A REVIEW OF ONLINE DIVORCE EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Divorce education programs first surfaced over four decades ago. Today, many states mandate parents to participate in a divorce education program before their dissolution can be finalized. Changes in the technological landscape have allowed innovative practitioners to create online divorce education programs, yet these programs have not been formally evaluated for quality. Adapting a research design for evaluating face‐to‐face programs, we created an online divorce education review form and reviewed online divorce education programs that parents use to meet court‐mandated requirements. Results reveal that online programs have significant potential to help divorcing parents, yet there are areas of online program content and instructional strategies that can be improved. Program content that includes legal and court focused topics or modules, or that offer advice for families facing special circumstances such as domestic violence, could be enhanced. Additionally, most of the instructional strategies were passive. With this research, recommendations were made for improving program content and instructional strategies for online divorce education programs.     

Spatial displacement and diffusion of benefits among geographically focused policing initiatives: a meta-analytical review

Objectives  

To undertake a systematic review of the extent to which geographically focused policing initiatives appear to displace crime (simply relocate it to other places) or diffuse benefits (lead to reductions elsewhere).     

A Comparative Test of Clinical Judgment Versus Actuarial Prediction of Future Violence

This study tested how graduate level psychology graduate students (n = 20) using the Adapted Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (Adapted VRAG) would do relative to practicing psychologists/psychiatrists (n = 16) using clinical judgment when predicting violence in 10 narratives from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment study (Monahan et al., The MacArthur violence risk assessment study. . Retrieved 10 Oct 2005). Results indicated that the practicing psychologists/psychiatrists made significantly more correct predictions than the master’s level students. The professional group demonstrated sensitivity levels of 77.7% and specificity of 96.3%. For the use of the adapted VRAG method by the graduate student group, specificity levels were modest at 54.0%. Sensitivity levels, however, were lower than earlier demonstrated levels at 58.0%. These findings are at variance with earlier reports comparing clinical and actuarial methods. The results may reflect the short amount of time the master’s level students were trained using the Adapted VRAG as well as the small number of participants in this study. Additional research comparing other professions is recommended, as well as examining if experience in the forensics field would affect one’s ability to predict violence.     

Exploring relations between crime and disadvantage on merseyside

The research discussed in this article is supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant number L210252014 as part of the Crime and Social Order Research Programme. This analysis utilized the Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Crime software developed by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. The authors also wish to thank Merseyside Police and the Merseyside Information Service for supplying data sets used in the research.     

Positive Dental Identification Using Tooth Anatomy and Digital Superimposition

Dental identification of unknown human remains continues to be a relevant and reliable adjunct to forensic investigations. The advent of genomic and mitochondrial DNA procedures has not displaced the practical use of dental and related osseous structures remaining after destructive incidents that can render human remains unrecognizable, severely burned, and fragmented. The ability to conclusively identify victims of accident and homicide is based on the availability of antemortem records containing substantial and unambiguous proof of dental and related osseous characteristics. This case report documents the use of digital comparative analysis of antemortem dental models and postmortem dentition, to determine a dental identification. Images of dental models were digitally analyzed using Adobe Photoshop^TM software. Individual tooth anatomy was compared between the antemortem and postmortem images. Digital superimposition techniques were also used for the comparison. With the absence of antemortem radiographs, this method proved useful to reach a positive identification in this case.     

Evaluation of operation swordfish: a near-repeat target-hardening strategy

Objectives

This paper reports an evaluation of a police-led target-hardening crime prevention strategy inspired by research concerned with space–time patterns of burglary.

Methods

A total of 46 neighbourhoods in the West Midlands (UK) were randomly allocated to treatment and control conditions. Within treatment areas, resources were delivered to recent burglary victims and their close neighbours. Resources included inexpensive target-hardening measures as well as the delivery of dedicated police advice. The evaluation consisted of both a resident survey and a statistical outcome analysis.

Results

Results suggested that residents in treatment groups were slightly more satisfied with the police and more likely to have been contacted by the police concerning burglaries. Although they had more awareness of burglary, their fear of crime was not heightened. Statistical analysis suggested a very modest positive effect of intervention on crime and rates of re-victimisation. In particular, a survival analysis revealed that homes in low-crime treatment areas were less likely to be re-victimised than were those in similar control areas. Effects were more evident in low- than high-crime areas.

Conclusions

Results suggest that a low-intensity target-hardening intervention which adopted a near-repeat victimisation targeting strategy had a modest positive effect on residential burglary without increasing residents’ fear of crime.

     

Attitude to personality disorder among prison officers working in a dangerous and severe personality disorder unit

BACKGROUND: It is well established that staff attitudes to personality disordered patients are commonly negative, characterised by pessimism and rejection. A recent study in forensic psychiatric hospitals has described the psychological and social factors underlying positive attitudes, and suggested that staff with more positive attitudes perform better and are less stressed. AIM: To assess whether it is possible to predict which staff will adjust positively to working with personality disordered people. More specifically to confirm links between attitude to personality disorder and: job performance; perception of managers; personal well-being; burnout; and interaction rates with inmates. METHODS: The opening of a new Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder unit within a UK prison allowed a longitudinal study of prison officers to be performed, in which a number of measures, including the Attitude to Personality Disorder Questionnaire (APDQ), were collected at three fixed points (at baseline, eight and sixteen months after the opening of the unit). RESULTS: Attitude to Personality Disorder varied over the course of the study, and changes in attitude were linked to events experienced by individual officers. More positive attitude to personality disorder was associated with improved general health and job performance, decreased burnout, and favourable perception of managers. CONCLUSIONS: Attitude to Personality Disorder has important outcomes, and is responsive to the psychosocial environment. Its measurement is not useful for staff selection, because of low stability over lengthy time periods. The APDQ has been demonstrated to be valid measure of attitude to PD, and potentially useful for outcome studies, or benchmarking between units.