The New Trial by Ordeal: Rape Kits,Police Practices,and the Unintended Effects of Policy Innovation

One of the most highly touted improvements in the criminal justice response to rape has been the wide‐scale adoption of sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) programs that provide specialized medical care and forensic evidence collection to victims. Though previous studies have emphasized the benefits of SANE programs in improving criminal case outcomes, this study illustrates how the post‐rape forensic examination can also discourage reporting, investigation, and prosecution. Interviews with local rape care advocates across the United States show how the increasing emphasis on forensic evidence collected through rape kits may provide an opportunity to reflect and enact persistent law enforcement stereotypes toward sexual assault complainants. Unless police resistance to taking rape seriously is confronted and addressed, even well‐intentioned policy reforms such as SANE programs may end up undermining—rather than enhancing—fair and thorough investigation of sexual assault allegations.     

A re-examination of female child molesters’ implicit theories: evidence of female specificity?

Recent research by Beech, Parrett, Ward, and Fisher has suggested that Ward and Keenan's male-derived implicit theories represent a good theoretical fit for explaining female child molesters’ offence-supportive cognitions. This paper re-examines the applicability of Ward and Keenan's (1999) male-derived implicit theories for explaining the self-reported offence-supportive cognitions of 16 UK female child molesters. Using almost identical analytic methods to Beech et al., we show that it is indeed possible to code female child molesters’ offence-supportive cognitions under each of the five male-derived implicit theories proposed by Ward and Keenan. However, our results show that the content of female child molesters’ offence-supportive cognitions appears very different to that of male child molesters. Based on our findings, we discuss relevant treatment implications and offer a re-conceptualization of implicit theories for female child molesters using the sex-role stereotyping literature. We also propose that – unlike male child molesters – female child molesters are unlikely to hold generalized implicit theories that sexualize children.     

Understanding Education's Influence on Support for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Is education consequential for popular endorsement of democracy in developing societies and, if so, what are the mechanisms that account for this influence? We investigate the micro-foundations of the education–democracy nexus using a survey of 18 sub-Saharan African countries. We demonstrate that educational level is the strongest influence on support for democracy and rejection of non-democratic alternatives via its impact on comprehension of, and attention to, politics. This is consistent with a cognitive interpretation of the effects of education on democratic values rather than one which treats education as a marker of economic resource inequalities.     

Uses of Social Capital in Russia: Modern,Pre-modern,and Anti-modern

A distinguished social scientist investigates the extent to which Russians today use social capital networks developed in Soviet times or before to produce welfare. Alternative hypotheses are set forth about ways of viewing networks in a modern vs. anti-modern context. Hypotheses are tested with a specially designed 1998 New Russia Barometer survey of all types of social capital networks. Conclusions are drawn about the networks Russians of varying education and socioeconomic status employ to get food and provide income security.     

The use and abuse of medical intelligence

When a leader suffers from a diminished ability to formulate high quality judgments and decisions, international peace and security may be compromised. Systematic use of medical intelligence on foreign leaders can provide early warning to American leaders about the potential for destabilization in particular regimes where leaders are gravely ill. This information remains particularly important in less democratic governments, where power and decision making remain concentrated in the hands of very few, or even one man, or where an entire governmental structure appears unstable. This paper examines the impact of medical illness in foreign leaders in four cases in American foreign policy: the Shah of Iran; Ferdinand Marcos; Tancredo Neves; and Boris Yeltsin.     

Genetic risk and the birth of the somatic individual

This paper considers the implications of the rise of the new molecular genetics for the ways in which we are governed and the ways in which we govern ourselves. Using examples of genetic screening and genetic discrimination in education, employment and insurance, and a case study of debates among those at risk of developing Huntington's Disease and their relatives, we suggest that some of the claims made by critics of these new developments are misplaced. While there are possibilities of genetic discrimination, the key event is the creation of the person 'genetically at risk'. But genetic risk does not imply resignation in the face of an implacable biological destiny: it induces new and active relations to oneself and one's future. In particular, it generates new forms of 'genetic responsibility', locating actually and potentially affected individuals within new communities of obligation and identification. Far from generating fatalism, the rewriting of personhood at a genetic level and its visualization through a 'molecular optic' transforms the relations between patient and expert in unexpected ways, and is linked to the development of novel 'life strategies', involving practices of choice, enterprise, self-actualization and prudence in relation to one's genetic make-up. Most generally, we suggest, the birth of the person 'genetically at risk' is part of a wider reshaping of personhood along somatic lines and a mutation in conceptions of life itself.