Beyond the multiple‐choice v. essay questions controversy: Combining the best of both worlds*

The increasingly diverse cohorts of students studying at new generation universities pose new curriculum challenges for disciplines such as law. These challenges are most visible in written assignments and thus interpreted as “writing problems”. As a consequence, much of the advice available to assist students focuses on “elements of good writing”, advising them primarily on expression and grammar and, in some instances, on the different purposes of legal writing. This paper offers, however, a quite different perspective on what underlies the writing problems of these students, arguing that students need to be knowingly inducted into the different positions or identities embodied in these written tasks, as well as instructed in the language required to “realise” these identities. This approach is explored through analysis of a standard problem scenario assessment task and student responses to the task. Finally, the paper suggests that designing a curriculum to assist these students' entry into the disciplinary practices of the law rests on more collaboration and mutual learning between law lecturers and language and learning lecturers.     

Other people's memory

Abstract

How optimistic are people's evaluations of their own memory as compared to that of most others? To find out, we asked 563 Sa. to compere their own memory for events, faces and names to that of others. The results show that many, and especially young respondents, tend to be illusory optimistic about the power of their memory for events and faces, but not for names. The implications of this result for evaluating eyewitness reports by tries of fact in legal cases are discussed.     

Party Size and Portfolio Payoffs: The Proportional Allocation of Ministerial Posts in Coalition Governments

Over 30 years ago, Eric Browne and Mark Franklin demonstrated that parties in a coalition tend to receive portfolio payoffs in almost perfect proportionality to their seat share. Even though this result has been confirmed in several studies, few researchers have asked what the underlying mechanism is that explains why parties receive a proportional payoff. The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal mechanism linking party size and portfolio payoffs. To fulfil this aim, a small-n analysis is performed. By analysing the predictions from a statistical analysis of all post-war coalition governments in 14 Western European countries, two predicted cases are selected, the coalitions that formed after the 1976 Swedish election and the 1994 German election. In these case studies two hypotheses are evaluated: that the proportional distribution of ministerial posts is the result of a social norm, and that parties obtain payoffs according to their bargaining strength. The results give no support to the social norm hypothesis. Instead, it is suggested that proportionality serves as a bargaining convention for the actors involved, thus rendering proportional payoffs more likely.     

Development of the Observation Scale for Aggressive Behavior (OSAB) for Dutch forensic psychiatric inpatients with an antisocial personality disorder

The Observation Scale for Aggressive Behavior (OSAB) has been developed to evaluate inpatient treatment programs designed to reduce aggressive behavior in Dutch forensic psychiatric patients with an antisocial personality disorder, who are "placed at the disposal of the government". The scale should have the sensitivity to measure changes in the possible determinants of aggressive behavior, such as limited control of displayed negative emotions (irritation, anger or rage) and a general deficiency of social skills. In developing the OSAB 40 items were selected from a pool of 82 and distributed among the following a priori scales: Irritation/anger, Anxiety/gloominess, Aggressive behavior, Antecedent (to aggressive behavior), Sanction (for aggressive behavior) and Social behavior. The internal consistency of these subscales was good, the inter-rater reliability was moderate to good, and the test-retest reliability over a two to three week period was moderate to good. The correlation between the subscales Irritation/anger, Anxiety/gloominess, Aggressive behavior, Antecedent, Sanction was substantial and significant, but the anticipated negative correlation between these subscales and the Social behavior subscale could not be shown. Relationships between the corresponding subscales of the OSAB and the FIOS, used to calculate concurrent validity, yielded relatively high correlations. The validity of the various OSAB subscales could be further supported by significant correlations with the PCL-R and by significant but weak correlations with corresponding subscales of the self-report questionnaires. The Observation Scale for Aggressive Behavior (OSAB) seems to measure aggressive behavior in Dutch forensic psychiatric inpatients with an antisocial personality disorder reliably and validly. Contrary to expectations, a negative relationship was not found between aggressive and social behavior in either the OSAB or FIOS, which were used for calculating concurrent validity.     

Development of a harmonised method for the profiling of amphetamines: IV. Optimisation of sample preparation

The suitability of liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-phase extraction (SPE) for the preparation of impurity extracts intended for gas chromatographic profiling analyses of amphetamine were evaluated. Both techniques were optimised with respect to the extraction of selected target compounds by use of full factorial designs in which the variables affecting the performance were evaluated. Test samples consisted of amphetamine synthesised by the Leuckart reaction, by reductive amination of benzyl methyl ketone and by the nitrostyrene route. The performance of LLE and SPE were comparable in terms of repeatability and recovery of the target compounds. LLE was considered the better choice for the present harmonised amphetamine profiling method due to the lack of information on the long-term stability of SPE columns.     

Diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder and criminal responsibility

The present study empirically investigates whether personality disorders and psychopathic traits in criminal suspects are reasons for diminished criminal responsibility or enforced treatment in high security hospitals. Recently, the tenability of the claim that individuals with personality disorders and psychopathy can be held fully responsible for crimes has been questioned on theoretical bases. According to some interpretations, these disorders are due to cognitive, biological and developmental deficits that diminish the individual's accountability.The current article presents two studies among suspects of serious crimes under forensic evaluation in a Dutch forensic psychiatric observation clinic. The first study examined how experts weigh personality disorders in their conclusions as far as the degree of criminal responsibility and the need for enforced forensic psychiatric treatment are concerned (n = 843). The second study investigated associations between PCL-R scores and experts' responsibility and treatment advisements (n = 108).The results suggest that in Dutch forensic practice, the presence of a personality disorder decreased responsibility and led to an advice for enforced forensic treatment. Experts also take characteristics of psychopathy concerning impulsivity and (ir)responsibility into consideration when judging criminal accountability. Furthermore, they deem affective deficiencies sufficiently important to indicate suspects' threat to society or dangerousness and warrant a need for forensic treatment.     

Explaining Capital Punishment Support in an Abolitionist Country: The Case of the Netherlands

A substantial minority (35%) of the Dutch population is in favor of capital punishment. In this paper, it is argued that in a staunchly abolitionist country such as The Netherlands, the existence and perseverance of such support can be better understood and explained by conceiving of capital punishment support in attitudinal terms as part of a law and order syndrome. Death penalty attitudes are analyzed by means of hierarchic logistic regression analysis. It is shown that support can be modeled quite well, partly in terms of general attitudes to criminal justice, partly in terms of political and sociodemographic parameters. Within the criminal justice attitudes complex, more support is found among those endorsing harsh treatment of offenders, those willing to grant far-reaching powers to justice authorities, those believing that the government is not delivering on the topic of crime fighting, and those who are concerned about the level of crime. Within the political context, more support is enlisted among people who abstain from voting and those who vote at either extreme of the political spectrum as opposed to central parties' supporters. In sociodemographic segments it is the younger and poorly educated who are the strongest supporters of capital punishment. It is suggested that endorsing capital punishment can be better understood as an expressive act, displaying dissatisfaction with judicial and political elites in the country.     

Electing Mayors: A Comparison of Different Electoral Procedures

In 2000 and 2002 the first direct elections for mayors were held in England. They were elected using the supplementary vote method. This article summarises the discussion which led to the adoption of this electoral system, analyses some of the main arguments used, states some general criteria by which electoral systems can be judged, and evaluates some other possible methods for conducting such elections. It concludes that in the light of at least some general conditions, supplementary vote (SV) is a less desirable way of choosing a mayor than alternative vote (AV) and some other systems. However, it seems as if a simple amendment of the original SV procedure will avoid some of its most apparent problems.