Commentary on Seagrave and Grisso: Impressions of the State of the Art

Seagrave and Grisso (2001) questioned the clinical-forensic utility of tests designed to assess juvenile psychopathy. They discussed potential problems with such tests and some avenues for future research. We agree with the points made by Seagrave and Grisso, but believe their critique did not go far enough. The state of the art with respect to the assessment of juvenile psychopathy is like an Impressionist painting: fine from a distance;but the closer you get, the messier it looks. We conclude that although tests of juvenile psychopathy measure something, it is impossible to be sure at this time they are actually measuring psychopathy.     

R.S. Thomas: Ministering Otherness

This article is built around a deeply personal `response to text' –of a poem in response to a poem, where both deal with notions of identity. For myself, writing poetry is a cathartic (though infrequent) source of resolution; a space subject to different constraints from those present in the production of analytic scholarship. A consideration of the broader ideological matrix at work behind the poems suggests links between nationhood and language, class and religion, private and public identity, history and politics. Vast subjects, explored but briefly in the thoughts and notes produced for this article as `background' to the story of the poem cited at the end. For legal and political theory it is a reminder of the delicate interstices of influences traversed in any assertion concerning broad policy. As `scholar' I am constrained in the provision of any further assessment of my own process as `poet': what is provided attempts honesty. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations: An Exploratory Method for Discrete Multivariate Analyses of Crime Data

Derived from comparative approaches in both qualitative and quantitative research, the current study describes a simple exploratory technique for the multivariate analysis of categorical data. This technique is referred to as the conjunctive analysis of case configurations. After describing the logic and underlying assumptions of this conjunctive method, it is applied and illustrated in the study of the federal sentencing of drug offenders. The relative value of this conjunctive approach for purposes of exploratory data analysis and its overall utility as a method for confirmatory research are also discussed.

Research with minors in Germany

The European GCP Directive has been implemented into German law in sect. 40 ff. AMG (German pharmaceutical law). Unlike the Directive, German pharmaceutical law basically differentiates between three constellations of clinical trials on minors: clinical trials on healthy minors, clinical trials on ill minors with an individual benefit for the individual participant, and clinical trials on ill minors without direct benefit for the individual participant, but with a so-called "group benefit". Particularly the latter possibility of conducting clinical trials on minors even if no individual benefit can be expected is not a matter of course in Germany since due to historical experiences a sceptical attitude towards clinical research on humans prevailed for a long time. German legislature has availed itself of the option granted by Article 3 of the GCP Directive to establish a higher level of protection of clinical trial subjects than the European level.     

The Increasing Effectiveness of National Gender Quotas, 1990–2010

National gender quotas—policies that require a certain percentage of women candidates or legislators—are becoming more effective over time. Using data on 145 countries from 1990 to 2010, we document this trend with latent growth‐curve models. Part of the explanation for increasing effectiveness is that countries have ratcheted up targets for women's inclusion and that quotas are increasingly written in ways that make them more effective at achieving stated goals. Activists, political elites, and policy makers have learned over time which quota policies are most effective, resulting in quotas with provisions that more often lead to success. But, changes in rules alone do not account for the increasing effectiveness of quotas over time. It appears that changing norms about women's incorporation in politics are also increasing quota effectiveness regardless of policy design.     

Inside a Cultural Agency: Team Ethnography and Knowledge Exchange

This article undertakes an auto-critical analysis of the research team's ethnographic study of Cultural Enterprise Office (CEO), a Scottish creative business support agency. We discuss the team's composition and how this relates to other analyses of ethnographic teamwork. Our research is situated in the wider policy context of the “creative-economic” turn in the UK's research funding. This has been accompanied by increased emphasis on “knowledge exchange” and “impact” in the drive for greater accountability in higher education. The team's evolution in the course of undertaking research is illustrated by reference to four “pivotal moments,” which illustrate how we “performed” knowledge exchange.     

Judicial Impartiality and Independence in Divided Societies: An Empirical Analysis of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia‐Herzegovina

The role of constitutional courts in deeply divided societies is complicated by the danger that the salient societal cleavages may influence judicial decision‐making and, consequently, undermine judicial impartiality and independence. With reference to the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia‐Herzegovina, this article investigates the influence of ethno‐national affiliation on judicial behaviour and the extent to which variation in judicial tenure amplifies or dampens that influence. Based on a statistical analysis of an original dataset of the Court's decisions, we find that the judges do in fact divide predictably along ethno‐national lines, at least in certain types of cases, and that these divisions cannot be reduced to a residual loyalty to their appointing political parties. Contrary to some theoretical expectations, however, we find that long‐term tenure does little to dampen the influence of ethno‐national affiliation on judicial behaviour. Moreover, our findings suggest that this influence may actually increase as a judge acclimates to the dynamics of a divided court. We conclude by considering how alternative arrangements for the selection and tenure of judges might help to ameliorate this problem.     

Context Effects in Forensic Entomology and Use of Sequential Unmasking in Casework

Context effects are pervasive in forensic science, and are being recognized by a growing number of disciplines as a threat to objectivity. Cognitive processes can be affected by extraneous context information, and many proactive scientists are therefore introducing context‐minimizing systems into their laboratories. Forensic entomologists are also subject to context effects, both in the processes they undertake (e.g., evidence collection) and decisions they make (e.g., whether an invertebrate taxon is found in a certain geographic area). We stratify the risk of bias into low, medium, and high for the decisions and processes undertaken by forensic entomologists, and propose that knowledge of the time the deceased was last seen alive is the most potentially biasing piece of information for forensic entomologists. Sequential unmasking is identified as the best system for minimizing context information, illustrated with the results of a casework trial (n = 19) using this approach in Victoria, Australia.