Another Form of Aboriginal Exemption — Employment as Protection Against Removal

The Queensland Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, which introduced the system of exemption certificates, also initiated another form of “exemption” — one based on employment. The Act permitted “lawfully employed” Aboriginal people to be “excepted” from forcible removal to reserves. Those placed on an Aboriginal reserve faced a restrictive life of disconnection from Country, kin networks, and traditional practices and way of life. Many Aboriginal people found employment in the pastoral industry and thus avoided the Act's provision of removal to a reserve. This paper interrogates government records and reports to provide an understanding of the development and implementation of this legislation and the racial ideologies underpinning it. The 1898 diary of a Queensland pastoralist who employed Aboriginal men on his station is also examined to obtain an understanding of the roles, experiences, and position of Aboriginal people in the pastoral industry during this period. These findings reveal that despite hardships faced in the pastoral industry, Aboriginal people found advantages in this form of employment. Through their highly sought-after pastoral skills and expertise, and strategic engagement with Europeans, Aboriginal people excelled in the pastoral industry, and many achieved significant levels of freedom and success.     

Psychological abuse and posttraumatic stress symptoms in college students

Research suggests that among college students, physical and sexual abuse in intimate relationships are associated with posttraumatic stress. Psychological abuse occurs in intimate relationships among college students, and though there is evidence that such abuse has a negative emotional impact, posttraumatic stress has not been extensively researched as an outcome in this population. The purpose of this study is to determine the associations of past-year psychological abuse with posttraumatic stress symptoms while controlling for other types of past-year relationship abuse and lifetime trauma history. The sample consists of 191 college men and women (81.7% women and 89.5% White). Linear regression analyses demonstrate that trauma history, but not past year relationship violence, is a significant predictor of PTSD symptom severity for women, and neither set of variables significantly predicts PTSD symptom severity for men. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Authoritarianism,Threat, and Americans’ Support for the War on Terror

In the years following 9/11, surveys have revealed high levels of public support for policies related to the war on terror that, many argue, contravene long‐standing American ideals. Extant research would suggest that such preferences result from the activation of authoritarianism. That is, the terrorist attacks caused those predisposed toward intolerance and aggression to become even more intolerant and aggressive. However, using data from two national surveys, we find that those who score high in authoritarianism do not become more hawkish or less supportive of civil liberties in response to perceived threat from terrorism; they tend to have such preferences even in the absence of threat. Instead, those who are less authoritarian adopt more restrictive and aggressive policy stands when they perceive threat from terrorism. In other words, many average Americans become susceptible to “authoritarian thinking” when they perceive a grave threat to their safety.     

Physical attractiveness, issue agreement, and assimilation effects in candidate appraisal

This study examines the cognitive and affective factors of candidate appraisal by manipulating candidate attractiveness and levels of issue agreement with voters. Drawing upon research in evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this analysis proposes that automatic processing of physical appearance predisposes affective disposition toward more attractive candidates, thereby influencing cognitive processing of issue information. An experimental design presented attractive and unattractive candidates who were either liberal or conservative in a mock primary election. The data show strong partial effects for appearance on vote intention, an interaction between appearance and issue agreement, and a tendency for voters to assimilate the dissimilar views of attractive candidates. We argue that physical appearance is important in primary elections when the differences in issue positions and ideology between candidates is small.     

Shifting perspectives: a confirmatory factor analysis of the working alliance inventory (short form) with high-risk violent offenders

The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) is the most widely used measure of the therapeutic alliance. However, previous studies of the factor structure of the WAI have obtained disparate results. This study examined ratings from three rater perspectives (therapists, clients, and observers) in a rehabilitation program for high-risk violent prisoners with high PCL-psychopathy scores. The authors used confirmatory factor analysis with a short version of the WAI and examined one-, two-, and three-factor models. It was hypothesized that the context and client characteristics could alter the factor structure of the ratings. However, no differences were found in factor structure by perspective; the results from all rater perspectives suggested that a two-factor structure was the best fit for the data. Thus, we concluded that therapists, observers, and prisoners all saw the goals and task aspects of the therapeutic alliance as distinct from the bond component.     

Residential Relegation of Registered Sex Offenders

This study builds on existing research (Hughes and Kadleck 2008; Mustaine et al. 2006a; Tewksbury and Mustaine 2006) that shows registered sex offenders are more likely to live in undesirable and socially disorganized communities. We extend such analyses to a geographically and demographically different community and employ more sophisticated measures of social disorganization concepts to assess the validity of the claim that registered sex offenders are relegated to socially disorganized communities. Data from Orange County, Florida, including measures of violent crime and the social disorganization concepts of concentrated disadvantage, residential instability and immigrant concentration are used to examine the distribution of residential locations for registered sex offenders. Results show that higher concentrations of sex offenders are found in communities with more concentrated economic disadvantage, more residential instability and higher rates of robbery and child sexual abuse. Implications of these findings for public policy are discussed.     

The effect of weight on the femur: a cross-sectional analysis

This study assessed whether obesity significantly affects femoral shape. Femora of 121 white men were divided into two weight classes based on body mass index (BMI) of the deceased. Five external anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) measurements were taken at consistent percentages of diaphyseal length. These were then subject to statistical tests. After controlling for age, multivariate statistics show a significant (p<0.05) effect of BMI on the femur, with the greatest significance in ML measurements. T-tests confirm these dimensions are significantly larger in the overweight (p<0.05). The effect of BMI on size-transformed and shape-transformed variables was also evaluated, with ANOVA results showing a significant BMI effect on ML size (p<0.05), but not shape. Significant size-transformed ML variables were then subject to discriminate function analyses with a cross-validation correction. Results show a correct classification rate of 88% in normal weight and 77% in overweight individuals.     

A case of extreme agitation and death after the use of mephedrone in The Netherlands

A 36-year old man, having injured himself severely by smashing windows in a rage of fury, was arrested by the police. He died despite resuscitation attempts. The forensic autopsy showed many superficial skin lacerations, bruises and minor brain swelling, but there was no definitive cause of death. Toxicological analysis showed a high concentration of mephedrone in femoral blood (5.1mg/L) and traces of cocaine, MDMA and oxazepam. The remaining dose of mephedrone in the stomach contents was estimated at 113 mg. Tablets that were found in the house of the deceased also contained mephedrone. We attribute this man's death to a fatal oral intake of mephedrone, which probably led to a state of excited delirium. This was aggravated by blood loss from multiple wounds.