The emotional witness effect: story content,emotional valence and credibility of a male suspect

Abstract

Building on previous research which identified alcohol as the drug of choice for facilitating sexual assaults, this paper analysed 93 rape cases reported to the police in which the victim was under the influence of drugs/alcohol when the assault occurred. The aim was to explore what substances victims consumed to become incapacitated and who induced the state of incapacity. The degree of pre-planning suggests that the offender could be described as opportunistic or predatory. Findings demonstrated that the majority of rapes (coming to police notice) in which alcohol or drugs are implicated, are circumstances where the victim has self-intoxicated through alcohol consumption. There were relatively few cases in which drugs had been administered surreptitiously. The analyses successfully identified differences between rapes that occur when the victim is intoxicated or drugged according to how she consumed that alcohol/drug and what kind of alcohol/drugs she had consumed. The concept of negotiative space is offered as a potential theoretical explanation. The findings are discussed in the light of this and recommendations for crime prevention are made.     

Detecting truth in suspect interviews: the effect of use of evidence (early and gradual) and time delay on Criteria-Based Content Analysis,Reality Monitoring and inconsistency within suspect statements

The strategic use of evidence in interviews with suspects has been shown to increase the ability of interviewers to accurately and consistently distinguish truthful from deceptive accounts. The present study considers the effect of early and gradual revelation of evidence by the interviewer, and the effect of shorter and longer delay on the verbal quality of truth-teller and liar statements within a mock crime paradigm. It was hypothesised that gradual disclosure of evidence (1) in terms of inconsistencies (a) within statements and (b) between statements and such evidence and (2) of the criteria of Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) and of Reality Monitoring (RM) would emphasise differences in the verbal quality of truth-teller and liar statements. Forty-two high school students took part in the study. The use of statement-evidence and within-statement inconsistency appears to be a robust cue to deception across interview style and delay. This indicates that gradual disclosure in interviews may increase interviewer accuracy in veracity decisions by eliciting statement inconsistencies. However, gradual revelation and delay affected the ability of CBCA and RM criteria to distinguish the veracity of suspect statements.     

The dynamics of committee outliers: Evidence from the house of representatives, 1951–90

In this study, we enter the on‐going debate on committee outliers by addressing two important points. First, we dispute the conventional wisdom that committee outliers are best identified and evaluated using traditional tests of statistical significance. Contesting the appropriateness of such tests, we contend that any observed difference between chamber behaviour and floor behaviour may be substantively significant and use raw mean differences between Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) scores to examine differences between the full House of Representatives and its committees. Second, we attempt to integrate the committee outlier literature into the broader literature on the historical development of the House by using data from 20 Congresses over four decades (1951–90). This longitudinal analysis indicates that there have been interesting dynamic changes in the prevalence of committee outliers across time and committee types in patterns that are consistent with both the principal‐agent framework and the more general literature on congressional change and reform. Many of these important changes are not obvious when relying solely on traditional tests of statistical significance to examine committee outliers.     

Preventing Homelessness: An Examination of the Transition Resource Action Center

Each year in the United States, as adolescents age out or are emancipated from the foster care system, they are at risk of experiencing homelessness. It is essential that services and programs focus on encouraging and supporting youth in transition from foster care to a life of independence, and The Transition Resource Action Center (TRAC) strives to provide these services. The researchers sought to determine if TRAC's residential program provides their clients with a chance of a stable life (e.g., housing, employment, health care). Findings suggest that fewer clients of TRAC became homeless and more acquired transitional or temporary housing from screening 1 to screening 2, demonstrating promise that these services have fostered change in the lives of their clients.     

The HOPE VI Program: What about the residents?

Abstract

During the 1990s, the federal government dramatically changed its policy on housing the poor. Under the HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) Program, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development intended to address the concentration of troubled low‐income households in public housing by moving away from its reliance on project‐based assistance and promoting instead the construction of mixed‐income housing and the use of housing subsidies.

This article presents important evidence from two systematic, multicity studies on how the original residents of HOPE VI developments have been affected by this radical new approach to public housing. While many residents have clearly benefited, the findings raise critical questions about whether the transformation of public housing will achieve its potential as a powerful force for improving the lives of low‐income families.     

Affordable housing in New Urbanist Communities: A survey of developers

Abstract

Despite the unequivocal goal of income diversity as expressed in the Charter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, one of the more significant challenges facing the movement has been the creation of socially diverse neighborhoods, especially ones that include a mix of incomes. Although recent reports show that most New Urbanist developments are being built for upper‐middle‐class residents, some projects have managed to support income diversity. This article takes a closer look at those projects, reporting on the results of a nationwide survey of New Urbanist developers.

We found that many developers have used complex, creative schemes to make affordable housing possible within the New Urbanist context. Developers created affordable opportunities by combining available government programs, partnerships with nonprofits, and innovative design solutions. These efforts have provided important sources of affordable housing within the context of walkable communities—serving as examples that should be emulated by future developers.     

Second-class citizens? Gender in African citizenship law

In recent publications, Manby (2009, 2010) has pointed out serious inequities in African citizenship laws. As women are one of the largest groups at risk of unequal treatment, we systematically examine sub-Saharan African citizenship laws for discriminatory provisions and language. We find that for laws currently in force, legal treatment of women is uneven, both across the continent and within countries. We consider the role gender plays in transmitting citizenship to children, as well as differences between the genders in citizenship transmitted through marriage. Some countries are gender neutral in most or all aspects of the law, others are gender neutral with respect to parents and children but favor men in transmitting citizenship to their wives, and others still discount the role of women in both respects. We employ quantitative methods to understand the background conditions that influence citizenship law, finding that temporal and demographic factors have some systematic influence. To understand when and how citizenship laws may change, we examine case study evidence of women's movements as a means for bringing about gender equality, finding that targeted legal action or major constitutional overhauls can help render citizenship laws more gender neutral.     

Democratization,civil society,and women's organizing in post-revolutionary Mozambique and Nicaragua

Mozambique and Nicaragua have each experienced a transition from a Marxist–Leninist, revolutionary state to a liberal–democratic–capitalist, multi-party state in the 1990s. However, in Mozambique, the historic party of the revolution, FRELIMO, remains the party in power, whil in Nicaragua the Sandinistas have been the opposition party since 1990. What impact have these transitions had on democracy, civil society, and the nature of women's organizing in the post-revolutionary period in each country? This article offers a critical examination of the notions of “democratization” and “civil society” by assessing the gains and losses that each country has experienced in terms of political, economic, and participatory democracy in the post-revolutionary period. Then, using the example of contemporary women's movements and current constructions of “feminism” emerging in each country, this article attempts to show the potential of autonomous women's organizing in civil society today.     

The New Right and family politics

In all the main industrial countries of the West since the 1970, the family has become in issue which excites media attention and public debate and which has become a prominent item on the agenda of the major political parties. The family has become politicized.

This has been particularly the case in America and Britan where it has been associated to different degress with the electoral successes of a revived conservatism under Thatcher and Reagan which committed itself to policies to strengthen the ‘traditional’ family. This article argues, contray to number of left and politics. A number of reasons are offered for this. It is argued that the sheer weight and momentum of the major demographic economic, social and cultural shifts in the

sub-stratum of the advanced industrialized societies, particularly since the Second World war, have had such enormous impact on women and consequently on the family that they are unlikely to be reversed. it is also suggested that counter campaigns and the role of professional groups in the formulation, implementation and evaluationof public

policy have inhibited attempts to return to ‘Victorian values’, Yet another reason advanced is the difficulty that recent conservative governments have experienced in aligning their economic objecrtives with politicies to strengthen the traditional family.

However, the article argues that an important factor in any explanation of this lack of success lies in the nature of te New Right itself. The revived conservative parties of the 1970s were in fact an amalgam of number of different ideological stands on the right of the political spectrum, for which the family became an important unifying sumbol in its capacity to align radical liberal economic policies with traditionalist conservative concerns, and its rhetorical value in translating these into a popular political discourse. While this enabled them to attract a number of different constituneices and widen thie electoral base, particularly with new voters, this eneasy coaliation was itself a major obstacle to te realization of any consistent and coherent family policy.     

The Evolution of Citizenship Norms among Scandinavian Adolescents, 1999–2009

In the recent debate about changing citizenship norms in advanced democracies, Scandinavian countries are often considered the frontrunners of the development of a new kind of engaged citizenship. The majority of recent empirical scholarship in this field, however, has focused on the United States. In this article latent class analysis is used to ascertain whether the ideal types of engaged citizenship and duty‐based citizenship norms are relevant concepts for adolescents in Scandinavia, and whether there are significant changes in these norms between 1999 and 2009. The findings confirm that engaged and duty‐based citizens can be clearly identified and that engaged citizenship norms are becoming more prevalent. It is also found, however, that engaged and duty‐based norms are not the only norms identified in the analysis, and that important differences are evident in the background characteristics of those ascribing to different citizen norms that contradict expectations in the literature. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for changing citizenship norms in advanced democracies, including the potential implications of these changing norms for political behaviour.