological impairments and disabilities is fraught with difficulties, including assessing for physical and psychological risk factors. In the injury litigation context, in Canada, issues related to pre-injury physical and psychological risk factors are best captured by the thin skull and crumbling skull rules. A review of court cases in which these rules have been considered suggests that the rules are not applied consistently. This inconsistency in the application of these rules has contributed to conflicting determinations of cause and damages across trial court, appeal court, and Supreme Court cases. This article provides operational definitions of the thin skull and crumbling skull rules, presents a case that involves a series of court decisions that exemplify the difficulties associated with the application of these rules, and provides recommendations for more effective application of the two rules.     

Left Behind: Boris E. Skvirsky and the Chita Delegation at the Washington Conference, 1921–22

Although the story of the role of the Special Trade Delegation of the Russian short-lived Far Eastern Republic during the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament of 1921–22, seems to be well-known from its many Western accounts published since 1922, a recent search in the records of the Russian Communist Party has uncovered many hitherto unknown or obscure details that shed the light on the fascinating intelligence origins of the secret documentation, which the delegation made public during the conference. Particularly, the Russian records indicate the central role of one of the delegates, Boris Skvirsky, who would be left behind in the United States to become the Soviet unofficial representative and back channel during the years of non-recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States.     

Technology,Reason and Globalisation?—O Brother!

The Coen Brothers' movie O Brother Where Art Thou is a ragbag of intertexts and gags that also pays very serious attention to questions of community and culture, class and race. In tracing the path of the protagonists through De-pression-era Mississippi, it takes its audiences through the experience of social transformation, from superstition and local concerns to a supposedly brave new (global and technological) world. Although the film is set in a distant time and place, it is informed by a very contemporary issue—the politics of technology, and its relation to the forces of globalisation. It is also a film that exemplifies what Certeau describes as the "cleavage which organizes modernity", a cleavage designated by the terms "science" (which is predicated on a law of rationality, and an imperative to explain, control and order) and "culture". We analyse the work of the film by drawing on the writings of Manuel Castells, Arjun Appadurai and Armand Mattelart to trace its explication of the questions of progress and communication in a world increasingly dominated by neo-liberal values.     

Regional Economic Governance: A Technology of Government or Regional Autonomy in New South Wales?

The focus of this paper is on the extent to which emerging forms of regional economic governance may be read as the burgeoning formation of regionally constituted, self-governing communities, and yet, somewhat ambiguously, as a new technology of central government. It begins by considering the distinction between ‘governance’ and ‘government’ and the extent to which current regional economic governance practices in the state of New South Wales, Australia, hold the promise of regional autonomy. With reference to the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault, a brief history is sketched of government rationality, indicating how the historically changing aims of government implicate various concomitant technologies. With this in mind, it is argued that contemporary regional economic governance practices in NSW do not so much reveal a new-found regional autonomy but rather a new technology of government.