Shuttle and Online Mediation: A Review of Available Research and Implications for Separating Couples Reporting Intimate Partner Violence or Abuse

Whether family law cases with a history of severe intimate partner violence and/or abuse (IPV/A cases) should have the option of settling family‐related issues using mediation is the subject of significant debate. Recommendations for potentially safer ways to mediate IPV/A cases have been developed, including shuttle and online mediation. Given the current lack of research on these forms of mediation with IPV/A cases, we review the research on shuttle and online mediation in other contexts and theorize how the findings might apply to IPV/A cases. We argue that, although online and shuttle mediation may benefit IPV/A cases, aspects of these procedures require special considerations.     

Anxiety disorders and intimate partner violence: can the association be explained by coexisting conditions or borderline personality traits?

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious, preventable public health problem. IPV perpetration is strongly associated with Anxiety disorders at the population level. We investigated whether the association could be explained by coexisting psychiatric conditions or Borderline personality traits, using a combined data-set of two National Household Surveys (n = 15,973). Results showed women were more likely to report perpetrating IPV than men. Anxiety disorders were associated with IPV. When coexisting psychiatric conditions together with a categorical diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) were investigated as explanatory variables, 19.2% of the association between Anxiety disorders and IPV was explained. Using individual Borderline traits in place of a categorical diagnosis of BPD, 58.3% of the association was explained. In conclusion, the association between Anxiety disorders and IPV was partly, but not fully, explained by coexisting psychiatric conditions and individual Borderline traits. Perpetrators of IPV should be screened for Anxiety disorders and among those with Anxiety disorders, Borderline traits are important.     

毒品案件实物证据收集的实证分析

根据《关于办理死刑案件审查判断证据若干问题的规定》、《关于办理刑事案件排除非法证据若干问题的规定》以及《大连会议纪要》的新要求,本文通过对毒品案件证据特征的总结,结合实际分析研究了毒品案件侦查中物证、书证、勘验检查笔录和视听资料等实物证据的收集方法。     

Evaluating the Violence Prevention Program: group and individual changes in aggression,anger, self-control,and empathy

While youth violence reduction program is a necessity to prevent long-term criminal and violent offending, its effectiveness in youth violent offenders is not well researched. This study investigated the effectiveness of the Violence Prevention Program (VPP) in addressing the aggression, anger, self-control, and empathy of youth violent offenders. One hundred and seventy youths (mean age 15.8 years) who completed VPP from 2008 to 2014 completed self-report measures on study outcomes both before and after the intervention. Repeated measures analyses revealed significant improvement in youths’ anger, aggression, and self-control at post-treatment, but changes in youths’ empathy were not significant. Subsequent analysis found that only youths with lower empathy scores at pre-treatment showed significant increase in empathy post-treatment. Overall, the results suggest that VPP can reduce aggression and mitigate the criminogenic needs of youth offenders. But its effect on empathy may be contingent on youths’ pre-treatment profiles. Limitations and implications for future studies are discussed.     

INCREASING THE PROPORTION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ARRESTS THAT ARE PROSECUTED: A NATURAL EXPERIMENT IN MILWAUKEE*

Research Summary: Mandatory and pro‐arrest policies in domestic violence incidents have increased strains on prosecutorial and court resources. They have also brought to prosecutors many cases in which victims never wanted batterers charged and prosecuted. Prosecutors are faced with the dilemma of (a) screening out difficult cases up front and expending resources on fewer but more winnable case or (b) prosecuting a larger number of cases as adequately as resources will allow. We studied a natural experiment that resulted when the Milwaukee prosecutor liberalized his screening policy to double the number of domestic violence case filings. After the new screening policy was implemented, time to disposition doubled, convictions decreased, the prevalence of pretrial crime increased, and victim satisfaction declined. Policy Implications: The results do not support the idea that domestic violence cases can be readily prosecuted without regard for victim desires. To commit to such a policy would require a substantial commitment of additional staff, resources to collect additional types of evidence, and a willingness to try a substantially larger number of cases.     

对我国家庭暴力的成因和公力救济制度的思考

家庭暴力形成的原因有三个方面:主体方面;内部环境因素;外部环境因素。我国对家庭暴力的救济手段主要采用公力救济,但仍存在一些问题。因此,应从以下三个方面完善公力救济制度:改变对家庭暴力的认识;制定反家庭暴力的专门法律;加强执法力度。     

美国入警体能测试理念及启示

警察体能应分为健康相关体能和执法相关体能两大范畴。美国部分州的入警体能测试有其特殊的理念,对进一步完善我国的警察体能测试理论与方法具有启示作用。     

Harassment and stalking of Members of the United Kingdom Parliament: associations and consequences

A survey concerning intrusive/aggressive behaviours towards MPs was administered at Westminster, and in Queensland, New Zealand and Norway. Follow-up interviews were conducted with a sample at Westminster. This paper examines the experiences and associations of the 239 Westminster responders, of whom 81% had experienced intrusive/aggressive behaviours, 18% been subject to attack/attempted attack, and 53% stalked or harassed. Being stalked and subject to certain types of intrusive/aggressive behaviour were associated with younger age and being in the Commons five years or less, but serious incidents were more common in those who had been MPs for longer. There were no associations with brief periods of harassment. Some differences with party and constituency type emerged. Mental illness was prominent amongst perpetrators. Motives predominantly concerned personal grievances. Significant proportions of MPs suffered psychological ill-effects, necessitating inconvenient behaviour changes. Internal consistencies in these results and similarities to other sites are explored, and their implications discussed.     

Norms and rage: Gender and social media in the 2018 U.S. mid-term elections

Previous research shows women candidates face double-standard with regard to fitness for office: women ought to be kind but leaders ought to be aggressive and agentic. At the same time, there is traditional division of what constitutes “women’s” issues (e.g. health-care) vs “male” (e.g. economy). Do these norms about what women politicians ought to be and talk about hurt or help them during elections? We investigate the case of U.S. 2018 mid-term elections on Twitter. Our findings suggest that engaging with “women’s” issues by female candidates as well as tweeting angrily is associated with higher likelihood of being elected. However, women candidates who use angry speech on Twitter, are more likely to also receive tweets with abusive language, in particular by other women. Thus, we show that social media could help female candidates to break stereotypes, and present themselves as nuanced candidates who can both stand for women’s issues but also be aggressive and leader-like.     

Inferring ethnicity using 15 autosomal STR loci—Comparisons among populations of similar and distinctly different physical traits

The forensic utility of short tandem repeat (STR) polymorphisms for ethnic inference (EI) has recently received limited attention from the research community. The large volume of population specific STR data available from public literature affords us the opportunity to assess the reliability of EIs based on STR profiles, and present significant results. We applied a binary Bayesian approach using 15 autosomal STR loci from computer-simulated and real STR profiles of Han Chinese, Japanese, Korean, American Caucasian, and a South Asian Indian aboriginal tribal group called Lodha. A correct classification rate of ≥90% was achieved via simulation for each East Asian group (Han Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) when paired with the American Caucasian or the tribal Indian group. Similar result was obtained between the Caucasian and the Indian group, while the correct classification rates among the three East Asian groups were much lower (70%). Results based on real profiles closely matched those achieved via simulation, establishing the credibility of our classifier performance metrics. This study shows that binary Bayesian classifier performed best for ethnic groups with distinctly different physical traits. This observation might be due to accidental differences caused by bottlenecks, genetic drift, etc. However, it could also be taken as an indication that STRs, commonly referred to as “junk” DNA, may have an effect on phenotype, a possibility that warrants further research.