Coping with an unjust fate: The case of structural unemployment

Becoming a victim of structural unemployment means suffering an unjust fate. The present research examines the cognitive reactions subjects use to protect their belief in a just world and the related effects on their actual well-being within a sample of unemployed blue-collar workers in East Germany (all female). Results showed that the belief in a just world was positively correlated with attributing one’s unemployment to one’s own behavior and negatively with asking “why me?”, but uncorrelated with subjects’ readiness to change into another profession in order to get employed. Just world belief and depression were negatively related for those who either avoided the “why me?” question or who found an answer to it; but just world belief and depression was positively related for those women ruminating about an unanswered “why me?”. Results are consistent with the idea that the belief in a just world plays a significant role in the unemployed person’s coping process.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Peircean Semeiotic

This special issue should go a long way towards increasing the understanding of Peirce’s semeiotic and its applicability for solving problems in legal studies. In fact, the New Science of Semiotics should result in developing a rigorous and systematic methodology for legal studies making it a true semiotic science which I suggest calling “jurisology.”     

Insecure Attachment Mediates Effects of Partners’ Emotional Abuse and Violence on Women’s Relationship Quality

Men’s emotional abuse and violence have a broad and pervasive impact on women that may include long-term effects on women’s attachment and relationship quality. In this longitudinal study, women’s Wave 6 ratings of their insecure attachment were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between partners’ Wave 5 abuse (emotional and physical) and Wave 6 relationship quality, with differences in associations by women’s Wave 5 self-classification as secure or insecure. Mediation was tested with data from a sample of 574 African American, Euro-American, and Mexican American community women who had completed at least three waves of a six wave study. Differences occurred in the final structural equation models by women’s Wave 5 attachment style, with direct paths from emotional abuse to insecure attachment and from violence to relationship quality for both groups, but direct effects of violence on relationship quality only for insecurely attached women.     

Strategic Use of Evidence During Police Interviews: When Training to Detect Deception Works

Research on deception detection in legal contexts has neglected the question of how the use of evidence can affect deception detection accuracy. In this study, police trainees (N=82) either were or were not trained in strategically using the evidence when interviewing lying or truth telling mock suspects (N=82). The trainees’ strategies as well as liars’ and truth tellers’ counter-strategies were analyzed. Trained interviewers applied different strategies than did untrained. As a consequence of this, liars interviewed by trained interviewers were more inconsistent with the evidence compared to liars interviewed by untrained interviewers. Trained interviewers created and utilized the statement-evidence consistency cue, and obtained a considerably higher deception detection accuracy rate (85.4%) than untrained interviewers (56.1%).     

A Capture–Recapture Model to Estimate the Size of Criminal Populations and the Risks of Detection in a Marijuana Cultivation Industry

Originally developed in biology, capture-recapture methodologies have increasingly been integrated into the study of human populations to provide estimates of the size of “hidden populations.” This paper explores the validity of one capture-recapture model—Zelterman’s (1988) truncated Poisson estimator—used to estimate the size of the marijuana cultivation industry in Quebec, Canada. The capture–recapture analysis draws on arrest data to estimate the number of marijuana growers “at risk of being arrested” for a period of five years (1998–2002). Estimates are provided for growers involved in two different techniques: (1) soil-based growing, and (2) hydroponics. In addition, the study develops an original method to estimate the prevalence of cultivation sites “at risk of detection.” A first set of findings shows that the cultivation industry is substantial; the estimated prevalence of growers compares to estimates of marijuana dealers in the province. Capture–recapture estimates are also used to compare the risks of being arrested for different types of offenders. Results indicate that hydroponic growers—those involved in large scale and sophisticated sites—face lower enforcement-related risks than growers involved in smaller enterprises. The significance of these findings is discussed in the context of the widespread development, both in Europe and in North America, of a successful domestic production-driven, rather than importation-driven, marijuana trade.

Test–Retest Reliability of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2)

The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) are widely used to measure intimate partner aggression. Various aspects of the CTS2 and its subscales have been examined, e.g. factor structure, internal consistency, and validity, but little or no evidence exists regarding the stability of the self-report of aggression on the CTS2 This study examines the stability of reports of aggression against a partner on the CTS2 among 82 men court-mandated to a batterer intervention program. At both testing times men reported on aggression occurring in the year prior to beginning treatment. Using variety scores, stability of report was strong for psychological aggression (r = 0.69), physical assault (r = 0.76), injury (r = 0.70), and negotiation (r = 0.60), but weaker for sexual coercion (r = 0.30). Implications for the use of the CTS2 in court-mandated populations are discussed.

The Future of Consumer Web Data: A European/US Perspective

The article considers the subject of clickstream data from aEuropean/US perspective, taking into account the Data ProtectionFramework (Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC; Directive onPrivacy and Electronic Communications 2002/58/EC) and the USlegal framework and in particular, the Wiretap Act U.S.C. 2701(2004) and related statutes. It examines the extent to whichclickstream data is considered "personal data" within the DataProtection Directive and the implications to consumers and businesses.     

Hostility in Homicide–Suicide Events: A Typological Analysis with Data from a Chinese Society, Hong Kong, 1989–2003

As many as one-quarter of uroxicides [Johnson and Hotton (2003) Homicide Studies 7:58–84] and filicides [Wilczynski (1997) Child Homicide, London: Greenwich Medical Media] end in the suicide of the offender. As in homicide- or suicide-only events, homicide–suicide (HS) can arise from a variety of circumstances, ranging from relationship breakdown, to financial and health problems. However, to date our understanding of this disheartening phenomenon remains limited. As an HS event comprises both a homicidal and a suicidal component, the question of whether HS is primarily an extended suicide dominated by weariness or an alternate form of homicide overwhelmed by anger is a contentious topic. This article argues that there are at least two types of HS, with one type being dominated by hostility against the victim, whilst in the other hostility is not apparent. Based on HS events that occurred between 1989 and 2003 in Hong Kong, significant differences are found between these two types of HS in terms of offender and victim characteristics, antecedent, offender–victim relationships, situational factors and modes of killing. This is the first HS typological classification built on the hostility debate that has been validated with empirical data.