The cognitive interview: A survey of its forensic effectiveness

Abstract

The cognitive interview has been shown to have the potential to enhance witness recall. Consequently, it has been adopted by all police forces in England and Wales. The present paper surveyed 96 police officers trained in the cognitive interview and 65 untrained police officers, using a questionnaire. Officers rated how frequently they used and how useful they found components of the cognitive interview. Trained officers were significantly more likely to use instructions to mentally reinstate context, use different orders, change perspectives and imagery. Amongst trained officers there was a consensus that some components of the cognitive interview were used more frequently and were believed to be more useful than others. Rated as most useful and most frequently used were establish rapport, report everything, encourage concentration, witness compatible questioning, and mental reinstatement of context. Rated as less useful and less frequently used were recall in different orders, imagery, change perspectives and transfer control. Further responses indicated that the cognitive interview was generally perceived to be a useful procedure that increases correct recall, although officers were still aware that incorrect information can also be generated. However, a major problem for many officers was that they do not have the time to conduct a full cognitive interview.     

Is overpunishment fairer than underpunishment? Perceptions of deviations from equity

Abstract

Three studies are presented which test hypotheses derived from Equity Theory, Prospect Theory and the principle of Diminishing Marginal Value with regard to preferences for overpunishment and underpunishment in the assignment of penalties to offences of varying severity. The first two studies showed that, with different subject samples, offences, and kinds of punishments, subjects indicated a marked preference for over-punishment rather than underpunishment, when both over punishment and under-punishment deviated from ideal, or equitable, punishment to the same degree. However, the effect was only apparent for serious offences. A third study showed that the overpunishment preference for a serious offence existed even when the overpunishment deviated 30% more from ideal punishment than underpunishment, but again no preference was shown' for the less serious offence. As the results cannot be readily explained in terms of any of the three explanatory principles, a possible explanation in terms of concept of negative reciprocity is advanced.     

Morphometry of latent palmprints as a function of time

In many crimes, the elapsed time between production and collecting fingermark traces is crucial. and a method able to detect the aging of latent prints would represent an improvement in forensic procedures. Considering that as the latent print gets older, substantial changes in the relative proportion of individual components secreted by skin glands could affect the morphology of ridges, morphometry could be a potential tool to assess the aging of latent fingermarks. Then, considering the very limited research in the field, the present work aims to evaluate the morphometry of latent palmprint ridges, as a function of time, in order to identify an aging pattern. The latent marks were deposited by 20 donors on glass microscope slides considering pressure and contact angle, and then were maintained under controlled environmental conditions. The morphometric study was conducted on marks developed with magnetic powder in 7 different time intervals after deposition (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 days); 60 ridges were evaluated for each developed mark. The results showed that: 1) the method for the replacement and mixing of skin secretions on the palm was appropriate to ensure reproducibility of latent prints, and 2) considering the studied group, there was a time-dependent reduction in the width of ridges and on the percentage of visible ridges over 30 days. Results suggest the possibility of using the morphometric method to determine an aging profile of latent palmprints on glass surface, aiming for forensic purposes.     

Is It a Fight or Are They Just Drunk? Attributions about Drunken Behaviour in a Hypothetical Male‐to‐Male Aggression Scenario1

Objective. This paper examines the excuse‐value of alcohol in a hypothetical provoked male‐to‐male violence scenario. There are two main questions. Does intoxication result in decreased blame? Does intoxication lessen the propensity to call the police?

Methods. 1004 random digit dialing (RDD) quantitative telephone surveys were completed with Swedes aged 16–25. The response rate was 73.8%. Besides the aggressor's intoxication, severity of the outcome, the victim's intoxication and the respondent's hypothetical relationship to the aggressor or to the victim were also randomly manipulated. Whether the police should be called and the attribution of blame to the aggressor have been analysed using ANOVA in SAS.

Results. Analyses were stratified by sex. For male respondents, the aggressor's intoxication interacted (four‐way) with all the manipulated variables in predicting the attribution of blame. In the more severe act, intoxication tended to reduce blame; the least amount of blame was assigned when both the aggressor and the victim were intoxicated. For female respondents, the aggressor's intoxication was involved in a three‐way interaction. For them also, intoxication decreases the blame for the severe acts but not for the less severe acts. The aggressor's intoxication had very little effect on whether the police should be called or not.

Discussion. Intoxication provides some excuse from blame but only for certain acts and under certain circumstances. It also changes the way people perceive acts of violence.     

Impacts of housing and mortgage market discrimination racial and ethnic disparities in homeownership

Abstract

There are persistent differences in homeownership rates across racial and ethnic groups. Homeownership rates for whites are over 20 percentage points higher than for blacks or Hispanics. This paper uses a model of the housing tenure decision to gain a better understanding of these racial and ethnic differentials in homeownership and employs a decomposition technique that has been applied to labor market discrimination to report the results of the empirical testing of two hypotheses: (1) race (ethnicity) influences the probability of ownership through differences in household endowments (income, education, age, gender, and family type) and market endowments (price and location); and (2) race (ethnicity) directly influences the probability of ownership through racial or ethnic discrimination and other factors that may be correlated with race or ethnicity.

We find endowment effects important in explaining the persistent racial and ethnic disparities in homeownership. In brief, logit analysis of 1989 American Housing Survey (AHS) national sample data reveals that 81 percent (78 percent) of the differences between the predicted probability of ownership between black and white households (Hispanic/non‐Hispanic) are due to differences in group endowments. Direct effects explain 19 percent of the black‐white differentials and 22 percent of the Hispanic/non‐Hispanic differentials. Because the direct effects are modeled as residual differences, it must be realized that the residual components could also be capturing the influence of important omitted or harder to measure variables internal to the market process and correlated with race or ethnicity. These include wealth, household location, employment history, credit history, and cultural predisposition toward homeownership.     

The reverse mortgage as an asset management tool

Abstract

Reverse mortgages are usually seen as a vehicle for increasing the income of poor, elderly households. This perspective, coupled with the relatively slow growth of reverse mortgage programs, has led some observers to question the growth potential of the reverse mortgage market. This article presents a more expansive view of reverse mortgages as a financial tool for tapping housing equity for various purposes and at various stages in the life cycle.

Three market segments for reverse mortgages are discussed: elderly persons living alone, other elderly households, and non‐elderly households. Potential uses include turning housing equity into personal human capital investment accounts, enabling children to provide care for their disabled parents, funding elderly households’ long‐term care insurance, and sustaining consumption. Recent progress in product development and availability and political pressures to find private financing for health and long‐term care suggest that the reverse mortgage market has considerable growth potential.     

What Can We Learn About the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program by Looking at the Tenants?

Abstract

Several recent studies have found that homeownership has positive effects on children's development. This article extends these studies by testing whether these effects depend on neighborhood conditions. This extension is important because many low‐income families that become homeowners under current policies promoting homeownership for the poor are likely to purchase homes in troubled or distressed neighborhoods.

Homeownership in almost any neighborhood is found to benefit children, while neighborhood effects are weak. This suggests that the children of most low‐income renters would be better served by programs that help their families become homeowners in their current neighborhoods instead of helping them move to better neighborhoods while remaining renters. However, the positive effects of homeownership on children are weakened in distressed neighborhoods, especially those that are residentially unstable and poor. Thus, helping low‐income families purchase homes in good neighborhoods is likely to have the best effects on children.     

New Urbanism and Selection Bias in the Formation of Social Capital

Over the past several decades, there has been a decline in social capital in American communities. New urbanism has been proposed as a tool to reverse some of this decline. This study seeks to understand the potential benefits of new urbanism in terms of social capital. Differences in social capital between a new urbanist subdivision (NUS) and a standard suburban subdivision (SSS) are compared. The findings of this study suggest that residents of NUSs have more social capital than residents of SSSs. However, many of the differences between the two communities disappeared when a social bias control was added to the model.