Family‐Friendly Human Resource Policy: Is It Still Working in the Public Sector?

The balance between work and family plays a pivotal but evolving role in human resource policy. Ensuring that human resource policy responds to rapidly changing American family demographics, particularly the recent sharp increase in single unmarried Americans, is a major challenge. Compensation policy long has focused on family‐oriented values by promising increased capacity to provide for a family in exchange for higher work performance. Now, employees are voicing concerns about matters such as quality time with family, and, in turn, employers are responding by implementing more benefits to achieve a better work–family balance. Strong counterarguments against human resource goals targeted only at families advocate personal policies that emphasize work–life balance for all employees. How well has personal policy kept pace with the shifting compensation preferences of public employees? Results suggest that implementation policies are keeping pace with employee satisfaction. However, levels of employee satisfaction often differ widely by demographic characteristics.     

On Mimicry and the Psychology of the Belief in a Just World: Imitating the Behaviors of Others Reduces the Blaming of Innocent Victims

Innocent victims of crime are often blamed for what happened to them. In this article, we examine the hypothesis that victim blaming can be significantly reduced when people mimic the behavior of the victim or even a person unrelated to the crime. Participants watched a person on a video after which we assessed the extent of their spontaneous mimicry reactions (Study 1) or participants were instructed to mimic or not to mimic the movements of this person (Study 2). Then, they were informed about a rape and criminal assault and judged the degree to which they thought the victims were responsible for the crime. One of the crimes happened to the same person as the person they previously did or did not mimic. The other crime happened to a person unrelated to the mimicry situation. Results of both studies revealed that previously mimicking the victim or an unrelated person reduced the degree to which victims were being blamed.     

Preliminary evaluation of the childhood experiences of violence questionnaire short form

Despite advances in child maltreatment research, accurate measurement of exposure remains a key issue. In this study, we evaluated a short form (CEVQ-SF) of the Childhood Experiences of Violence Questionnaire (CEVQ) in a sample of adolescents involved with child protection services in an urban city in Ontario, Canada. Focusing on the two most readily defined maltreatment types, physical and sexual abuse, we evaluated the short form's comparability with the full version of the CEVQ. Both versions had good internal consistency and moderate-to-good 2-week test-retest reliability. The criterion validity of the two CEVQ versions in comparison with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was satisfactory. Construct validity for both versions was demonstrated: physically and sexually abused youth had higher odds of reporting clinical traumatic symptoms compared with either type alone. The CEVQ-SF is as reliable and valid as its full version. Implications for its use in large population-based surveys are discussed.     

Perceived injustice and delinquency: A test of general strain theory

Purpose

While a growing body of empirical literature supports many key predictions of General Strain Theory (GST), the subjective perception of injustice remains a theoretically important but empirically under-researched type of strain. The present study therefore examines the relations among perceived injustice, anger, and rule-violation.

Methods

Using a sample of middle- and high-school students from 12 schools in Southern New Hampshire, the present study tests GST via a series of OLS, negative binomial, and structural equation analyses using a more precise measure of perceived injustice than prior work and extensive statistical controls for such variables as self-control, differential association, attitudes toward delinquency, and alternative strain measures in a longitudinal context.

Results

Results yield strong support for the notions that perceived injustice promotes delinquency and that this relationship is mediated by situational anger.

Conclusions

Perceived injustice appears to be an important type of strain that should be incorporated into future research and addressed by future delinquency prevention efforts.     

Time Radically Alters Ex Situ Evidentiary Soil 16S Bacterial Profiles Produced Via Next‐Generation Sequencing,,

Previous research has revealed the potential of soil bacterial profiling for forensic purposes; however, investigators have not thoroughly examined fluctuations in microbial profiles from soil aged on evidence. In this research, soils collected from multiple habitats were placed on evidence items and sampled over time, and then bacterial profiles were generated via next‐generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA locus. Bacterial abundance charts and nonmetric multidimensional scaling plots provided visual representation of bacterial profiles temporally, while supervised classification was used to statistically associate evidence to a source. The ex situ evidence soils displayed specific, consistent taxonomic changes as they aged, resulting in their drift in multidimensional space, but never toward a different habitat. Ninety‐five percent of the 364 evidentiary profiles statistically classified to the correct habitat, with misclassification generally stemming from evidence type and increased age. Ultimately, understanding bacterial changes that occur temporally in ex situ soils should enhance their use in forensic investigations.     

The Effect of Alcohol‐Based Hand Sanitizer Vapors on Evidential Breath Alcohol Test Results

This study was undertaken to determine if the application of alcohol‐based hand sanitizers (ABHSs) to the hands of a breath test operator will affect the results obtained on evidential breath alcohol instruments (EBTs). This study obtained breath samples on three different EBTs immediately after application of either gel or foam ABHS to the operator's hands. A small, but significant, number of initial analyses (13 of 130, 10%) resulted in positive breath alcohol concentrations, while 41 samples (31.5%) resulted in a status code. These status codes were caused by ethanol vapors either in the room air or their inhalation by the subject, thereby causing a mouth alcohol effect. Replicate subject samples did not yield any consecutive positive numeric results. As ABHS application can cause a transitory mouth alcohol effect via inhalation of ABHS vapors, EBT operators should forego the use of ABHS in the 15 min preceding subject testing.     

How Litigants in Dutch Courtrooms Come to Trust Judges: The Role of Perceived Procedural Justice,Outcome Favorability,and Other Sociolegal Moderators

This paper examines the hypothesis that litigants' perceived procedural justice is positively associated with their trust in judges. We argue that although this association might seem quite robust, it can vary across contexts. In particular, we suggest that the nature and magnitude of the association between procedural justice and trust in judges depends on outcome concerns, and other sociolegal moderators such as outcome importance and prior court experience. We tested our predictions in three different types of law cases among 483 litigants at court hearings of the district court of the Mid‐Netherlands. As predicted, our results indicate that perceived procedural justice was positively associated with trust in judges when outcomes were relatively favorable, and that this association was even stronger when outcomes were relatively unfavorable. The courtroom context studied here enabled us to explore how other sociolegal variables moderated these relationships.