Multidimensional Bullying Victimization Scale: Development and validation

The prevalence of bullying has increased over the past decade and is a public health concern. Existing measures of bullying lack breadth and/or psychometric support, which may inaccurately represent current rates of bullying. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a psychometrically sound measure, the Multidimensional Bullying Victimization Scale (MBVS), to evaluate bullying in adolescents. An initial pool of items was generated and rated by 600 adolescents. Exploratory factor analyses yielded three factors—direct bulling, indirect bullying, and evaluative bullying. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on independent sample of 623 adolescents, supporting the original three-factor solution. Results indicate that the MBVS demonstrates good internal consistency, construct validity, and concurrent validity. The MBVS scores were significantly and positively correlated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The MBVS provides a reliable and valid assessment of adolescents’ experiences with bully victimization.     

Reconciling Autonomy and Beneficence in Treatment Decision-Making for Companion Animal Patients

This article explores how the concept of consent to medical treatment applies in the veterinary context, and aims to evaluate normative justifications for owner consent to treatment of animal patients. We trace the evolution of the test for valid consent in human health decision-making, against a backdrop of increased recognition of the importance of patient rights and a gradual judicial espousal of a doctrine of informed consent grounded in a particular understanding of autonomy. We argue that, notwithstanding the adoption of a similar discourse of informed consent in professional veterinary codes, notions of autonomy and informed consent are not easily transferrable to the veterinary medicine context, given inter alia the tripartite relationship between veterinary professional, owner and animal patient. We suggest that a more appropriate, albeit inexact, analogy may be drawn with paediatric practice which is premised on a similarly tripartite relationship and where decisions must be reached in the best interests of the child. However, acknowledging the legal status of animals as property and how consent to veterinary treatment is predicated on the animal owner’s willingness and ability to pay, we propose that the appropriate response is for veterinary professionals generally to accept the client’s choice, provided this is informed. Yet such client autonomy must be limited where animal welfare concerns exist, so that beneficence continues to play an important role in the veterinary context. We suggest that this ‘middle road’ should be reflected in professional veterinary guidance.     

Justice at risk! An evaluation of a pseudoscientific analysis of a witness’ nonverbal behavior in the courtroom

Psychology and law have developed as disciplines through rigorous data collection, exploration and analysis, and the publication of findings through peer-review processes. Such findings are then used to implement evidence-based practices within a variety of settings. However, in parallel to factually and scientifically based knowledge, ‘alternative’ science, or pseudoscience, has gained in popularity. The present case study aims to evaluate the empirical evidence and theoretical underpinnings of a publically accessible analysis of a suspected serial killer’s nonverbal behavior during a bond hearing published online by two ‘synergologists’. The case study emphasizes how a ‘synergological’ analysis to understanding and interpreting human behavior fails to use empirical data, making generalized inferences based on erroneous assumptions. The case study also highlights the detrimental effects such assumptions may have within the justice system and why pseudoscientific analytical approaches should be vigorously challenged by research scientists.     

Fatal Ingestion of Chlumsky Disinfectant Solution

A 32‐year‐old pregnant woman in the 25th week of pregnancy underwent oral glucose tolerance screening at the diabetologist's. Later that day, she was found dead in her apartment possibly poisoned with Chlumsky disinfectant solution (solutio phenoli camphorata). An autopsy revealed chemical burns in the digestive system. The lungs and the brain showed signs of severe edema. The blood of the woman and fetus was analyzed using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry and revealed phenol, its metabolites (phenyl glucuronide and phenyl sulfate) and camphor. No ethanol was found in the blood samples. Both phenol and camphor are contained in Chlumsky disinfectant solution, which is used for disinfecting surgical equipment in healthcare facilities. Further investigation revealed that the deceased woman had been accidentally administered a disinfectant instead of a glucose solution by the nurse, which resulted in acute intoxication followed by the death of the pregnant woman and the fetus.     

The Concealed Information Test is Susceptible to Misleading Information

An approach toward detecting hidden knowledge is the Concealed Information Test (CIT). It relies on the memory of crime‐relevant information. This study investigated whether its validity is susceptible to memory distortion by misleading information. A misleading information paradigm was employed to distort memory prior to an interrogation with a CIT. Forty‐one participants watched a video with specific crime‐related information. After a 1‐week retention interval, misleading information was introduced. Afterward, a CIT was performed, followed by a threefold memory test. When misleading information was presented, memory performance was reduced, and no physiological response differences between crime‐relevant and crime‐irrelevant information were found. Without presenting misleading information, physiological responses differed between responses to crime‐relevant and crime‐irrelevant information. However, responses in all physiological measures also differed between misleading and irrelevant information. The results indicate that the CIT is susceptible to misleading information, which reduces its validity in specific constellations.     

Mentally disordered criminal offenders: Legal and criminological perspectives

Legal research in Sweden has traditionally focused on a systematization of the legal rules and their practical application, while the task of studying the effects of the application of the laws has been handed over to other branches of the social sciences. In contrast, new legal theories focusing on proactive and therapeutic dimensions in law have gained increasing attention in the international arena. These approaches may be better suited for evaluating legislation governing compulsory psychiatric care. Theoretical discussions and studies of causal mechanisms underlying criminal behaviour, as well as the implementation and value of instruments for predicting behaviour, are relevant to contemporary criminological research. Criminal behaviour varies across different groups of perpetrators, and the causes can be sought in the interplay between the individual and social factors. Multi-disciplinary efforts, integrating research from forensic psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and criminology, would be beneficial in leading to a better understanding of the causes underlying criminal behaviour.     

The Long Reach of the Carceral State: The Politics of Crime, Mass Imprisonment, and Penal Reform in the United States and Abroad

This essay reviews five books as they relate to the causes and political consequences of mass imprisonment in the United States and the comparative politics of penal policy: Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (2007); Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen's Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy (2006); Jonathan Simon's Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (2007); Michael Tonry, ed. , Crime, Punishment, and Politics in a Comparative Perspective (2007); and Bruce Western's Punishment and Inequality in America (2006).
The essay first examines the enormous and growing political repercussions of having a vast penal system embedded in a democratic polity, including the political and electoral consequences of felon disenfranchisement; increasing political, social, and economic inequality for people marked by the penal system; and the phenomenon of "governing through crime." It also analyzes emerging strategies of resistance to US penal policies and mass incarceration, why some countries are more vulnerable to hard-line penal policies than others, and what it will take to reverse the US prison boom.     

Reviews

Leslie Holmes, Post‐Communism: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997, xiv + 384 pp., £14.95.

Stephen White, Richard Rose & Ian McAllister, How Russia Votes. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1997, xx + 332 pp., £14.95.

Matthew Wyman, Public Opinion in Postcommunist Russia. London: Macmillan, 1997, xiv + 269 pp., £15.99.

David Kotz with Fred Weir, Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System. London: Routledge, 1997, xiv + 302 pp., £16.99.

F. Barry (ed.), Douze Etats indépendants issus de l'ex‐URSS, special issue of Le Courrier des Pays de l'Est. Paris: La Documentation Francaise, March‐April 1995, 225 pp., abstracts in English.

Jeffrey Kopstein, The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany, 1945–1989. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997, xii + 246 pp., $39.95.

David Childs & Richard Popplewell, The Stasi: The East German Intelligence and Security Service. London: Macmillan, 1996, xii + 253 pp., £40.00.

Eric Solsten (ed.), Germany. A Country Study. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1996, xlix + 642 pp.

Valery Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame. London: Sage, 1997, xv + 334 pp., £14.95.

Aleksandar Pavkovi?, The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia. Nationalism in a Multinational State. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xii + 222 pp., £40.00.

David A. Dyker & Ivan Vejvoda (eds), Yugoslavia and After: A Study in Fragmentation, Despair and Rebirth. London, Longman, 1996, xi + 268 pp.

Tanya Renne, Ana's Land: Sisterhood in Eastern Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997, xi + 240 pp., £13.50.

Carol Skalnik Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation versus State. Nations of the Modern World. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997, xvii + 295 pp., $22.95.

Dennis Deletant, Ceausescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989. London: Hurst, 1995, xxxii + 403 pp., £39.50 h/b, £16.50 p/b.

Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996, xxvi + 784 pp., £56.00 h/b, £26.00 p/b.

Leokadia Drobizheva, Rose Gottemoeller, Catherine McArdle Kelleher & Lee Walker (eds), Ethnic Conflict in the Post‐Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xv + 365 pp., $69.95.

Edgar O'Ballance, Wars in the Caucasus, 1990–95. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xxviii + 238 pp., £42.50.

Leokadia Drobizheva, Rose Gottemoeller, Catherine McArdle Kelleher & Lee Walker (eds), Ethnic Conflict in the Post‐Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xvi + 365 pp., $69.95.

Garry Rodan (ed.), Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia. London: Routledge, 1996.

Diane P. Koenker & Ronald D. Bachman (eds), Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation. Washington. DC: Library of Congress, 1997, xxv + 808 pp., £69.95.

Theresa C. Smith, in collaboration with Thomas A. Oleszczuk. No Asylum. State Psychiatric Repression in the Former USSR. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xi + 290 pp., £40.00.

Stephen E. Hanson, Time and Revolution. Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997, xv + 258 pp., $45.00 h/b, $18.95 p/b.

Dmitry Shlapentokh, The French Revolution in Russian Intellectual Life 1865–1905. Westport, CT, London: Praeger, 1996, viii + 202 pp., £46.50.

N. E. Andreyev, To, chto vspominaetsya. Tallinn: Avenarius, 1996, Vol. 1. 336 pp., Vol. 2, 320 pp.