Are we interested? a trend analysis of sex offender internet registries

Traditional research on community awareness and use of sex offender registries relies upon random digit dialing and other survey instruments. While important sources of data, these sources have limitations and attempts to improve on these measures are bound to funding limitations impeding the collection of larger samples. Analyzing internet search query data associated with interest in sex offender registries from 2006–2016, we explore regional and temporal trends associated with interest in sex offender registries. Results substantiate prior research using mail and telephone surveys, and that of other similar methodologies, showing that interest in sex offender registries display low to moderate interest, which are relatively stable overtime and declining in interest.     

Police Bias,Social Identity,and Minority Groups: A Social Psychological Understanding of Cooperation with Police

The present study uses Social Identity Theory as a framework to investigate the collective effects of perceived police bias, ethnicity and self-identification with different groups on respondents’ intentions to cooperate with police in general crime control efforts and in counter-terrorism policing. Drawing on survey data collected from 1,272 individuals from three ethnic minority backgrounds in Australia, the present study reports findings including: (1) significant and large direct positive associations between superordinate identity and willingness to cooperate with police, (2) small-to-moderate significant associations between perceived police bias and cooperation with police (positive for Vietnamese subsample; negative for Indian and Arab subsamples), and (3) significant interaction patterns between subordinate identity, perceived police bias, and ethnicity. Findings are discussed with respect to community-engaged prevention and prejudice reduction.     

Age Differences in Lineup Identification Accuracy: People Are Better with Their Own Age

Previous research has reported that young adults are better at eyewitness face recognition than are older adults. However, these studies have used young adults as culprits and fillers. We explore how the relative ages of the witness and the culprit influence eyewitness accuracy in 2 experiments. In the first experiment, young (18–25 years old) and older (35–55 years old) adults each saw 4 crime videos. In 2 the culprit was a young adult and in 2 the culprit was an older adult. Participants were more accurate at identifying the culprit when viewing culprit present lineups comprising people of their own age: an own age bias analogous to the own race bias. In the 2nd experiment, using a similar procedure, young (18–33 years old) and older (40–55 years old) adults viewed both culprit present and culprit absent lineups. The results of the first experiment were replicated for the culprit present lineups. However, no own age bias was found for the culprit absent lineups. Implications for police procedures dealing with cross-generation identifications are discussed.     

宋代乡村户意识形态研究

缘于精英层对程朱理学的误读,致使不少人对宋代社会观念存有曲解。五代时期的纷争,土地私有制的风行,已使人们的头脑中充满了利欲的观念。就乡村户而言,其意识形态突出地表现为以下三种:1 追末逐利,诚信孝悌的朴素伦理式微;2 富求贵,贫求富心态;3 重鬼神、祭祖,轻法度心理。宋代乡村户中普遍存在的这三种具有代表性的意识形态是宋代经济、社会变动的反映,它具有中国前近代乡村民众意识形态的共性,又鲜明地体现着有宋一代的时代特点。     

中国现代小说中知识女性悲剧命运的原因探析——以子君、繁漪、陈白露为例

本文章通过对子君、繁漪、陈白露三个女性形象及其悲剧命运的探因,分析探讨了在旧制度向新制度转型时期,旧中国女性应该如何从旧势力压迫下寻求个性解放、婚姻自由,才能使自己真正得到解放的问题。揭示了个性解放、婚姻自由单靠个人自我奋斗不是良药,只有通过社会的根本变革才能获取真正的自由和解放这样一个文学命题。     

巧用搜索引擎查找信息

搜索引擎是互联网上查找信息的必备工具,本文以Google为例,介绍了如何利用搜索引擎快速准确地在互联网上查找所需的信息。     

Corporate Ownership and News Bias Revisited: Newspaper Coverage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United Ruling

The clear financial benefits accrued to owners of television stations as a result of the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) decision opens the door to an important question: Did the degree to which media corporations benefited from the changes in campaign finance law influence their news outlets’ coverage of the Citizens United decision? In other words, is it possible to identify variation in how media outlets covered the Supreme Court decision that correlates with the degree to which those outlets’ parent companies profited from the resulting increase in campaign spending? Answering this question will provide an important and much-too-uncommon opportunity to systematically test for bias in news coverage. Replicating the method used by Gilens and Hertzman (2000) in their own test of coverage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, this analysis reveals that newspapers belonging to media corporations that own more television stations covered the Citizens United ruling systematically differently—and more favorably—than those with few or no television stations. This has important implications for the degree to which the news produced by increasingly conglomerated and corporatized media companies may eschew neutral or balanced coverage in favor of news frames that promote their own financial interests.     

RISK,RACE, AND RECIDIVISM: PREDICTIVE BIAS AND DISPARATE IMPACT*

One way to unwind mass incarceration without compromising public safety is to use risk assessment instruments in sentencing and corrections. Although these instruments figure prominently in current reforms, critics argue that benefits in crime control will be offset by an adverse effect on racial minorities. Based on a sample of 34,794 federal offenders, we examine the relationships among race, risk assessment [the Post Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA)], and future arrest. First, application of well‐established principles of psychological science revealed little evidence of test bias for the PCRA—the instrument strongly predicts arrest for both Black and White offenders, and a given score has essentially the same meaning—that is, the same probability of recidivism—across groups. Second, Black offenders obtain higher average PCRA scores than do White offenders (d = .34; 13.5 percent nonoverlap in groups’ scores), so some applications could create disparate impact. Third, most (66 percent) of the racial difference in PCRA scores is attributable to criminal history—which is already embedded in sentencing guidelines. Finally, criminal history is not a proxy for race, but instead it mediates the relationship between race and future arrest. Data are more helpful than rhetoric if the goal is to improve practice at this opportune moment in history.     

Accidental Trauma Mimicking Homicidal Violence

Homicide investigations represent an important function of death investigators. Although recognizing nonobvious homicides is crucial, an equally important role involves the identification of cases that initially present as possible homicides, but are ultimately discovered to not represent homicides. Failure to recognize such cases results in wasted time, squandered resources, false allegations, and potential life‐altering consequences. The authors review a series of cases wherein initial investigation suggested a possibility that the deaths represented homicides. By carefully considering additional information, including scene findings, history, and postmortem examination, each was determined to represent an accidental traumatic death. In addition to highlighting the importance of recognizing accidental traumatic deaths that initially present as homicides, the cases serve to highlight the fact that forensic pathology cannot be practiced without knowledge of appropriate ancillary information. Although guarding against cognitive bias is important in all forensic disciplines, including forensic pathology, access to vital case‐related ancillary information is an essential component of practicing medicine as a forensic pathologist.