DNA双股螺旋结构与迅猛发展的法庭科学——纪念人类DNA双股螺旋结构发现50周年

自1953年Watson和Crick发表DNA双股螺旋结构,它为人类生命科学,尤其是法庭科学的发展带来了历史性的变化。法庭科学从个体识别和亲子鉴定的排除到认定,经历了DNA指纹图、AMP-FLP及SNP的3个阶段。同时线粒体DNA的应用也在广泛开展。另外数据库的建设和完善成为法庭科学的发展方向。总之,DNA双股螺旋结构对法庭科学革命性变化起了决定性的作用。     

Predictors of Early Engagement in Home Visitation

Predictors of engagement in mothers receiving home visitation in the first year of service was examined. Early engagement was studied in three ways: (1) length of time active in the program during the first year of service (duration), (2) number of visits received (quantity), and (3) gaps in service between visits (consistency). Examined visits received in 515 first-time mothers in a Healthy Families America (HFA) program. Parameters of engagement were investigated, and predictors of engagement were identified using demographics and the Kempe Family Stress Inventory. Inclusive of the Assessment Visit, 31.8% of mothers disengaged prior to the first month of service. Remaining active in the program was associated with being Caucasian, and increased parenting risk (mental health/substance abuse history, low social support, increased stress). Most mothers had fewer home visits than prescribed. Gaps in prescribed service were common, with 89.4% of mothers experiencing gaps between visits of 1 month, and dropping to 16.4% having gaps of 2 months. In contrast to findings from clinic-based interventions, early engagement in home visitation is associated with lower levels of functioning and acute needs. These findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting that increased adversity promotes engagement in prevention programs in general, and home visitation programs in particular. To the extent that mothers who are actively engaged in home visitation are likely to have increased psychosocial needs, curricula may require modification and augmentation to address these needs and optimize program effectiveness.     

Investigating the implicit theories of rape‐prone men using an interpretative bias task

Purpose. Ward (2000) has hypothesized that sexual offenders hold offence supportive implicit theories (ITs) or schemata that function to facilitate or maintain offending behaviour. The present research aimed to determine whether rape‐prone men hold the same offence supportive ITs as those that have been identified in rapists. Method. This study adopted both an explicit measure of ITs and also an implicit measure of ITs (an interpretative bias task). In the implicit task, participants viewed ambiguous stimuli (one‐sentence statements) that may be interpreted in either a rape‐supportive manner, or a non‐rape‐supportive manner. Participant's interpretation of the stimuli was assessed via a memory recognition task. We predicted that men higher on proclivity to rape – who presumably hold strong mental representations of rape‐supportive themes – would be more likely to interpret stimuli in a rape‐supportive manner relative to non‐rape‐supportive stimuli compared to men lower on rape proclivity. Results. Using multiple regression to determine the relative contributions of both explicit and implicit measures for predicting rape proclivity, we found that only the explicit, self‐report questionnaire and one of the ITs, ‘women are sex objects’ (as measured by the interpretative bias task), was significantly related to a person's rape proclivity score. Conclusions. This result indicates that rape‐prone men may not share the same beliefs as convicted rapists, which could be a key difference between men at risk of offending, and those who have been convicted of a sexual offence.     

Working on the Ground. A Collective Biography of Feminine Subjectivities: Mapping the Traces of Power and Knowledge

In this paper we map the traces of power and knowledge as we read them at play in our own memories and as we make sense of them from a Foucauldian perspective. Our question here is twofold: how might we use Foucault to read our embodied memories of power and knowledge; and how might we use the analysis of those stories to enable us better to see the implications of Foucault's writing for the analysis of subjects' enmeshment in power/knowledge relations? We use as the ground of our analysis our own embodied memories of achieving ourselves as appropriate(d) subjects (as girls and women, in relation to men--fathers, lovers, and husbands). Our trajectory in this paper is double. First, it has been towards uncovering the ways in which girls and women might be said to be powerful, even when they are complicit in their own subjection. Second, it has been to show that when Foucault defines all acts of power to involve the possibility of resistance and freedom, and he takes the opposite, a state of domination, to arise from 'economic, political, or military means', he has not fully acknowledged the extent to which the repeated, minute accretions of everyday practices can generate sedimentations of lines of force that may also be understood as a state of domination.     

An examination of current psychometric assessments of child molesters' offense-supportive beliefs using Ward's implicit theories

Are current questionnaire methods fit for the task of assessing offense-related schemas? Six published and unpublished questionnaire measures that assess child molesters' offense-related beliefs are evaluated and examined for evidence of the five implicit schemas proposed by Ward: children as sexual beings, nature of harm, uncontrollability, entitlement, and dangerous world. Current treatment approaches assume that child molesters hold some, if not all, of these implicit schemas-an assumption demonstrated through the use of appropriately modified schema-based treatment techniques. Coding the six questionnaires revealed that nonsexual offense-specific implicit theories are underrepresented on existing measures (i.e., uncontrollability, entitlement, and dangerous world) and that many questionnaire items could not be classified as tapping any implicit theories. Suggestions are made for the future design and revision of questionnaire assessments .     

Human rights, ethical principles, and standards in forensic psychology

Human rights create a protective zone around persons and allow them the opportunity to further their valued personal projects without interference from others. This article considers the relationship between human rights and the general ethical principles and standards contained in the American Psychological Association's (APA's) code of ethics as applied to the forensic domain. First, it analyzes the concept of human rights, their structure, and their justification. Second, it briefly describes the APA's most recent code of ethics and the principles and standards that compose it. Third, it concludes by explicitly examining the relationship between the present human rights model and the APA's code, demonstrating how it is able to provide an additional ethical resource for forensic practitioners in their clinical work and so deepen their ethical sensibilities and decision making. Finally, the article presents a case study and discusses the human rights issues confronting practitioners inherent in such situations.