Public opinion on media presence in the courthouse

Very little attention has been devoted to the public's opinion of media coverage of court cases despite extensive research on pretrial publicity (PTP). Following a provincial judgment to restrict media access in Quebec courthouses, a preliminary unpublished study found that the public was largely in support of these restrictions. The present study sought to expand on this finding in a more widely generalizable sample. Subjects were recruited from continuing education classes and completed a questionnaire that assessed their support for restricting journalists in courthouses. Nearly 80% of the 243 participants supported media restrictions. Although participants in the four experimental conditions and one of the control groups were largely in favor of the restrictions, one control group was opposed to the restrictions. The results suggest that the public prefers that journalists have restricted access to courtroom participants, resonating research on PTP and the Supreme Court's decision on the case.     

Encounters with panaceas: reading flyers and posters on ‘traditional’ healing in and around Johannesburg's Central Business District

Informed largely by the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, this article analyses flyers and posters that advertise traditional/alternative healing distributed and posted respectively in and around Johannesburg's Central Business District. Paying close attention to text and context, the paper analyses the advertising of medicines and practices referred to as traditional/alternative. The advertising, which employs modern media and advertising techniques, is as complex as the multiplicity of religious, secular and corporeal interventions offered by the healers. The ubiquitous presence of flyers and the continued pasting of posters onto city structures, despite warnings by the city of Johannesburg, are an expression of resistance to city authorities. The paper posits that what may appear to be downright charlatanism by the advertisers might in fact be a viable alternative to biomedicine, especially in Johannesburg's context of high in-migration with its attendant plethora of social and health problems. Thus the healing services that the healers advertise pose a challenge to allopathic medicine, suggesting that illness needs to be understood in a broad sense.     

Police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice and their trust in the public

Research in organizational psychology has consistently demonstrated that employee perceptions of organizational justice have significant effects on employee attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Similar studies utilizing the organizational justice model in policing have also noted these effects, including the relationship of justice perceptions with officer attitudes toward the public. Recent theoretical developments in policing contend that the association between internal perceptions of justice and external attitudes may be the result of organizational and supervisory practices that ‘trickle-down’ into the police-community relationship. This paper explores this association by assessing the effects of officer perceptions of organizational justice on officer trust in the public. A sample of patrol division police officers were surveyed using measures taken from the organizational justice literature and Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman’s model of organizational trust. Results show a strong relationship between perceptions of organizational justice and trust in the public even when other relevant predictors are controlled.     

Diversion from youth courts in five Asia Pacific jurisdictions: welfare or restorative solutions

Since the 1970s, there has been a trend to move away from punitive and retributive approaches to reintegrative practices. This article provides an account of how young offenders in five Asia Pacific jurisdictions are diverted from being prosecuted in the youth courts and of to where they are diverted. The five cases demonstrate that diversionary measures in the Australasian jurisdictions tend to be more restorative in their practices than are those in Chinese-dominated jurisdictions, which adopt welfare responses. It is concluded that although there is some progress in the areas of decarceration and delegalization, the diversion goals of decategorization and deprofessionalization in Chinese-dominated jurisdictions have yet to be achieved. Such diversionary strategies carry the risk that many more young people committing minor offences may be subject to more intrusive measures and disguised social control in the name of diversion, welfare, or the prevention of future offending.     

Managed competition versus industrial purchasing of health care among the Fortune 500

The theory of managed competition has found favor with many health policy analysts and academic economists alike. Three characteristics--consumer choice, defined contribution, and dissemination of information--signal managed competition strategy. By requiring private employers to provide their employees with a choice of health carriers, a fixed-dollar strategy (defined contribution), and quality information to make appropriate choices among carriers, managed competition offers to remedy imperfections in both the consumer and provider sides of the market for health insurance. In an extensive survey of health care purchasing practices among Fortune 500 companies we found that major companies are not using the managed competition approach to health care purchasing. Instead, most of the companies surveyed are purchasing health care in the same way as they do other inputs to production--a pattern we call industrial purchasing.     

Hypnotic interrogation,pretrial preparation,and witness testimony during direct and cross-examination

Subjects who witnessed a videotaped shooting were interrogated immediately after viewing the film and again several days later. Before their second interrogation half of the subjects received hypnotic suggestions for enhanced recognition. Hypnotic and nonhypnotic subjects failed to differ in the accuracy with which they identified a mugshot of the offender, but hypnotic subjects placed more confidence in their misidentifications than did nonhypnotic subjects. In a third session, subjects who had identified a mugshot returned to be examined and cross-examined in a mock courtroom setting. Before direct examination, half the subjects underwent pretrial preparation aimed at building confidence. When coupled with pretrial preparation, hypnotic interrogation led subjects to express relatively high certainty in their mugshot identification while testifying. Nevertheless, hypnotic interrogation did not deter witnesses from disavowing their testimony (i.e., breaking down) during cross-examination. In contrast, pretrial preparation induced substantial resistance to breakdown during cross-examination. Implications are discussed.This research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the first author.     

The Nature and Predictors of Sexual Victimization and Offending Among Adolescents

This study describes the risk factors associated with experiencing and committing sexual aggression among a sample of male and female adolescents. High school students completed a questionnaire containing a revised form of the Sexual Experiences Survey to assess sexual victimization and offending experiences. Ordinal regression equations were estimated separately for male and female students, regressing background characteristics, dating behaviors, and attitudinal scales on sexual victimization (for females) or offending (for males). Nearly half (48%) of the females report experiencing sexual aggression, and one-third (34%) of males admit committing this type of offending. Regression analyses show that the likelihood of reporting victimization/offending increases among females who report dating more frequently during the past month, among both males and females who report dating more different people during the past 6 months, and among older males. Females who report their religious affiliation as Protestants compared to those with no religious affiliation, and those planning to attend college are less likely to report victimization. Among the males, rejecting rape stereotypes and having more accurate legal knowledge regarding rape are related to reduced likelihoods of reporting sexual offending. Implications for improving sexual assault educational programs for adolescents are discussed.     

Deaths,Interventions, Humanitarianism and Human Rights in the Mediterranean ‘Migration Crisis’

Recent declarations of ‘crises’ in the Mediterranean have been distinctly humanitarian, being linked to human deaths and suffering. The growing emphasis on humanitarianism and human rights has coexisted with a continued security rationale, as the three discourses work together in the governance of EUrope’s borders and in ongoing struggles over movement and control.