Police psychology: The influence of Daubert and its progeny

In the current legal atmosphere, any practicing professionals, including police psychologists, may expect to have their decisions challenged in court. If such a challenge is not met, it may have a disastrous financial and reputational impact for both the psychologist (and other expert consultant) and the employer or contractor by whom the psychologist has been retained. The rules for expert witness qualification throughout the nation have been very strongly effected by the introduction of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975 and subsequent case law, particularly theDaubert, Joiner, andKumho Tire Supreme Court decisions. This article examines the history of the development of theDaubert Standard and proposes principles for potential expert witnesses in order to minimize the likelihood of aversive consequences, such as disqualification or malpractice accusations. Authors' Note: Cary Rostow, Ph.D., is president of Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is in private practice in Baton Rouge. He holds a Diplomate in Police and Criminal Psychology from the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. Robert Davis, Ph.D., is executive vicepresident and director of science, research, and development, for Matrix, Inc., and has a private practice in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He holds a Diplomate from the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. Judith Levy, Ph.D., is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Matrix, Inc.     

Advancing police use of force research and practice: urgent issues and prospects

Leading police scholars and practitioners were asked to reflect on the most urgent issues that need to be addressed on the topic of use of force. Four themes emerged from their contributions: use of force and de-escalation training needs to improve and be evaluated; new ways of conceptualizing use of force encounters and better use of force response models need to be developed; the inequitable application of force, and how to remediate biases, needs to be more fully understood; and misconceptions about police use of force need to be identified and corrected. The highlighted topics serve as an agenda for future research. Such research should provide greater insight into when, where, and why force is used by police officers, and how it can be applied appropriately. If implemented, the practical recommendations included in the contributions should have a positive impact on police performance, public trust and confidence in the police, and citizen and officer safety.     

Sexual Assault Policies and Consent Definitions: A Nationally Representative Investigation of U.S. Colleges and Universities

ABSTRACT

Campus sexual assault (SA) policies and sexual consent definitions have not been widely studied. The study team conducted a nationally representative review of college and university websites (n = 995), assessing the prevalence of publicly accessible online policies and definitions and examining associations with school characteristics. A content analysis was performed on a subsample (n = 100) of consent definitions. Most schools (93.0%) had an SA policy and consent definition (87.6%) available online. Schools were more likely to have a policy or consent definition if they were large (≥5,000 students), public, or had a female enrollment of ≥33%. Detail and comprehensiveness of definitions varied. Findings highlight opportunities for schools—especially small schools, private schools, and those with more male students—to increase access to SA policies and consent definitions.     

Parliamentary Voting Procedures in Comparison

Increasingly, scholars of legislative politics propose comparative analyses of parliamentary voting behaviour across different countries and parliaments. Yet parliamentary voting procedures differ dramatically across parliamentary chambers and ignoring these differences may, in the extreme, lead to meaningless comparisons. This paper presents a first glimpse at a comprehensive data collection effort covering more than 250 parliamentary chambers in 176 countries. Focusing on European legislatures it assesses what explains the differences in the rules among chambers. It is found that incentives linked to MPs’ visibility contribute to explain the transparency of the adopted voting procedures.     

Xenophobic Rhetoric and Its Political Effects on Immigrants and Their Co‐Ethnics

Though political scientists generally understand the origins of native‐born reactions to foreigners, less is known about how anti‐immigrant contexts trigger a political response within immigrant groups. I address this question by studying the connection between xenophobic rhetoric and Latino politics. I claim that xenophobic rhetoric raises the salience of ethnic identity and impugns its worth. This identity threat leads high‐identifying group members to engage in political efforts that assert their group's positive value, whereas low identifiers shun political opportunities to bolster their group's devaluation. I test these claims with an experiment embedded in a nationally representative opinion survey of Latino adults. In light of xenophobic rhetoric, I find that relative to low identifiers, high‐identifying Latinos become less politically trusting, more ethnocentric, and increasingly supportive of policies that emphasize ingroup pride. These results clarify xenophobic rhetoric's role in amplifying the influence of ethnic identity on immigrant politics.     

Chief Justice Roberts's Health Care Decision Disrobed: The Microfoundations of the Supreme Court's Legitimacy

The 2012 challenge to the Affordable Care Act was an unusual opportunity for people to form or reassess opinions about the Supreme Court. We utilize panel data coupled with as‐if random assignment to reports that Chief Justice Roberts's decision was politically motivated to investigate the microfoundations of the Court's legitimacy. Specifically, we test the effects of changes in individuals' ideological congruence with the Court and exposure to the nonlegalistic account of the decision. We find that both affect perceptions of the Court's legitimacy. Moreover, we show that these mechanisms interact in important ways and that prior beliefs that the Court is a legalistic institution magnify the effect of updating one's ideological proximity to the Court. While we demonstrate that individuals can and did update their views for multiple reasons, we also highlight constraints that allow for aggregate stability in spite of individual‐level change.     

Voter polarisation and party responsiveness: Why parties emphasise divided issues,but remain silent on unified issues

How does voter polarisation affect party responsiveness? Previous research has shown that political parties emphasise political issues that are important to their voters. However, it is posited in this article that political parties are not equally responsive to citizen demands across all issue areas. The hypothesis is that party responsiveness varies considerably with the preference configuration of the electorate. More specifically, it is argued that party responsiveness increases with the polarisation of issues among voters. To test these theoretical expectations, party responsiveness is analysed across nine West European countries from 1982 until 2013. Data on voter attention and voter preferences with regard to specific policy issues from a variety of national election studies is combined with Comparative Manifestos Project data on parties' emphasis of these issues in their election manifestos. The findings have major implications for understanding party competition and political representation in Europe.