A review essay

Abstract

It was thirty-six years ago, on August 6, 1945, that Colonel Paul W. Tibbets and his crew, military men representing the United States in the Allied War against the Japanese Empire, flew their B29, Enola Gay, from the Tinian Air Base to Hiroshima in order to drop a 12.5 kiloton uranium 235 bomb dubbed “Little Boy” (after Franklin D. Roosevelt) on this enemy city. The hypocenter of the bomb was in the vicinity of Shima Hospital; the time, approximately 8:15 a.m. A few days later, on August 9, 1945, Don Albury and his crew left the Tinian Air Base to drop a 22 kiloton plutonium 239 bomb over Kokura, Kyushu, only to find a heavily clouded sky. “Fat Man” (after Winston Churchill) was thus destined to detonate over Nagasaki. The hypocenter of this bomb was in the vicinity of the main intersection in the township of Matsuyama; the time, approximately 11:02 a.m.     

Incremental Validity of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles and Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version in Predicting Disciplinary Outcome

A group of 136 male inmates housed in a medium security federal correctional institution were followed for a period of 24 months for evidence of disciplinary infractions (incident reports) after completing the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) and being scored on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). Age, prior incident reports, the PICTS General Criminal Thinking (GCT) score, and the PCL:SV total score were included in a series of negative binomial regressions and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses of three increasingly more serious outcomes: total incident reports, major incident reports, and aggressive incident reports. Results indicated that the PICTS GCT score and PCL:SV total score were incrementally valid predictors of all three outcomes, with the strongest effects occurring when more severe incident reports were predicted. On the other hand, only the PICTS GCT score and Proactive Criminal Thinking (P) scale produced more than one significant ROC finding.     

Postdicting arrests for proactive and reactive aggression with the PICTS Proactive and Reactive composite scales

The criminal arrest histories of 262 medium-security male inmates were correlated with the Proactive (P) and Reactive (R) composite scales of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS). As predicted, only scores on the P scale correlated significantly with prior arrests for proactive aggression (robbery, burglary) and only scores on the R scale correlated significantly with prior arrests for reactive aggression (assault, domestic violence) when age, education, race, and marital status were controlled in a series of negative binomial regression analyses. The P and R scales also predicted the total number of arrests received by participants in this sample after these same four demographic measures were controlled. The implications of these results for the construct validity of the PICTS composite scales and for matching offenders to interventions are discussed.     

Last-period problems in legislatures

Last-period problems seemingly arise in legislatures when members decide to retire from office; they then can indulge themselves without fear of electoral reprisal. In contrast, we argue that last-period indolence is rarely a problem in legislatures: retiring politicians embrace legislative responsibilities since this is their last opportunity to consume these prerogatives; and the actions of legislators seeking post-elective employment are policed by the stream of future earnings they jeopardize if their actions exhibit indications of looming principal-agent problems. Using a unique data set profiling the post-elective careers of ex-legislators, we find no evidence of last-period laxity in roll-call attendance.