What do forensic analysts consider relevant to their decision making?

In response to research demonstrating that irrelevant contextual information can bias forensic science analyses, authorities have increasingly urged laboratories to limit analysts' access to irrelevant and potentially biasing information (Dror and Cole (2010) [3]; National Academy of Sciences (2009) [18]; President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (2016) [22]; UK Forensic Science Regulator (2015) [26]). However, a great challenge in implementing this reform is determining which information is task-relevant and which is task-irrelevant. In the current study, we surveyed 183 forensic analysts to examine what they consider relevant versus irrelevant in their forensic analyses. Results revealed that analysts generally do not regard information regarding the suspect or victim as essential to their analytic tasks. However, there was significant variability among analysts within and between disciplines. Findings suggest that forensic science disciplines need to agree on what they regard as task-relevant before context management procedures can be properly implemented. The lack of consensus about what is relevant information not only leaves room for biasing information, but also reveals foundational gaps in what analysts consider crucial in forensic decision making.     

Competing Norms and Strategic Visions: A Critical Appraisal of V4 Security Potential

Abstract

Despite shared historical experience and cultural proximity, the Visegrad group (V4) struggles to institutionalise its cooperation through stable mechanisms ensuring internal cohesion and external credibility. This is especially evident in the field of security and defence, which requires a shared strategic vision, in particular, common norms regarding the legitimate use of military force. While in the 1990s the four countries exhibited solidarity and unity in their collective ambition under the narrative of the ‘Return to Europe’, their general perception of security threats and strategic culture prevents deeper integration into a security community.     

Directors’ duties under the 2019 Companies Act of Ghana

The scope of directors’ duties forms perhaps the most important part of corporate governance. This paper considers the trajectory of the regulation of directors’ duties under Ghanaian company law from the Companies Act, 1963 (Act 179) to the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992). Using the 2017 to 2019 financial institutions’ insolvencies in Ghana as a backdrop, it considers whether the scope, formulation and structure of directors’ duties within the new legislation is capable of promoting corporately-beneficial director behaviour. It also discusses whether the framework is apt to deal with similar lapses in corporate governance marked by reckless and opportunistic director behaviour. It discovers that Act 992 places a greater reliance on specific rules while retaining the largely principles-based regulatory technique adopted for regulating director conduct under Act 179. The overall tenor of the framework of directors’ duties under the new Act points to a firmer legislative view of the serious consequences of reckless director conduct. The paper concludes that the language of the framework regulating director conduct is capable of promoting corporately beneficially director behaviour and is also apt to deal with the kind of lapses in corporate governance which led to mass financial sector insolvencies in Ghana.     

Bringing the Falklands/Malvinas Home: Young People's Everyday Engagements with Geopolitics in Domestic Space

This paper draws on recent research examining feminist and everyday geopolitics to focus on the relatively neglected domestic sphere as a space where geopolitical events like the Falklands/Malvinas war are learnt, (re)produced, remembered and contested by young people. It presents qualitative data drawn from interviews with young people from Argentina (Río Gallegos) and the Falkland Islands (Stanley), locations with intimate connections to the 1982 war. It argues that research in domestic environments that engages the familial relations, objects and practices that embody geopolitical pasts can help make sense of how young people (are able to) express geopolitical agency.     

Speaking of Justice: A Qualitative Interview Study on Perceived Procedural Justice Among Defendants in Dutch Criminal Cases

Qualitative interviews with one hundred defendants in Dutch criminal cases examine whether perceived procedural justice is a relevant concern for defendants, and, if so, which procedural justice components they refer to. The study provides a point of epistemological departure from the quantitative studies dominating the field, as it assessed which components of procedural justice (if any) respondents put forward themselves rather than asking about predetermined procedural justice components. The large majority of respondents mentioned procedural justice issues themselves, and six components were at the core of their procedural justice perceptions: (1) information on which decisions are based, (2) interpersonal treatment, (3) due consideration, (4) neutrality, (5) voice, and (6) accuracy. Although these procedural justice components largely correspond with the literature, respondents thus mentioned some components more often, and others less often, than the literature would suggest. In particular, neutrality plays an important role in the Dutch legal context examined here.     

Assessing the Performance of the Price Cap Plan for Local Exchange Carriers in the United States

In 1991 the FCC implemented a price cap plan for local exchange carriers' interstate access service designed to deal with the regulatory boundaries problem arising from the breakup of AT&T in 1984. The experience with the price cap plan demonstrates the difficulty of predicting productivity growth accurately and makes clear that regulators cannot depend upon a pure price cap plan to keep prices within a reasonable range of costs. With periodic reviews to readjust plan parameters, however, a price cap plan can maintain the rate-of-return close to the target rate-of-return without diminishing the price cap plan's incentives for efficient production. A simple method of recalculating the X-factor based on the rate-of-return over the previous three years worked well in simulations. If this procedure had been used over the price cap period 1991 to 2000, prices would have been 20 percent lower and expenditures on LECs' telecommunications service subject to a price cap would have been $3.8 billion lower.     

The Effect of Negotiation Practices on the Relationship between Suppliers and Customers

This article examines the effects of negotiation practices, such as coercion and contract formality, on how suppliers and customers perceived the resulting business relationship. We conducted a purchasing negotiation simulation with students in a classroom setting in which participants competed for resources in a mock supply-chain context. The participants were surveyed at key stages of the ongoing negotiation in order to measure their behaviors as a customer–supplier relationship developed. The data were used to test several hypotheses developed from the marketing and purchasing literature. The hypotheses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results demonstrated that the use of coercive techniques by negotiators during negotiation had a negative effect on satisfaction. In addition, the findings showed that, as expected, negotiators entering a negotiation with a cooperative orientation would tend to avoid the use of coercive practices during negotiation. The cooperative orientation also exhibited an unexpected positive effect on the formalization of the design of the contract between the parties. This study contributes to the current knowledge base focusing on the creation of agreements between companies and will, we hope, encourage the integration of suppliers and customers in an operating context within a supply-chain setting.