How do offenders move through the stages of change?

This study sought to investigate the way in which offenders moved through the stages of change. The University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale (URICA) was administered to a group of general offenders (N = 371) who participated in the Short Motivational Programme (SMP), a brief motivational interviewing programme administered to medium-risk offenders in New Zealand. The offenders' URICA responses were subjected to a cross-lagged panel analysis using structural equation modelling. Four models specifying different prospective associations between stage engagements were examined. It was hypothesised that there would be support for sequential transitions through the stages as proposed by the Stages of Change model. However, the analysis rendered support for and against sequential transitions, in that offenders regressed to earlier stages or skipped a stage post-SMP. Offenders who skipped to an adjacent stage after the SMP may have actually passed through an intermediary stage during the intervention, and those who regressed to an earlier stage post-SMP may have gained a more realistic awareness of their problem behaviour. This finding also raises questions about the practical utility of the model with offenders and highlights the need for more rigorous studies investigating the way offenders move through the stages of change.     

Locke, Hegel, and the Economy

Peter Lawler’s insightful critique of American individualism offers many important lessons, but his diagnosis of our economic situation is overly optimistic. Indeed, “big government” is more of a problem than Lawler suggests. This essay draws on two central figures of Lawler’s analysis—Locke and Hegel—to explore the problems that individualism poses for modern political economy. Although individualism is unlikely to make the regulatory state or welfare state wither away, the psychology of individualism confirms the importance of cultivating forms of recognition beyond economic life.     

Young Children’s Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence: Towards a Developmental Risk and Resilience Framework for Research and Intervention

This article employs a developmental risk and resilience framework to examine the impact of exposure to intimate partner violence on young children, particularly those facing economic hardship. In doing so, it reviews and weaves together two separate literatures, one on emotional and behavioral development in high-risk settings and the other on children exposed to adult domestic violence. The article ends by pointing to the need for further research and the promise that early interventions hold for helping children who are exposed to intimate partner violence and living in poverty.

Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Berber and Arabic-speaking populations from Morocco

Twelve Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs), DYS19, DYS385, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS388, DYS426 and DYS439 were typed in Berber-speaking (n=49) and Arabic-speaking (n=60) population samples from Morocco.     

Direct‐to‐Consumer Genetic Testing,Gamete Donation,and the Law

Once thousands of dollars, direct‐to‐consumer (DTC) genetic testing has become affordable and readily accessible in recent years. The technology can reveal a wealth of information to consumers: health risks, ancestry composition, and connections to genetic matches through relative databases. However, the law has not yet regulated many aspects of this new technology. This article analyzes how the law should regulate DTC genetic testing within the context of gamete donation. It will argue that gamete donors’ privacy interests warrant state regulation of DTC genetic testing kits and their associated genetic relative databases. It will also explore how state regulation should balance the competing interests of gamete donors and of donor‐conceived individuals.     

Individuality of human palatal rugae

Investigators have implied that palatal rugae are unique to each individual. However, these researchers have disagreed as to whether or not legal identification could be based solely on palatal rugae. Previous studies used poor duplicating materials and may not have considered the effects of growth, extractions, palatal expansion, or some combination of these. The inadvertent use of other features of the cast, such as teeth, edentulous ridge morphology, muscle attachments, vestibular depth, or some combination of these, to aid in the identification, may have influenced their results. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if palatal rugae can be relied upon for identification. Twenty-five orthodontic cases were selected with pre- and post-treatment casts; orthodontic treatment had taken eighteen to sixty months. One hundred casts were randomly selected as variables. All casts were trimmed so that all areas except for the rugae area of the hard palate were removed. The twenty-five post-orthodontic casts were dispersed within 100 randomly selected casts. Nine investigators were given the twenty-five pre-orthodontic casts and asked to compare them to the other one hundred and twenty-five casts for possible matches. Data were collected as to percentage of correct matches and time required for comparison. Each set of pre- and post-orthodontic casts was properly identified (100%) by 8 investigators, and the remaining investigator correctly matched 22 out of 25 casts (88%). These conclusions were drawn.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)