Sidetracked by emotion: Observers’ ability to discriminate genuine and fabricated sexual assault allegations

Purpose. Assessing the credibility of reports of sexual victimization – often in the absence of corroboration – presents a significant challenge for legal decision makers. This study examined the accuracy of observers in discriminating genuine and fabricated sexual assault allegations. Further, we examined whether individual differences and cue utilization strategies influenced deception detection accuracy. Methods. Observers (N= 119) evaluated eight (four truthful and four deceptive) written allegations of sexual assault (counterbalanced), and completed a Credibility Assessment Questionnaire (CAQ) and individual differences measures. Results. Results indicated that overall accuracy was below chance (M= 45.3%), and a truth bias was evidenced. Examining the Big Five personality traits, we found that openness to experience and neuroticism were positively associated with accuracy, whereas extraversion was negatively related to accuracy. Further, judgement confidence was negatively associated with accuracy. Conclusions. The present study offers insights into observers’ perceptions of credibility regarding real‐life sexual assault allegations. Implications for legal decision making are discussed.     

Predicting Phenotype from Genotype: Normal Pigmentation*

Abstract: Genetic information in forensic studies is largely limited to CODIS data and the ability to match samples and assign them to an individual. However, there are circumstances, in which a given DNA sample does not match anyone in the CODIS database, and no other information about the donor is available. In this study, we determined 75 SNPs in 24 genes (previously implicated in human or animal pigmentation studies) for the analysis of single‐ and multi‐locus associations with hair, skin, and eye color in 789 individuals of various ethnic backgrounds. Using multiple linear regression modeling, five SNPs in five genes were found to account for large proportions of pigmentation variation in hair, skin, and eyes in our across‐population analyses. Thus, these models may be of predictive value to determine an individual’s pigmentation type from a forensic sample, independent of ethnic origin.     

The Status of Forensic Anthropology in Europe and South Africa: Results of the 2016 FASE Questionnaire on Forensic Anthropology

One of the goals of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) is to map the existing education and practice opportunities in the field of forensic anthropology in order to support the development of the discipline and to optimize the training courses provided by the Society. To address this goal, an online questionnaire was sent to European and South African practitioners of forensic anthropology and related disciplines in 2016. The results of the questionnaire showed that the status and roles of forensic anthropologists vary depending on the national legal systems, education, and employment status of the practitioners. Despite the fact that the expertise of forensic anthropologists has been increasingly requested in a variety of investigations and the spectrum of tasks has become broader, including identification of living persons, specialized education in forensic anthropology is still restricted to a few graduate and postgraduate programs in European countries and to annual FASE courses.     

Factors Influencing the Filing of Complaints,Their Investigation,and Subsequent Legal Judgment in Cases of Sexual Assault

In Geneva, examination of victims of sexual assault is performed by a gynecologist and a medical examiner. 48% of the victims file a complaint and we wanted to investigate the factors leading to file a complaint, those leading the Prosecutor to go to trial, and those influencing a conviction. Between 2006 and 2012, 676 victims of sexual assault were investigated (averaged age 26 year, mean 22). Information on injuries, perpetrators, and circumstances of the assault was collected and analyzed. The attacker being the ex‐spouse or a friend and the presence of semen were factors leading to file a complaint. The assailant being a family member or ex‐spouse and the presence of genital/anal lesions were factors influencing the Prosecutor. The presence of nongenital lesions, the assailant being known by the victim, influenced conviction. This study shows that the medical examiner plays a vital role in the investigation of cases of sexual assault.     

A response to “what happened to patrol operations in Kansas City?”

Larson's review raises several points concerning the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment. The authors of the evaluation of that experiment respond to each of Larson's criticisms. With reference to Larson's two major points, this response demonstrates that (1) neither Larson's models nor his data are adequate to make statements about “typical patrol intensities” in major American cities and (2) patrol visibility in the reactive areas was markedly decreased over the one-year period of the experiment.The authors agree with Larson and have consistently urged that great caution should be used in generalizing the results of the experiment. The Technical Report itself presents results cautiously and conservatively. Also, large amounts of data comparing Kansas City with other cities are presented in the Report to enable readers to place the kansas City experience in perspective.The authors also agree with Larson that the results of the experiment indicate that police administrators can be more flexible in the allocation of officers than they have been previously. That Larson reaches this conclusion indicates that, despite his minor criticisms of the study which are responded to herein, he basically accepts the results of the experiment.     

POLITICS, INSTITUTIONS, CONSTRUCTIVISM and the EMERGING INTERNATIONAL REGIME for FINANCIAL REGULATION

This article examines the growing number of interconnected international groupings that have been built to regulate global finance over the past quarter century. It suggests that the rationalistic approaches focusing on egoistic actors that have dominated scholarly study of this issue area have contributed to the understimation of the strenght of the regime for regulating global finance. It examines, as an alternative, constructivist approaches that stress the importance of institution.     

Sophocles'Antigone and the History of the Concept of Natural Law

This paper focuses on two related questions. The first of these is a general question. Where are the origins of the concept of natural law to be located in the history of political thought? The second is more specific. Sophocles puts into the mouth of the eponymous heroine of his Antigone an argument justifying her disobedience to an edict of her uncle Creon, who forbade her to bury her brother Polyneices. Does this argument involve an appeal to the concept of natural law? The paper takes issue with the claim, first made by Aristotle in his Rhetoric , that Sophocles' Antigone is indeed an early example of the application of the concept of natural law in political argument and debate. This interpretation of the political message of the Antigone is inconsistent with what we know about Sophocles' attitude towards the fundamental questions of Athenian politics in the classical era of Periclean democracy during the fifth century BC.