Utility of the Inventory of Legal Knowledge in detecting feigning

The Inventory of Legal Knowledge (ILK) is an instrument designed to detect feigning of competency-specific knowledge deficits. Available studies have suggested the ILK may require modification of its cut score to more accurately classify those who are feigning. In this study, the ILK’s concurrent validity and cut scores were tested using 100 college students in a simulation design. Students were randomly assigned to fake (n = 50) or honest (n = 50) groups. Those assigned to the faking group had significantly lower ILK scores than individuals responding honestly with a large effect size between the groups. Despite some promising results, utility estimates indicated an unacceptable level of false positives using the recommended cut score. Tentative recommendations are made in order to improve the efficacy of the ILK in detecting feigning legal knowledge.     

The Police and the New Magistracy: Independent Members and the New Police Authorities

Independent appointed members to police authorities were introduced as part of the reforms brought about by the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. This radical change to the make-up of police authorities was defended by government ministers as a necessary reform in order to broaden the expertise and experience available in such bodies. Critics, by contrast, saw the change as a move to further centralise control, and as a means of reducing local democratic input, over policing. Using data from a national telephone survey of police authority clerks, and case studies of three police force areas, this article examines the role of `independent' appointed members to local police authorities. We argue that the early signs are that the new members are becoming well integrated into police authorities, although such bodies have been significantly depoliticised as a result of this and other changes. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

High-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry method for acrylic and polyester forensic fiber dye analysis

A critical point of comparison between a fiber collected from a crime scene and a fiber from a known source is the color. Fiber dye analysis using thin-layer chromatography or ultraviolet (UV)-visible (Vis) microspectrophotometry provides useful, although limited, data for comparison. High-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC/MS) overcomes these limitations by integrating chromatography, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry into a single instrument. In order to evaluate the applicability of the LC/MS to forensic fiber dye analysis, a multi-stage chromatographic method using acidified water and acidified acetonitrile was developed that separated and identified a mixture of 15 basic and 13 disperse dye standards. The LC/MS also detected and analyzed dyes extracted from individual 0.5 cm acrylic and polyester fibers, demonstrating its applicability to this type of analysis. With regard to the analysis of disperse dyes in polyester fibers, the replacement of pyridine with acetonitrile in the extraction system allowed direct injection of the extracts into the LC/MS. The advantage of the LC/MS over other instrumental methods of textile dye analysis is demonstrated by the analysis and differentiation of three black acrylic fibers: two fibers had similar UV-Vis spectra but were differentiated with chromatography and two had similar UV-Vis spectra and chromatograms but were differentiated using the mass spectrometer.     

The ambiguity of participation: a qualified defence of participatory development

This paper examines some of the critiques addressed to participatory development by critics such as Cooke and Kothari. It argues that criticisms of participation's theoretical coherence and of its lapse into a routinised praxis largely arise from an unavoidable ambiguity that is inherent in the concept of participation, this being the means/end ambiguity. Participation must function as a means because any development project must produce some outputs (therefore participation is seen as a means to achieve such outputs), but it must also function as an end inasmuch as empowerment is viewed as a necessary outcome. This ambiguity becomes contradictory when emphasis is laid on participation as a means at the expense of participation as an end. The article proposes ways of re‐emphasising the element of empowerment so that participation may function as an emancipatory strategy.     

Is Renewable Energy Planning Blowing in the Wind?

This paper presents the results of a survey of English and Welsh local authority planning departments which asked planning officers their views with respect to planning and renewable energy. National government dictates national policies. Local authority planners, however, feel uncoordinated and lacking when making decisions about such developments. Often battered by sophisticated assaults unleashed within the adversarial planning system arena, planning professionals are often left without the ability to compose counter-arguments with which to promote environmentally less damaging proposals in line with 'the greater good'. This has led to the rise of NIMBYism, lack of innovation and is a barrier to successful national renewable energy policy aims.