Social science and the Courts

Social scientists have increasingly become involved in the submission of amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs in legal cases being decided by state and federal courts. This increase has triggered considerable debate about the use of briefs to communicate relevant social science research. This article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various methods of summarizing social science research for the courts. It also reviews the procedures for submitting briefs developed by the American Psychology-Law Society which, in collaboration with the American Psychological Association, has submitted its first brief inMaryland v. Craig, a case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.The authors wish to thank James Ogloff, Kathy Roesch, and Claudia Worrell for their comments on an earlier draft     

The relationship of abuse and witnessing violence on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory with black adolescents

A number of social and psychological factors present in most adolescent parents place them at high risk for abusive behavior toward their children. However, current child abuse potential measures do not include adolescent samples as part of the psychometric data base. Consequently, the purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether a Black adolescent sample would perform differently than an adult nonabusing sample on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), and (2) to examine the relationship between history of abuse or witnessing violence to scores on the CAP. Results revealed that Black adolescents scored significantly higher than the adult normative sample on the CAP; consequently, cutoff scores need to be empirically established for adolescents. Additional analyses indicated that a history of abuse, as well as a history of witnessing violence, are associated with a high potential for abuse.     

Book reviews

A. L. Meiendorf, Optimizatsiya khozyaistvennykh reshenii: metod analiza prirashchenii. Series: Aktual'nye problemy sel'skogo khozyaistva. Moscow: ‘Ekonomika’, 1976.

Oliver H. Radkey, The Unknown Civil War in Soviet Russia. A Study of the Green Movement in the Tambov Region, 1920–21. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1976. xiv+457 pp. $12.95.

Roy and Zhores Medvedev, Khrushchev—The Years in Power. London: OUP, 1977. xi+198 pp. £3.95.

Daniel F. Calhoun, The United Front: the TUC and the Russians, 1923–1928. Cambridge: CUP, 1976. 450 pp. £10.50.

Gabriel Gorodetsky, The Precarious Truce. Anglo‐Soviet Relations 1924–27. Cambridge: CUP, 1977. 289 pp. £9.00.

Herbert S. Dinerstein, The Making of a Missile Crisis: October 1962. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. 302 pp. $14.95.

Donald R. Kelley, Kenneth R. Stunkel, Richard R. Wescott, The Economic Superpowers and the Environment: The United States, The Soviet Union, and Japan. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1976. 335 pp.

Fred Singleton (ed.), Environmental Misuse in the Soviet Union. New York and London: Praeger Publishers, 1976. xvii+103 pp. $13.50. £8.80.

Peter H. Juviler, Revolutionary Law and Order. Politics and Social Change in the USSR. New York: The Free Press, and London: Collier MacMillan, 1976. xii+274 pp. £11.05.

Richard Szawlowski, The System of the International Organizations of the Communist Countries. Leyden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1976. 322 pp.

Jürg Meister, Soviet Warships of the Second World War. London: Macdonald & Jane, 1977. 348 pp. £7.95.     

Book reviews

Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Une Révolution, une victoire. L'union soviétique de Lénine à Staline 1917–1953. Paris: Editions Richelieu, 1972. 446 pp. 60 F.

Joel C. Moses, Regional Party Leadership and Policy‐Making in the USSR. (Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government.) New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974, and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xv+263 pp. £8.00.

Robert J. Osborn, The Evolution of Soviet Politics. Homewood, Ill. and London: The Dorsey Press, 1974. xiii+574 pp. $10.95.

Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Policy toward India: Ideology and Strategy. (Russian Research Center Studies, 74.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1974. x+338 pp. £7.50.

Lloyd G. Churchward, Contemporary Soviet Government. Second Edition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. 368 pp. £6.95.

Otto Ul?, Politics in Czechoslovakia. San Francisco and Reading: W. H. Freeman, 1975. xi+181 pp. £4.70.

Ivan Volgyes (ed.), Environmental Deterioration in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. (Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government.) New York: Praeger, 1974, and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xiii+168 pp. $14.00. £6.00.

Rolf Freund, Investitionskriterien als Mittel zur Realisierung eines Entwick‐lungspfades. Dargestellt am Beispiel der UdSSR. Berlin: Osteuropa‐Institut an der Freien Universität Berlin, 1974. v+202 pp. DM 12.00.

László Szamuely, First Models of the Socialist Economic Systems. Principles and Theories. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiádó, 1974. 109 pp. £2.60.

Iain F. Elliot, The Soviet Energy Balance. Natural Gas, Other Fossil Fuels, and Alternative Power Sources. (Praeger Special Studies in Economics and Development.) New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974, and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xv+277 pp. £8.00.