“Bending” Evidence for a Cause: Scholar‐Advocacy Bias in Family Law

There are a number of salient public policy issues in the family law field that have invoked impassioned policy debates on a recurrent basis. In the absence of a body of research to address these critical concerns, advocates under the guise of social science scholarship have exacerbated the confusion and controversy by construing the scant available research evidence to justify their own ends, without regard to the relevance, quality, utility, and limitations of the studies. This is one of two articles on this problem that we have named “scholar‐advocacy bias.” In this article, we discuss the difference between truth in social science and truth in law. We identify common ways in which social science researchers and reviewers of research—wittingly or unwittingly—can become advocates for ideological positions and social policies at the expense of being balanced reporters of research evidence as illustrated by recent debates about overnight parenting of infants and toddlers. We also consider how adherence to established scientific principles and methods prevents the misuse of research in this way.     

The economics of the women's movement

In recent years, the political process has seemed to become increasingly favorable to issues involving women, as shown by the relatively large number of states which have passed the Equal Rights Amendment. The economic theory of politics would imply that this result would occur if the interests of women in removing labor force sex discrimination had increased. We argue that most sex descrimination in hiring and pay of women is in the form of statistical discrimination where sex is used as a proxy for labor force attachment. If this is so, then, on net, sex discrimination in employment practices would pay in the sense that the gainers from such behavior would gain more than the losers would lose. Married women would share in such gains since they would be compensated for their lower earnings by the higher earnings of their husbands. Single women, however, would receive no such compensation. We therefore hypothesize that the recent increase in legislation benefitting women is related to marriage rates, not to female labor force participation. Using votes in the state legislatures on the ERA as a measure of success by state of the women's movement, we find that our results do hold — number of single women is significant in explaining such voting but female labor force participation is not significant.     

Conceptualization of Intimate Partner Violence: Exploring Gender Differences Using Concept Mapping

While numerous studies have explored prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV), one area that has yet to be sufficiently explored is whether men and women agree on the acts, behaviours, and attitudes that comprise IPV. Through the use of concept mapping, we examined the similarities and differences in the conceptualization of IPV among a diverse sample of men and women. Although men and women conceptualized physical and sexual violence similarly, men tended to rate non-physical behaviors related to control as less important to the definition of IPV than women. Moreover, even when men and women used similar labeling language for grouping of items, the statements included in each cluster were substantially different for non-physically abusive items. A greater understanding of similarities and differences in the conceptualization of IPV by gender can help inform appropriate gender specific IPV intervention and prevention efforts.     

Multimethod Resolution of a Small‐Scale Case of Commingling

This study highlights the use of multiple methods for resolving a case of commingled human remains. Skeletal remains were located in a marijuana field in rural northern California by law enforcement. Although initially buried in shallow graves, the remains of two decedents were disturbed by large carnivores and scattered over a wide area. The remains were submitted by law enforcement for forensic anthropological analysis and resolution of commingling. To segregate the remains of the two individuals, a number of methods were employed, including: (i) physical matching of fragmented remains; (ii) articulation to evaluate joint congruence; (iii) visual pair‐matching of bilateral elements; (iv) osteometric pair‐matching; (v) evaluation of taphonomic patterns; (vi) DNA analysis; and (vii) portable X‐ray spectrometry (pXRF). This multimethod approach resulted in accurate resolution of the commingling and facilitated reconstruction of the biological profiles, taphonomic patterns, and trauma analysis for each individual.     

Discounting Women: Context Matters in Risk and Need Assessment

Widely used risk/need assessment instruments assume that female offender risks for recidivism are essentially equivalent to those of male offenders. A look at the lives of female and male offenders reveals that there are important differences in the context of both offending and re-offending. This research draws on both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the effectiveness of a well known risk instrument to both predict recidivism and potentially direct intervention efforts. The results, particularly the in-depth interviews with offenders (both male and female) serving time on parole or felony probation reveal differences not detected by most contemporary risk and need assessment instruments. Ultimately, the gendered links among physical and sexual abuse, drugs, and crime are missed in risk and need assessments, thereby placing female offenders at risk for neglect and criminalization in an otherwise seemingly objective method of assessment.