Staying Out: Reentry Protective Factors Among Rural Women Offenders

The current study examines protective factors for women who transition from county jails to rural Appalachian communities, areas with limited health and behavioral health services. The study included drug-using women recruited from three jails in rural Appalachia and followed-up at 12-months post-release. Analyses focused on differences between women who remained in the community and those who returned to custody, as well as a multivariate model to determine protective factors for reentry success. At the bivariate level, staying out of jail was associated with being older, having a job, not using drugs, stable housing, receiving health treatment, and having prosocial peers. In the multivariate model, the most robust predictors of staying out of jail were drug use abstinence, health care utilization, and prosocial peers. Most research on criminogenic needs associated with reentry success have focused on men, and most focused on reentry to urban communities where services and resources are more accessible. These findings have important implications for criminal justice systems to implement reentry programs for women offenders during the transition to the community.     

Self-Silencing and Rejection Sensitivity in Adolescent Romantic Relationships

This study examined the link between rejection sensitivity, self-silencing behaviors, and depressive symptomatology among adolescent dating couples. Self-silencing was hypothesized to be the process mediating the association between rejection sensitivity and depressive symptoms. Our sample included 211 couples between 14 and 21 who were dating at least 4 weeks. Results indicated that dating adolescents who were sensitive to rejection reported more depressive symptomatology and higher levels of self-silencing behaviors within their romantic relationship compared to dating adolescents who were not so sensitive to rejection. Self-silencing was identified as a partial mediator of the association between rejection sensitivity and depressive symptomatology among dating adolescents. Clinical implications in light of these findings are discussed.

Intensive psychological treatment of high-risk violent offenders: Outcomes and pre-release mechanisms

Research on correlates of intervention programmes that reduce expected reconviction rates (‘what works’ literature, Risk–Need–Responsivity model) has been highly influential in criminal justice systems throughout much of the western world. But while this psychological research has been acquiring widespread recognition, a deeper understanding of how programmes work and of mechanisms for desistance more generally, has still to develop. This research reports results of a quasi-experimental recidivism outcome study for a series of prison units that provide intensive psychological treatment to high-risk, persistently violent prisoners. Four outcomes were examined over the first 12 months following release on parole: parole violations, new convictions, new convictions for violence, and imprisonment sentences resulting from new convictions. Alongside these results, we conducted preliminary analyses of two potential pre-release mechanisms for surviving the first 12 months on parole without reconviction: lower dynamic risk for violence, and greater release readiness. We found that dynamic violence risk fully accounted for differences between treatment completers and comparison prisoners in proportions reconvicted for violence. However, in all other cases, the proposed mechanisms did not significantly explain treatment-related differences. We close by considering possible explanations for these unexpected results, and reiterating the importance to our field of more sophisticated treatment outcome research.     

Northern Ireland Dimensions to the First Decade of the United Kingdom Supreme Court

This article focuses on the relationship between the United Kingdom Supreme Court and Northern Ireland over the course of a constitutionally significant period of time, namely the first decade of the Court's existence. It does this by exploring what difference the Court has made to the law of Northern Ireland, what significance the cases from Northern Ireland have had for the law in other parts of the United Kingdom, and what part has been played in the Court's work by the sole Justice from Northern Ireland, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, and by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC. It concludes that the Court has established itself as an indispensable component of the legal system of Northern Ireland.     

The House of Lords and the Northern Ireland Conflict – A Sequel

This article begins by commenting on an analysis undertaken by the late Stephen Livingstone of 13 cases relating to the troubles in Northern Ireland decided by the House of Lords between 1969 and 1993. It then attempts to repeat the analysis in respect of 12 such cases decided between 1994 and 2005. Areas of law arising for consideration during both periods include the rules on the use of lethal force, aspects of substantive criminal law and criminal procedure and the rights of persons arrested or imprisoned. The more recent cases also raise fundamental questions concerning the status and meaning of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The article concludes that there has been a sea-change in the way the Law Lords have handled the Northern Irish cases. From treating them in a way which might have suggested a built-in bias in favour of police, army and government perspectives, they have moved to analysing the competing arguments in the light of more modern approaches to statutory interpretation, the rule of law and human rights.     

Do Participants and Observers Assess Intentions Differently During Bargaining and Conflict?

Political actors in conflict settings are often uncertain about their counterparts' intentions. This article explores the psychology of how intentions are assessed using a novel experimental design that randomly assigns subjects to one of three roles—"proposer,""recipient," or "observer." Recipients and observers are given identical noisy information about proposers' actions, and make postplay assessments of proposers' intentions that are rewarded based on accuracy. A first experiment explores a context of ambiguity, while a second experiment explores a context of uncertainty . The results suggest that actors' perceptions can sometimes be directly affected by the set of strategic alternatives they possess. When signals about proposer behavior appear "negative," recipients' assessments of proposers' intentions are more negative than observers' assessments if recipients have the ability to respond to the proposer's action—but not if recipients lack this ability. The ability to respond to proposer behavior appears to cause recipients to make more negative inferences about the proposer than circumstances warrant. Interestingly, recipients' and observers' assessments are indistinguishable when signals about proposer behavior instead appear "positive."     

Sudden death in a child due to an intrathoracic paraganglioma

A 12-year-old boy under treatment for asthma was found dead in his home. The autopsy revealed a large posterior mediastinal mass that completely compressed the upper lobe of the right lung and the associated airways. This mass extended from the right costovertebral sulcus into the thoracic spinal canal through the spinal foramen and compressed the spinal cord. It was located in the epidural space and was adherent to a nerve root. The histologic and immunocytochemical features were that of a paraganglioma. Although neurogenic tumors are the most common posterior mediastinal masses in the pediatric population, paragangliomas are rare, and spinal involvement has not been described in children. In addition, sudden death has not been reported in association with any of the 13 cases of posterior mediastinal paraganglioma described in the literature as involving the spine. This case illustrates an unusual cause of sudden death in a pediatric patient due to a benign neoplasm.     

Patronymic names and Noms de terre In the french nobility in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries

Surnames among the French nobility are often composed of patronymic names, titles, and noms de terres (names of lands), joined by the preposition “de.” The aim of this article is, first, to analyze the articulation and devolution processes of these different components, as well as the meaning they could have had in the ancien règime. Second, the article examines what happened after the French Revolution to such names. The example of a court proceeding in the nineteenth century, involving two families and dealing with the usurpation of a nom de terre, leads to questions concerning the relations between law, common use, and the many functions of proper names in contemporary society.