The association between psychopathic personality traits and health-related outcomes

Purpose

Psychopathy and psychopathic personality traits (PPT) have been linked to a long list of negative life outcomes. To date, however, few studies have provided a systematic analysis of whether psychopathic personality traits contribute to increased health burden. The current study was designed to address this gap in the literature.

Method

This study analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and employed a measure of PPT derived from the five-factor model of personality. Analyses were conducted using OLS, logistic, and Poisson regression techniques.

Results

The results revealed that relatively higher scores on psychopathic personality traits were associated with a slight increase in a wide range of negative health outcomes. These significant associations were detected for both males and females.

Conclusions

We speak to the importance of these findings for the potential to reduce health burden among psychopaths and those who score relatively high on measures of psychopathic personality traits.     

Privacy,stigma and public protection: A socio-legal analysis of criminality information practices in the UK

Criminality information practices involve public authorities in the UK (and elsewhere) gathering, retaining and sharing information that connects with an identifiable individual; all with the ostensible aim of upholding and improving standards of public protection. This piece first charts the landscape of contemporary criminality information practices in the UK today. The article then examines recent legal emphases and policy directions for public protection networks. Consideration is then given in the piece to privacy rights and values and the difficulties in providing an exact typology and grounding for these. The piece then outlines a suggested framework for correct legal regulation, as well as a through commentary on the work done by Catherine Bellamy et al. to empirically determine the extent to which public protection information sharing can in fact occur in correct adherence to legal regulation. A socio-legal analysis is undertaken of the nature of public protection networks as variants on Goffman's performance teams within a dramaturgical routine that foregrounds stigmatisation of perceived ‘risky’ individuals as an aspect of that routine. This piece also explores the processes of institutional isomorphism as a reaction to shifting policy directions and legal doctrines, acting as a driving force towards a hierarchical performance of criminality information practices by public protection networks. Three conclusions are offered up for consideration: firstly, that the growing complexity of the law and regulation relating to criminality information practices might improve privacy values in the criminal justice system and help to add precision to necessary processes of stigmatisation in relation to the aim of public protection. Secondly, that these shifts in the law still need ongoing revisions, in order that a hierarchical approach to criminality information practices can be arrived at over time. Thirdly, that if the permanency of potential stigmatisation through the indefinite retention of criminality information cannot change, due to the competing pressure on the criminal justice system from public protection duties, then consultation with ‘risky’ individuals where practicable, before criminality information connected to them is shared across public protection networks becomes essential as a privacy-enhancing value and practice.     

Introducing Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT)

Abstract

We introduce the latest member of the intelligence family. Joining IMINT, HUMINT, SIGINT and others is ‘SOCMINT’ – social media intelligence. In an age of ubiquitous social media it is the responsibility of the security community to admit SOCMINT into the national intelligence framework, but only when two important tests are passed. First, that it rests on solid methodological bedrock of collection, evidence, verification, understanding and application. Second, that the moral hazard it entails can be legitimately managed. This article offers a framework for how this can be done.     

A Hunter’s Moon: the Effect of Moon Illumination on Outdoor Crime

We use National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data and an AutoRegressive Integrative Moving Average (ARIMA) study design to investigate the effect of moon illumination on reported crime occurring outdoors between the hours of 10 pm to 2 am in 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Prior research analyzed a confounded dependent variable that amalgamated indoor and outdoor crimes. This situation is problematic in that there is little reason to speculate a relationship between moon illumination and indoor crime because artificial illumination is used within dwellings. Findings show that while moon illumination has little influence on total crime and indoor crime, the intensity of moonlight does have a substantive positive effect on outdoor criminal activity. As moon illumination intensifies, outdoor crime increases markedly. Plausible explanations for this relationship are discussed.     

Using indirect questions to detect intimate partner violence: the SAFE-T questionnaire

A screening instrument for detecting intimate partner violence (IPV) was developed using indirect questions. The authors identified 5 of 18 items studied that clearly distinguished victims of IPV from a random group of health conference attendees with a sensitivity of 85% and a specificity of 87%. This 5-item instrument (SAFE-T) was then tested on 435 women presenting to three emergency departments and the results compared to a direct question regarding current abuse. The SAFE-T questions detected only 54% of the women who admitted being abused and correctly classified 81% of the women who said they were not victims. The 1-year prevalence of IPV in this sample of women presenting to an emergency department was 11.6%. The authors conclude that indirect questioning of women appears to be more effective at ruling out IPV in an emergency department population and may be less useful for women "early" in an abusive relationship.     

A novel FTA™ elute card collection method that improves direct DNA amplification from bloodstained concrete

Concrete is a common construction material found in residential and commercial buildings, bridges and parking lots that is a composite matrix containing aggregate held together with cement. The porous nature of concrete can make the collection and genotyping of biological fluids, such as blood, challenging. Forensic evidence can become embedded within the matrix, potentially reducing the amount of DNA available for analysis. In forensic science, “direct” amplification refers to a genotyping method that amplifies a DNA profile directly from a sample without DNA extraction, saving time and money. We investigated a novel application of Whatman? FTA? Elute cards in their ability to directly amplify PowerPlex® Fusion and Y23 profiles from minute amounts of blood that had been deposited on different concrete structures. In comparison to traditional collection methods, directly profiling blood stained construction materials using FTA? Elute cards increased the percentage loci amplified and significantly improved both allele peak height and peak height ratio while reducing allelic drop-out. FTA? Elute cards can provide a reliable, inexpensive and superior alternative to traditional methods.     

Placing the Animal in the Dialogue Between Law and Ecology

This paper explores the growing dialogue between law and ecology, and asks if there is a promising space for the development of animal law in this growing dialogue. Specifically it sets up two meetings and dialogues between ecology and law, one with law prevailing, and one with ecology prevailing, The article pursues the later meeting of ecology and law through introducing and then compiling four prominent groupings in the ecology prevailing dialogue between ecology and law (Ecosystemic Law; Earth Jurisprudence; Resilience Theory; approaches embracing philosophical complexity theory). The article argues that in this dialogue that ecologically informed approaches develop a fundamental critique of orthodox legality, and that ecologically informed approaches consequently assume the problematic of legality, and that in so doing ecology and legality are each transformed. What emerges from these transformations is an ecological jurisprudence, and ideas of Emergent Law, Adaptive Law, and Ecolaw. In the final two sections the article turns directly to the place of the animal in the ecology prevailing dialogue between ecology and law. The article argues that in this dialogue affective assemblage theory has developed as a pre-prepared place for the animal as an affective body in complex social–ecological affective assemblages. The conclusion briefly draws out some of the implications for animal law and animal lawyers in taking up the conclusions from the ecology prevailing dialogue between law and ecology. The article suggests it may well be an exciting dialogue for animal law to find a place for exploration.     

Exploring the dimensions of trust in the police among Chicago juveniles

Youths' opinions about the police matter and can affect officers' ability to perform their duties. The relationship between police officers and youths, however, is often highly strained. Despite the importance of trust in effective police programming, little is known about youngsters' trust in the police and the association between trust and other views and experiences of adolescents. In a quantitative multivariate model, the current study assessed several correlates of Stoutland's (2001) dimensions of police trust in a large sample of Chicago youths. The study examined the relationship between youths' trust in the police and their attitudes, beliefs, experiences, behaviors, and background characteristics. Supportive of Stoutland's (2001) results, the investigation found that trust in the police was a multidimensional construct. The current study also found a relationship between vicarious experiences and trust and evidence for the negativity or asymmetrical bias that has appeared in previous studies of police-citizen contacts.     

The uses and misuses of uneven and combined development: an anatomy of a concept

A central concern of much contemporary Marxist scholarship in international relations (IR) is to internally relate global capitalism and the state system without reducing one of these systems to an epiphenomenon of the other. A recent attempt at this is Justin Rosenberg's reformulation of Leon Trotsky's idea of uneven and combined development (U&CD). This article examines the internal relations of ‘unevenness’ and ‘combination’ as presented by Trotsky and reworked by Rosenberg. From this anatomization of the concept, we focus on the problematic status of U&CD as a transhistorical general abstraction arising from the exchange between Callinicos and Rosenberg (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 22:1 2008, 77–112) and suggest our own possible solution. We argue that while the uneven and combined nature of historical development represents a truly transhistorical phenomenon, its distinct causal determinations, articulated and expressed through inter-societal competition, are only fully activated under the specific socio-historical conditions of generalized commodity production. These theoretical points are illuminated through three specific historical examples (the Meiji Restoration, the ‘Eastern Question’ and the origins of the two World Wars). Finally, we illustrate some of the dangers of analytical overextension found in Rosenberg's own ambiguous use of U&CD.