Promoting Muslims’ Willingness to Report Terror Threats to Police: Testing Competing Theories of Procedural Justice

The heightened threat of terrorism in the West has resulted in more power being granted to police. However, new anti-terror laws and heavy-handed policing practices can stigmatize Muslim communities. Using survey data from 800 Australian Muslims this paper examines whether procedural justice policing in counter-terrorism enhances Muslims’ feelings of social inclusion, and promotes their intentions to report terror threats to police. Of interest is how procedural justice influences Muslims who feel less socially included. Three competing theoretical frameworks differ in the predictions they make about when and why procedural justice influences excluded groups. This paper considers each framework and discusses how each explains the relationships between our variables of interest. Our findings show that procedural justice is positively associated with social inclusion and intentions to report terror threats to police. Findings also show that social inclusion both moderates and partially mediates the effect of procedural justice on reporting intentions.     

Health characteristics of older police custody detainees in London,UK

The number of older adults involved in the criminal justice system is rising. Little is known about the state of health in older people who are arrested. This study compared characteristics and health care needs of older police custody detainees with their younger counterparts. The health characteristics of 57 police detainees aged over 50 were compared with 543 younger detainees. Older detainees had significantly higher rates of physical illness and risk of alcohol withdrawal. Although there were equivalent rates of mental disorder and drug taking compared with younger detainees, a higher proportion had presentations consistent with cognitive impairment due to possible dementing processes. Over 80% of older detainees were recommended to have a health assessment in police stations based on their presentation. Police detainees over 50 should be considered to have a health assessment as routine procedure. Further investigation should also be conducted into cognitive impairment in this group.     

Incorporating index offence analysis into forensic clinical assessment

Purpose. Assessment is a core skill of clinical and forensic psychology practice and forms the basis of all ongoing engagements with offender/patients. In forensic settings, assessment involves the systematic gathering of reliable data on the characteristics of offenders and the offences which they have committed in order to develop understanding of the dynamics of offending and relevant intervention strategies. However, whilst the assessment process is aided by various protocols, no such instrument appears to exist for the assessment of an offender/patient's index offence. This paper presents a draft ‘index offence analysis guide’ designed by the present authors for this purpose and which has been piloted on prisoners and patients in secure settings. Argument. Evidence suggests that for various reasons, many clinicians do not routinely review crime scene data while working with offenders. However, this practice is arguably questionable, because how can decisions about admission, amenability to treatment, risk of reoffending, and discharge be made if there is limited awareness of what the offender/patient has done? The present authors argue that knowledge of the index offence is important to understanding the offender and suggest this can be obtained using a guide such as the one presented here. This is illustrated with an anonymous case. Conclusion. Index offence analysis should be a core task of any forensic clinician engaged in the assessment of offender/patients as it can provide a better understanding of crime scene actions and offence motivations. This can help guide treatment planning and improve risk assessments.     

Beyond griefing: Virtual crime

Because there is so much money involved in virtual worlds these days, there has been an increase in criminal activity in these worlds as well. The gaming community calls people who promote conflict “griefers”. Griefers are people who like nothing better than to kill team-mates or obstruct the game’s objectives. Griefers scam, cheat and abuse. Recently, they have begun to set up Ponzi schemes. In games that attempt to encourage complex and enduring interactions among thousands of players, “griefing” has evolved from being an isolated nuisance to a social disease. Much in the same way crime has become the real world’s social disease. Grief is turning into crime.     

Emotional responsiveness in convicted fraudsters: a study on baseline activation of the anterior insula and its influence on moral decision-making

Low emotional responsiveness promotes utilitarian decision-making on moral dilemmas. Based on the assumption that fraudsters use their emotional competence to deceive their victims, their emotional responsiveness is not expected to be protective against utilitarian decision-making. The present study investigates the key role of emotional responsiveness in relation to moral decision-making in 11 imprisoned fraudsters, 10 imprisoned violent offenders, and 11 non-offenders. Participants’ neural baseline activation of bilateral anterior insula (AI) was used as an indicator for emotional responsiveness. Results indicate that fraudsters and non-offenders have a higher right AI baseline activation than violent offenders. Yet, fraudsters and violent offenders show a stronger tendency towards utilitarian decisions than non-offenders. The predictive power of AI baseline activation on moral decision-making reaches significance only for fraudsters. Results give evidence that fraudsters are highly sensitive to their emotional state of mind, which, contrary to our expectation, exerts a strong influence on their moral decisions.     

Framing and perceptions of stalking: the influence of conduct severity and the perpetrator–target relationship

Research has demonstrated that the way in which questions are presented (i.e. framed) has the capacity to influence responses to subsequent questions. In the context of stalking, perception research has often been framed in terms of whether or not particular behaviours constitute stalking. The current research investigates whether the framing of the opening question (question frame), conduct severity and the perpetrator–target relationship influence perceptions of stalking. Two studies employed experimental 3×3 independent factorial designs: one to examine question frame and conduct severity, the other to examine question frame and the perpetrator–target relationship. Participants in both studies (total N=449) were presented with vignettes and asked to answer six questions relating to the behaviour described. Question frame was found to impact on the classification of behaviour, with a greater proportion of participants indicating that the behaviour represented harassment or stalking rather than an illegal act. Consistent with previous research, conduct severity and the perpetrator–target relationship influenced perceptions of stalking. However, there was no evidence to suggest that the framing of the opening question influenced these perceptions. The implications of these findings for previous perception research are discussed.     

Optimisation of choline testing using Florence Iodine reagent,including comparative sensitivity and specificity with PSA and AP tests

The detection of semen in forensic science is essential in cases of sexual assault but can be problematic in the absence of spermatozoa. Choline is known to occur in high concentrations in seminal fluid and the Florence Iodine test for its detection has been used in forensic science for many years, however very little is documented regarding its sensitivity and specificity in forensic casework. This paper describes the optimisation of the choline Florence Iodine test (FI) and investigates the sensitivity and specificity of the test against different body fluids, food and drink substances, cleaning products and laboratory chemicals. Comparative testing against Acid Phosphatase (AP) and Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA Seratec®) tests is described and shows that the FI test has greater specificity than the PSA test which cross reacts with a number of body fluids.     

A study of stranger rapists from the English high security hospitals

Abstract

Heterogeneity hinders our understanding of sexual violence; but does this problem extend to stranger rape and, if so, would the construction of homogeneous subtypes advance our understanding of this crime and aid criminal investigations and clinical practice? To answer these questions, 41 stranger rapists from the English high security hospitals were examined using version 3 of the Massachusetts Treatment Centre rapist typology (MTC:R3) and multidimensional scaling (MDS). The MTC:R3 suggested that sexual desire and opportunism were the primary motivations for these men, but that proportionately more psychopaths were violent and sadistic. In accordance with previous research, the men experienced problematic childhoods and displayed high rates of criminality and psychiatric morbidity in adulthood. However, MDS found that rapist histories and offence behaviours generally divide into sexual and violent themes. These results have important implications for theory, criminal investigations and clinical practice.     

Bicameralism and policy performance: The effects of cameral structure in Comparative Perspective

This article addresses the relationship between cameral structure and policy performance in the member states of the OECD for the time period from 1971 to 1996. The empirical analysis shows that bicameral structures act as a significant brake on government intervention and on the expansion of the welfare state. Furthermore, bicameralism is a powerful veto player to block reforms in economic and financial policy. With the exception of the over-representation of small and sparsely populated areas, none of the advantages that classical political theory ascribes to second chambers has actually been confirmed. Bicameral structures pose no barrier to executive dominance, nor do they promote stability within political systems or improve the quality of democracy or economic performance. On the contrary, with regard to social representation, they have a strong negative effect: in comparison to systems with a single chamber, bicameralism significantly reduces women's electoral success.     

Towards a new semiotics of landmark knowledge

This paper proposes to reconsider the relation between language, truth and knowledge, based on an integrational semiology as developed by Roy Harris: at its centre of interest is the question of what it is to know the name of a landmark, and how that in turn relates to the general concept of landmark knowledge. It is claimed here that previous research interested in referential talk involving landmarks adopted a “mythological” view of language and communication, which leads to conflating knowledge with verbal displays of knowledge. Taking the present author's fieldwork in Bellinzona, the capital of Italian-speaking Switzerland, as a case in point, it is argued that by generating communicational situations where informants are unaware of being objects of study and can no longer rely on an “ideal” (and idealized) name–referent relationship (i.e. for each object there is one “proper” name), it becomes possible to understand reference as an integrational process (rather than as a form of linguistic knowledge), which in turn lends further support to the notion of knowledge as integration.