Beliefs About Wife Beating Among Arab Men from Israel: The Influence of Their Patriarchal Ideology

Despite the recent increase in public and professional interest in the problem of wife beating in Arab society, in Israel, and in the rest of the Arab world, there is a serious lack of empirical research on different dimensions of the problem in those societies. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted among a systematic random sample of 362 Arab husbands from Israel, in an attempt to examine the contribution of patriarchal ideology toward explaining their beliefs about wife beating. Although about 58% of the participants indicated that there is no excuse for a man to beat his wife, 15–62% still justified wife beating on certain occasions (e.g., adultery, failure to obey husbands, disrespect for parents and relatives). In addition, although the participants tended to perceive abusive and violent husbands as responsible for their behavior, 52% still expressed understanding of that behavior and, on some occasions, 23–43% even blamed the wife for violence against her. Regression and multiple regression analyses revealed that over and above the participants' age and level of education, their masculine sex-role stereotypes, negative and traditional attitudes toward women, nonegalitarian marital role expectations, and familial patriarchal beliefs were the most significant predictors of beliefs about wife beating. Implications of the results and limitations of the study are also discussed.     

Senator Opposition to Supreme Court Nominations: Reference Dependence on the Departing Justice

Research indicates that senators evaluate U.S. Supreme Court nominations on two ideological dimensions: the distance between themselves and the nominee, and the potential effect confirmation would have on the Court median. My analysis of nominations from 1968 to 2006 provides evidence that senators are also influenced by the ideological contrast between the nominee and the departing justice.     

West African Voices

A new literary programme has been started in the West AfricanService of the B.B.C., and this article is a reprint of oneof the talks. The Ibo speaker was formerly in the Customs, andqualified as a barrister last November: he is also the authorof numerous poems in English, and of a novel, The Prince ofUtete. The other two are schoolmasters working as Assistantsat the School of Oriental and African Studies. For technicalreasons, the orthography is not quite complete.     

Reducing lockup crowding with expedited initial processing of minor offenders

This article assesses the effects of one jurisdiction's attempt to control its lockup population through creation of a separate processing center designed to expedite initial processing of individuals charged with misdemeanors and minor felonies. In the new center, cases were screened and initial hearings held around-the-clock, seven days per week. “Before” and “after” samples of arrestees are compared on prosecutorial screening time, time to court, and time in custody. The results show significant reductions in case screening and length of time to initial court hearing. Individuals released on recognizance and those with no charges filed spent significantly less time in custody and saved considerable bed space for the jurisdiction. Individuals with bond set experienced no reductions in length of custody. Collateral consequences of the new facility included improved procedural justice, expanded detention capacity in the county, and an end to part of the federal litigation.     

The use of the laser for determining the direction of the shots and the position of the victim's body in gunshot wounds

In this article a practical case is described when gunshot directions and position of a victim's body at the moment of each shot were determined by natural simulation using an LG-78 laser (made in the form of a gun).     

Dirty tricks of cross-examination

A mock jury study was conducted to test the hypothesis that perceptions of a witness can be biased by presumptuous cross-examination questions. A total of 105 subjects read a rape trial in which the cross-examiner asked a question that implied something negative about the reputation of either the victim or an expert. Within each condition, the question was met with either a denial, an admission, or an objection from the witness's attorney. Results indicated that although ratings of the victim's credibility were not affected by the presumptuous question, the expert's credibility was significantly diminished—even when the question had elicited a denial or a sustained objection. Conceptual and practical implications of these findings are discussed.This research was supported by funds provided to the first author by the Bronfman Science Center.     

The relationship between education, experience, and police performance

This study used data from 299 police officers from 12 municipal police departments across the state of Virginia to determine the relationship between education and police performance. Performance was measured by supervisor evaluations of each officer's overall performance, communication skills, public relations skills, report writing skills, response to new training, decision making ability, and commitment to the police department. Significant correlations were found between education and most measures of performance. Most importantly, the results show a significant correlation between overall performance and education (r=24, p.<001). The only variables not proving to be significantly related to education were objective measures of the volume of arrests, number of times the officer required discipline, and number of accidents. Interestingly, the benefits of a college education do not become apparent until police officers gain experience. In addition, police, officers with only a high school diploma decreased in overall performance after five years of experience.