Aggression and sleep: a daylight saving time natural experiment on the effect of mild sleep loss and gain on assaults

Objectives

The purpose of this study was to test the effect of a mild, short-term sleep loss/gain on assault rates.

Methods

Using National Incidence Based Reporting System data and city-reported data from Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, we calculated the difference in assault rates on the Monday immediately following daylight saving time (DST) as compared to the Monday a week later using a Poisson quasi-maximum likelihood estimator model. The same analyses were performed to examine effects of the return to standard time in the fall. We employed several falsification checks.

Results

There were 2.9% fewer (95% CI: –4.2%, ?1.6%, p < 0.0001) assaults immediately following DST, when we lose an hour, as compared to a week later. In contrast, there was a 2.8% rise in assaults immediately following the return to standard time, when an hour is gained, as compared to a week later (95% CI: 1.5%, 4.2%, p < 0.0001). Multiple falsification analyses suggest the spring findings to be robust, while the evidence to support the fall findings is weaker.

Conclusions

This study suggests that mild and short-term changes in sleep do significantly affect rates of assault. Specifically, there is support for the theory that mild sleepiness possibly associated with an hour loss of sleep results in reduced assaults. This contradicts the simple inverse relationship currently suggested by most of the correlational literature. This study and the mixed findings presented by experimental studies indicate that measurement variability of both sleep and aggression may result in conflicting findings.

     

A psychodynamic-behaviourist investigation of Russian sexual serial killer Andrei Chikatilo

This paper looks briefly at the case study of Russian sexual serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. Whilst serial homicide has received wide ranging attention more broadly in the literature, Chikatilo’s criminality and sexually deviant behaviour have thus far lacked any in-depth psychological explanation, with his crimes attributed tentatively to dysfunction upbringing and innate deviance. However, based on theoretical arguments presented in the present investigation, a more detailed account of what may have contributed to the development of such extreme sexual violence and cognitive distortions is discussed. Consideration of psychodynamic and behaviourist perspectives lead to the conclusion that a complex interaction of biological, psychological and sociological factors may account for the onset and continuation of his homicidal behaviour.     

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Neuropsychological Functioning as Part Mediators of the Race–Antisocial Relationship: A Serial Mediation Model

Objectives

We test a serial multiple mediation model in which the relationship between ethnicity and antisocial behavior is sequentially mediated by disadvantaged neighborhoods and impaired neuropsychological functioning.

Methods

Parental and self-report measures of antisocial behavior were assessed in a community sample of 341 adolescent males and females. Neighborhood disadvantage was assessed from census data. Neuropsychological functioning was evaluated using a computerized battery. Separate serial multiple mediation models were tested using non-executive functioning and executive functioning.

Results

The serial mediation model for executive functioning was supported, with the pathway from race to antisocial behavior through neighborhood disadvantage and executive functioning in serial accounting for 10.8% of the total effect of race on antisocial behavior.

Conclusions

Findings support social neurocriminology theory by integrating neighborhood disadvantage and executive functioning as sequential mediators of the race–antisocial relationship. To our knowledge, these are the first findings to explain the race–antisocial relationship in terms of connected social and neuropsychological processes. While this pathway is significant, the effect is still relatively small and thus should be understood as one of many mechanisms through which race may affect antisocial behavior. From a translational science standpoint, the identification of neurocognitive mechanisms by which neighborhood disadvantage predisposes to antisocial behavior suggests the potential benefits of cognitive enhancement techniques to remediate the negative effects of adverse neighborhoods on brain functioning in at-risk minority groups.

     

Towards the Vernacular,Away from Politics? Political History after the ‘New Political History’

This article considers how modern British political history has changed since the ‘new political history’ of the 1990s. It focusses on the ‘vernacular’ histories which have emerged in the last decade or so. The vernacular ‘turn’ is frequently framed by its proponents in opposition to the new political history, with its focus on the rhetoric of politicians and subsequent tendency to reproduce the perspectives of political elites. This article, however, identifies continuities between these approaches, noting their shared interest in advancing a more complex understanding of the relationship between politics and people in the past. It argues that the real challenge posed by the vernacular lies in the necessary reckoning with the ‘apartness’ of politics from the perspective of ordinary people. Yet here too, this piece suggests, the vernacular turn can be seen as the latest stage in a continual rethinking of the relationship between political, social and cultural history.     

Achieving the Promise to Leave No Girl behind in Commonwealth Countries

ABSTRACT

The education Sustainable Development Goal includes a commitment to ensuring that all children – regardless of their gender and circumstances within which they are born – should complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April 2018 re-affirmed the importance of 12 years of quality education for all, particularly marginalised groups including disadvantaged girls. To inform these commitments, this paper aims to situate the current evidence on girls’ education across the 53 countries in the Commonwealth, with a particular focus on low- and lower-middle income countries where the challenges are the greatest. It identifies the current status of access to school and learning, and highlights trends in domestic and aid financing to support the targets. It then presents evidence on interventions aimed at tackling barriers to girls’ access and learning to achieve the commitments. The paper argues a need not only to focus on gender parity in education – i.e. an equal proportion of girls and boys in school and learning – but also to pay greater attention to the more ambitious target of gender equality, which requires an end to discrimination if a truly level playing field is to be achieved.     

Combating Coups d’état in Africa, 1950–2014

Recent years have seen African militaries attempt coups in virtually every geographic region, from Egypt to Lesotho and Guinea to Madagascar. They have targeted established democracies, infantile democratic experiments, increasingly authoritarian executives, power vacuums brought on by leader death, and—most recently in Burundi—leaders attempting to circumvent constitutional limitations on their tenure. These continuing acts perpetrated against regimes with such varied backdrops suggests that coups still afflict a wide range of states and remain a continuing threat to leader tenure. This is in contrast to the African Union’s emphasis on curbing the practice. This paper explores the African Union’s effectiveness to combat military coups, primarily focusing on the potential for sanctions to act as a deterrent to would-be coup plotters. The paper also considers potential limitations on the African Union’s (AU’s) ability to project power against certain states. Analyses for the years 1950–2014 indicate Africa has in fact witnessed a meaningful decline in coup activity, an impact even more pronounced than the end of the Cold War. Results also indicate that the AU’s effectiveness in deterring coups is not constrained in cases where they are expected to lack leverage.     

Beyond regulatory capture: Coproducing expertise for critical infrastructure protection

Complex industries such as petroleum production, civil aviation, and nuclear power produce “public risks” that are widely distributed and temporally remote, and thus tend to be ignored by the risk producers. Regulation is perhaps the most common policy tool for governing such risks, but requires expert knowledge that often resides solely within the industries. Hence, many scholars and policymakers raise concerns about “regulatory capture,” wherein regulation serves private interests rather than the public good. This paper argues that regulatory capture framing has tended to limit understanding of expertise and its role in governing public risks. Most studies of regulatory capture treat expertise as a source of knowledge and skills that are created exogenously to political processes, and which can therefore be politically neutral. By contrast, we draw on work in science and technology studies that highlight the value‐laden and relational nature of knowledge and expertise, showing how its formation is endogenous to political processes. Thus, we argue for both broadening analyses of regulatory capture to consider the historically contingent and uncertain process of creating expert knowledge, and going beyond the capture framing by considering the challenge of negotiating different epistemologies and ways of life. We illustrate this analytic strategy by examining the history of and current debate about critical infrastructure protection standards to protect the United States electric power grid from cyberattack. We conclude by considering the broader implications of these findings for governing public risks.     

One Strike to Second Chances: Using Criminal Backgrounds in Admission Decisions for Assisted Housing

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has changed its position toward housing individuals with criminal records from strict one-strike policies in the 1980s to providing second chances to returning citizens. Many public housing authorities have not updated their admission policies for using criminal backgrounds and still adhere to the one-strike philosophy. In response to new guidance from HUD, housing agencies are trying to find a balance between screening practices to identify demonstrable risk but avoid discrimination and violation of the Fair Housing Act. This research examines several questions critical to assisting housing providers to address the new guidance from HUD. Findings provide direction for housing providers on understanding recidivism risk rates, using useful lookback periods, considering risk and harm across crime types, and verifying rehabilitation and other evidence to design informed policies and procedures for using criminal records in admission decisions for assisted housing.