Federal Judicial Remedial Power: The Yonkers Case

The United States District Court in 1985 determined that Yonkers,New York intentionally segregated public housing and publicschools by locating nearly all of its public and subsidizedhousing in one section of the city. Although the city initiatedactions to promote school integration in compliance with a courtorder, the city council refused to implement the housing remedyorder. Failure of the council to implement a consent order in1988 led to the U.S. District Court holding the city and fourcouncil members in contempt of court and imposing fines. Thedesegregation decision was upheld by the U.S. Circuit Courtof Appeals and by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court of appealsupheld the contempt rulings against the city and the four councilmembers, and the Supreme Court granted the council members'petition for issuance of a writ of certiorari. The council membersraised procedural objections, charged the district court withabuse of discretion, maintained that the remedial ordinancecould not be adopted by the specified date without violatingthe state's notice and hearing requirements, and claimed legislativeimmunity and protection under the First Amendment. The SupremeCourt in 1990 held that the district court's contempt sanctionswere "an abuse of discretion" and that the district court shouldhave limited its contempt sanctions to the city of Yonkers andnot to the councilmen. The Court did not address the questionof whether local legislators possess legislative immunity.     

The influence of pretrial exposure to community outrage and victim hardship on guilt judgments

Although the courts have explicitly expressed concerns about the effects of public sentiment on juries in highly publicized cases, no research has isolated the degree to which jurors’ exposure to community outrage and/or prospective social interactions in the community independently influence judgments of guilt. In the current research, jury eligible undergraduates were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (negative defendant facts pretrial publicity (PTP): present vs. absent)?×?2 (community outrage PTP: present vs. absent)?×?2 (anticipated social interaction: present vs. absent) between subjects factorial design. In an online session, participants read articles containing PTP (or not), and two days later they arrived at the lab to serve as mock jurors in a murder case – before the trial they were instructed (or not) that they would interact with people from the community in which the case was taking place. Neither PTP containing extra-evidentiary facts about the defendant nor prospective interaction with the community had main or interactive effects on guilt measures; however, mock jurors rated the defendant as more likely to be guilty when they read information about community outrage and hardships on victims. These findings suggest future avenues of PTP research focusing on community outrage and victim impacts.     

Impulsivity,Offending, and the Neighborhood: Investigating the Person–Context Nexus

The traditional trait-based approach to the study of crime has been challenged for its failure to acknowledge differences in the social environments to which individuals are exposed. Similarly, community-level explanations of crime have been criticized for failing to take into account important individual differences between criminals and non-criminals. Ultimately, a full understanding of crime requires the consideration of both individual and environmental differences, perhaps most importantly because they may interact to produce offending behavior. Yet little criminological research has examined if the effects of individual-level characteristics vary by the context in which they are embedded. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by using multivariate, multilevel item response models to examine if the influence of impulsivity on offending differs as a function of neighborhood context. Analyses using data from the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods reveals that the effects of impulsivity are amplified in neighborhoods with higher levels of socioeconomic status and collective efficacy, and lower levels of criminogenic behavior settings and moral/legal cynicism. Implications of these findings for research and policy are discussed.     

Negative Adult Influences and the Protective Effects of Role Models: A Study with Urban Adolescents

We investigated whether role models (individuals adolescents look up to) contributed to the resilience of adolescents who were exposed to negative nonparental adult influences. Our sample included 659 African American, ninth-grade adolescents. We found that adolescents’ exposure to negative adult behavior was associated with increased externalizing, internalizing, and substance using behaviors, as well as more negative school attitudes and behavior. We found that role models had protective effects on externalizing and internalizing behaviors and compensatory effects on school outcomes. Collectively, our findings indicate that role models can contribute to the resilience of African American adolescents who are exposed to negative nonparental adult behavior.

Working in High School and Adaptation in the Transition to Young Adulthood among African American Youth

Researchers have found mixed support for documenting whether work is protective or harmful during adolescence. This study examined the association between work and problem behaviors among African American youth (N = 592; 53% female; M = 14.8 years, SD = .60) followed from mid-adolescence to young adulthood over eight Waves (90% response rate over the first four Waves and a 68% response rate across all eight Waves). We explored three competing operationalizations of work: work history (never worked, worked), work intensity (no work, 20 h or less, and 21 h or over), and work trajectories (never worked, episodic work, stopped working, late starter, and consistent worker). Non-working youth reported higher marijuana use during young adulthood than their working counterparts. Nonworkers reported lower self-acceptance during young adulthood than those working greater number of hours per week. Differences in work trajectories for cigarette use, depression, and anxiety during adolescence imply that when and for how long youth work are also important factors to explore. Our findings lend tentative support to the work benefits perspective and suggest that the association between work and problem behaviors may depend on the work measure used. We discuss the implications of employing different work measures in adolescent research.

A comparison of email versus letter threat contacts toward members of the United States Congress

To better understand inappropriate correspondence sent to public officials, 301 letter cases and 99 email cases were randomly selected from the United States Capitol Police investigative case files and compared. Results indicate that letter writers were significantly more likely than emailers to exhibit indicators of serious mental illness (SMI), engage in target dispersion, use multiple methods of contact, and make a problematic approach toward their target. Emailers were significantly more likely than letter writers to focus on government concerns, use obscene language, and display disorganization in their writing. Also, letter writers tended to be significantly older, have more criminal history, and write longer communications. A multivariate model found that disorganization, SMI symptoms, problematic physical approach, and target dispersion significantly differentiated between the correspondence groups. The group differences illuminated by this study reveal that letter writers are engaging in behavior that is higher risk for problematic approach than are emailers.     

Observers’ Real-Time Sensitivity to Deception in Naturalistic Interviews

This study tested the ability of experienced interviewers and novice observers to detect deception while watching mock interviews featuring experimental or control questioning methods and different detainee languages. The protocol featured a complex, realistic critical event and naturalistic interviews in which mock detainees could report unconstrained. Experimenters recorded these interviews and presented them to observers who judged veracity in real time. In general, experienced interviewers were no more sensitive to deception than were novices and both groups set conservative response criteria. Observers were more sensitive to deception when viewing control versus experimental questioning methods. Observers were more sensitive to deception when viewing Arabic speakers interviewed through an interpreter. Results imply that not all trained interviewers exhibit a lie bias; additional research should examine how best to transition lab-tested interview methods into the field, and language and interpreter factors may impact the ability to assess veracity in multiple ways.     

The Development of a Thurstone Scale for Identifying Desirable Police Officer Traits

Screening applicants for the position of peace officer is a very uncertain process. Concomitantly, trying to select applicants who will be successful throughout their careers adds another, important dimension. Unfortunately, the selection process has primarily been one of screening-out those who are for one reason or another unfit. This article used the Thurstone Scale as the methodological basis to identify those traits that experts agreed are the ones that are meaningful in predicting police officer career success.