Screening for intimate partner violence: the impact of screener and screening environment on victim comfort

The barriers that professionals face when screening victims for intimate partner violence (IPV) are well studied. The specific barriers that victims face however when being screened are not. The authors sought to identify characteristics of the screener and screening environment that make a victim feel more or less comfortable when disclosing a history of IPV. One hundred forty self-reported female victims of IPV completed a survey regarding their experiences with screening and degree of comfort with certain traits of the screener and the screening environment. Women demonstrated a preference to be screened by a woman, someone of the same race, a provider aged 30 to 50 years, and without anyone else present. Screeners should be aware of characteristics that impact victim comfort and should provide multiple opportunities for women to disclose IPV in a safe, respectful, and culturally effective environment.     

Principle of Community exhaustion upheld by Court of Justice

The European Court of Justice confirmed that Article 4(2) ofthe Information Directive did not permit member states to introduceor retain a rule of international exhaustion of the distributionright and rejected a challenge to the validity of that provision.     

The development and initial validation of the dating attitudes inventory: a measure of the gender context of dating violence in men

The development and initial psychometric investigation of the Dating Attitudes Inventory (DAI) is reported. The DAI was created, to fill a gap in the literature and to measure specific masculine ideology and traditional gender attitudes that rationalize the abuse of women. Using a sample (n = 164) of male college students, a 20-item measure was developed consisting of two subscales (Rationalization of Abuse and Dominance and Control) and a total score. The 20-item DAI and other measures used for validation were completed by 216 male college students. The DAI correlated in theoretically expected ways with measures of propensity for abusiveness, relational dominance, and masculine gender role stress. A confirmatory factor analysis supported the two theorized factors of the DAI. Results of the present study offer initial support for the validity and reliability of the DAI. The authors discuss the importance of measuring masculine gender role attitudes and beliefs that support and rationalize dating violence.     

Investigating the Determinants of the Street Code and its Relation to Offending among Adults

Theoretical and empirical consideration has long been given to the role of subcultural attitudes and how they relate to delinquency and crime. Recently, Anderson has reconceptualized these early attitudinal depictions by considering the formation and role of these specific attitudes or ‘code of the street’ among African-Americans in inner-city neighborhoods. A number of important findings have emerged from this literature, yet much remains to be considered. We contribute to this literature in three specific ways by examining: (1) the scope of street code attitudes across a wide variety of individuals—and not just inner-city African American (males) to assess the generalizability of these attitudes; (2) the correlates of street code attitudes; and (3) the extent to which street code attitudes mediate the relationship between various demographic and attitudinal (self-control) variables and crime. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are addressed.     

Sifting Through the Ashes: Processing Arsonists in Juvenile Justice

National estimates have suggested that less than one-in-five arsons are cleared by arrest. Interestingly, juveniles account for nearly 50% of arson arrests, a proportion greater than all other non-status offenses. While the criminological literature on juvenile arson has been fairly consistent, a dearth of applied criminological literature has observed how the juvenile justice system responds to arsonists. Drawing on data on more than 5,000 juveniles from a large southern state, this study was able to differentiate between the system responses for arsonists and other felons. The findings suggested that the juvenile justice system distinguished between arsonists and other felons in some respects, but these distinctions failed to align with the suggested approaches of the criminological literature.     

Forensic Analysis of Stains on Fabric Using Direct Analysis in Real‐time Ionization with High‐Resolution Accurate Mass‐Mass Spectrometry

A rapid technique using direct analysis in real ‐ time (DART) ambient ionization coupled to a high ‐ resolution accurate mass‐mass spectrometer (HRAM‐MS) was employed to analyze stains on an individual's pants suspected to have been involved in a violent crime. The victim was consuming chocolate ice cream at the time of the attack, and investigators recovered the suspect's pants exhibiting splatter stains. Liquid chromatography with mass spectral detection (LC‐MS) and stereoscopic light microscopy (SLM) were also utilized in this analysis. It was determined that the stains on the pants contained theobromine and caffeine, known components of chocolate. A shard from the ceramic bowl that contained the victim's ice cream and a control chocolate ice cream sample were also found to contain caffeine and theobromine. The use of DART‐HRAM‐MS was useful in this case due to its rapid analysis capability and because of the limited amount of sample present as a stain.     

Children’s and parents’ involvement in care order proceedings: a cross-national comparison of judicial decision-makers’ views and experiences

This paper presents the views of judicial decision-makers (n = 1794) in four child protection jurisdictions (England, Finland, Norway, and the USA (California)), about whether parents and children are provided with appropriate opportunities to participate in proceedings in their countries. Overall, the study found a high degree of agreement within and between the countries as regards the important conditions for parents’ and children´s involvement, although the four systems themselves are very different. There was less agreement about children’s involvement than parents’, and the court decision-makers from Norway and Finland were more likely to express doubts about this. Nevertheless, the main message from the judicial decision-makers is that they are relatively satisfied as to how parents’ and children´s involvement is handled in their countries. Whether or not this confidence is justified, the emphasis on achieving effective involvement of children and parents in court proceedings is likely to grow, with major implications for the workers, decision-makers and agencies involved.     

Gerrymandering Roll Calls in Congress, 1879–2000

We argue that the standard toolbox used in electoral studies to assess the bias and responsiveness of electoral systems can also be used to assess the bias and responsiveness of legislative systems. We consider which items in the toolbox are the most appropriate for use in the legislative setting, then apply them to estimate levels of bias in the U.S. House from 1879 to 2000. Our results indicate a systematic bias in favor of the majority party over this period, with the strongest bias arising during the period of "czar rule" (51st–60th Congresses, 1889–1910) and during the post-packing era (87th–106th Congresses, 1961–2000). This finding is consistent with the majority party possessing a significant advantage, either in "buying" vote options, in setting the agenda, or both.