Educational tracking and juvenile confidence in the police in China

Juvenile confidence in the police (JCP) has become an important research topic in policing. In spite of an increasing amount of research literature on JCP, the influence of educational tracking especially vocational tracking on juveniles’ confidence in the police has received limited scholarly attention. Extant literature suggests a noticeable difference in family backgrounds, attitudinal perceptions, and problematic behaviours between vocational school students and regular high school students. Using the survey data of 3628 students collected from these 2 distinctive segments of educational tracking in a southwestern Chinese city, this study examines if and how youths in vocational schools perceive the local police differently from their regular high school counterparts. The findings indicate that vocational school students had more confidence in the police than their regular high school peers. In addition, school contexts played a significant role in shaping their respective attitudes toward the police. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Trust in government increased during the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia and New Zealand

Using an online panel, we surveyed a representative sample of 500 each in Australia and New Zealand during July 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. We find trust in government has increased dramatically, with around 80% of respondents agreeing government was generally trustworthy. Around three quarters agreed management of the pandemic had increased their trust in government. Over 85% of respondents have confidence that public health scientists work in the public interest. Testing four hypotheses, we find that income and education predict trust in government and confidence in public health scientists, as does voting for the political party in government. Trust in government and confidence in public health scientists strongly predict Covid-19 phone application use, largely through convincing people the App is beneficial. Trust in government then is both an outcome and antecedent of government effectiveness. Building trust is important for governments implementing difficult policy responses during a crisis.     

Effects of Testimonial Inconsistencies and Eyewitness Confidence on Mock-Juror Judgments

This study examined the interaction between testimonial consistency and eyewitness confidence on mock-jurors' judgments of probability that the defendant committed the crime and verdicts. In a 2 (testimonial consistency) × 2 (confidence) between-groups design, 130 mock-jurors listened to an audio-taped trial of a person charged with armed robbery. Manipulations were contained in the prosecution witness's responses to detailed questioning by prosecution and defense attorneys. Although consistency is considered to be a key marker of accuracy, its impact on judgments was weak and nonsignificant. Witness confidence had a strong influence on judgments, whether testimony was consistent or inconsistent. We suggested that witness confidence may be more likely to emerge as a dominant influence on juror judgments when the testimony is wide ranging rather than relatively brief and concerned only with a specific issue (e.g., identification confidence).     

Does Recent Victimization Impact Confidence in the Criminal Justice System?

This study assesses whether recent victimization influences one’s confidence in the criminal justice system. Specifically, the study tests whether the predictors of confidence in major types of actors in the justice system are different for victims and nonvictims. British Crime Survey (BCS) data are analyzed using a series of structural equation models with multiple group methods. Overall, the findings support the idea that there is little difference between victims and nonvictims in how views of legal actors predict overall confidence. Additionally, prosecutors are slightly more influential on system confidence, regardless of victimization experience. Policy implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Reproductive behaviour in the Lutheran urban family from historical Poland (the Parish of St. Peter from Poznań, the second half of the nineteenth century)

Fertility and reproductive behaviour in the nineteenth-century Lutheran family from the city of Poznań was characterized. Use was made of the St. Peter parish (Peterkirche) registers from 1840s to 1870s, upon which reconstructions of the individual histories of 463 families were based. Fertility was assessed on the basis of the length of between-birth intervals according to their order and age of women. Next, the age-specific fertility rates of women f_x and Coale Index of marital fertility I_g were calculated. From a seasonal rhythm of both marital and illegitimate births, and reconstructed on the basis of these, the annual rhythm of marital and prenuptial conceptions were characterized. In the Lutheran Parish of St. Peter from the city of Poznań illegitimate births and prenuptial conceptions accounted for almost 10% and over 5% of all births, respectively. Lack of seasonality for marital births was noted here. Illegitimate births, by contrast, were characterized by a statistically significant annual rhythm: their maximum was noted in April, which was a result of conceptions during summer. The average woman with completed reproduction cycle gave birth to the first and to the last child at the ages of 29 and 40 years, respectively. She therefore used 32% of her whole reproductive period. Late age of birth of the first child was associated with late age of marriage of women (on average 28 years). An average woman with completed reproduction gave birth to 4.8 children. The average length of the protogenesic interval was 18 months. The highest fertility occurred in women aged between 20 to 29 years. The value of the I_g index was 0.67, and proved a lack of birth control rather than conscious birth regulation. Generally, Lutheran women from Poznań were characterized by fairly high reproductive potential.     

Partisan Development in Post-Soviet Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The development of mass partisanship and party identification in post-Soviet societies is a controversial subject of scholarly research. One prevalent view argues that post-Soviet citizens are distrustful of parties and that it will take generations for party identification to appear in these societies. Others argue that partisanship is emerging as a result of citizens perceiving meaningful differences between the parties. If party identification is forming, partisanship should be relatively stable across time at the individual level. This study takes a rare look at 1999 panel data from Ukraine to determine the degree of partisan stability. The findings demonstrate that meaningful party identification appears to be emerging for a significant proportion of the population due to political information and this partisanship is influencing election decision making among Ukrainian voters.     

中国道路：中国梦的实现途径

党的十八大指出：道路关乎国家前途、民族命运、人民幸福,实现中国梦必须走中国道路。中国道路的成功开辟为实现中国梦创造了条件和途径。中国梦内涵丰富,凝聚了近代以来无数中华儿女为实现国家富强、民族复兴和人民幸福的伟大梦想。中国道路和中国梦二者具有高度的内在一致性,中国梦的实现必然要求坚持走中国道路,而坚持走中国道路则是中国梦实现的根本途径。     

重思“法律信仰”

法律信仰在我国是一个充满争议的话题,其之所以如此在很大程度上是因为对法律信仰这个源自西方的命题不加审视地视其为真理而简单接受。笔者在考察伯尔曼法律信仰命题背后的问题意识的基础上,认为法律信仰是将二元论下两个根本有别的秩序体简单联合在一起的失败努力。同时,基于对引发法律信仰思考的问题意识的肯定和公民宗教问题的讨论中,笔者认为在一元论社会条件下应该提倡的是"法律信心"而非法律信仰。     

Post-decision confidence,decision time,and self-reported decision processes as postdictors of identification accuracy

Abstract

Post-decision confidence, decision time, and decision processes were evaluated concerning their usefulness for postdicting identification accuracy. One hundred and ninety-two participants witnessed a filmed theft and were tested with target-absent or target-present simultaneous lineups 1 week later. Post-decision confidence was positively associated with, and decision time negatively associated with choosers’ identification accuracy. For several measures of self-reported decision processes, the expected associations were non-significant. Using a decision rule including highly confident and fast participants led to more correct classifications than either variable alone. Significant associations between postdictors highlight the need to consider the different processes jointly as, in combination, they may be more useful in assessing identification decisions.