Designating Safety,Denying Persecution: Implications for Roma Refugee Claimants in Canada

In response to the arrival in Canada of thousands of Hungarian Roma asylum seekers, a new and restrictive refugee regime was installed. Legislation included Designated Countries of Origin or “safe” countries from which refugee claimants were stripped of some entitlements. Acceptance rates fluctuate in loose reticulation with several factors. When negative decisions are made on refugee claims, conditions of persecution in Hungary are denied even though they are clearly demonstrable. Inclusion of claimants' voices substantiates a normalized violence. When decision makers parse the criterion of persecution and when political leaders dismiss claims as “bogus,” the consequence is the reconfiguration of the Roma as essentially nomadic.     

The Development of Competitive Industries: The Role of State Government Actors

Despite widespread adoption of Porter's Industrial Cluster Theory as a policy development framework by federal and state governments over the past decade, Australia remains significantly below the OECD average in terms of its industries' economic contributions to real wealth creation ( Brown 2000 ; OECD 1998 ). The major cause cited for this relatively poor performance has been inability of key government officials to implement effective industry policy that simultaneously avoids de facto protectionism and distortion of competition. This article provides an insight into the key policy decisions undertaken by the Tasmanian state government that coincided with development of an internationally successful shipbuilding industry in that state. As such, this article provides a reflection on policy initiatives that may be valuable for government officials elsewhere.     

Suspects,Lies, and Videotape: An Analysis of Authentic High-Stake Liars

This study is one of the very few, and the most extensive to date, which has examined deceptive behavior in a real-life, high-stakes setting. The behavior of 16 suspects in their police interviews has been analyzed. Clips of video footage have been selected where other sources (reliable witness statements and forensic evidence) provide evidence that the suspect lied or told the truth. Truthful and deceptive behaviors were compared. The suspects blinked less frequently and made longer pauses during deceptive clips than during truthful clips. Eye contact was maintained equally for deceptive and truthful clips. These findings negate the popular belief amongst both laypersons and professional lie detectors (such as the police) that liars behave nervously by fidgeting and avoiding eye contact. However, large individual differences were present.     

Talking about radicalization

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to build a bridge between the criminological tradition of research on hard-to-reach groups and sensitive topics and the tradition of critical research on radicalization. As a result of the hard-to-reach character of so-called radicals themselves, the article analyzes interview experiences with ‘professionals’ working within the prevention of radicalization and other actors. This article discusses the experiences connected to the preparation and unfolding of the interviews on the sensitive topic of radicalization and illustrates how interviews and questions designed to gather knowledge about radicalization processes among Muslims in Denmark often became a discussion about the concept of radicalization itself. This article shows that making use of the concept of radicalization is problematic in interviews as it is embedded in the Danish political discourse on immigration, Muslims and Islam. This article reflects on researcher positionality and how being a white ethnic Danish researcher might have caused an underestimation of how problematic the concept is to people directly involved with it, and that speaking from such a researcher positionality also can make the concept of radicalization seem even more problematic.     

JUDICIAL ROTATION AS CENTRIPETAL FORCE: SENTENCING IN THE COURT COMMUNITIES OF SOUTH CAROLINA*

Courts as communities theory emphasizes the sentencing differences that can arise between localities within a single state. The results of published studies have highlighted how local differences emerge based on informal sociological and political processes defined by the communities perspective. The findings from recent quantitative studies from South Carolina have revealed notably less county variation in sentencing than has been observed elsewhere. I use qualitative interviews with 13 South Carolina trial judges to investigate sentencing processes and to shed light on these findings. The interviews explore the state's legal structure and culture, including the practice of circuit rotation in which judges travel among counties holding court. The results suggest rotation serves as a centripetal force of sentencing culture, homogenizing what might otherwise be a more varied collection of county‐specific norms. Rotation leads to increased uniformity through judge shopping and the cross‐pollination of ideas and norms. Defendants can strategically judge shop and plead in front of a lenient judge—a process that gives rise to the term “plea judge,” which is a label for the most lenient judges who sentence a large number of defendants. Rotation also increases the interactions among judges and prosecutors, expanding networks and grapevines, and leading to cross‐pollination and the sharing of ideas.     

Inconsistencies across repeated eyewitness interviews: supportive negative feedback can make witnesses change their memory reports

Past work shows that direct negative feedback and suggestive questioning can lead eyewitnesses to change their memory reports. Applying Gudjonsson’s [2003. The psychology of interrogations and confessions: A handbook. West Sussex: Wiley] model of interrogative suggestibility to interviews with witnesses, the present two experiments examined how indirect negative feedback delivered in a supportive manner from an interviewer can make witnesses change what they report they remember experiencing. After viewing a video of a crime, participants were interviewed twice, with either supportive negative feedback (i.e. with the interviewer sympathetically suggesting why many people’s memory may be inaccurate) or neutral feedback between the two rounds of questions. Results showed that people given supportive negative feedback changed significantly more of their responses than those given neutral feedback. Lower confidence ratings were associated with greater response change, but overall, despite having changed more responses, people given supportive negative feedback did not have reduced confidence or perceived accuracy. Type of feedback did not impact accuracy, and accuracy was not systematically related to confidence or perceived accuracy. Given the role that eyewitness reports play in the criminal justice system, better understanding factors that impact consistency and reliability is vital.     

Children's reporting patterns after witnessing homicidal violence – the effect of repeated experience and repeated interviews

For both legal and clinical purposes, it is of importance to study children's memories and reports of stressful events. The present study investigated the reporting patterns of 83 children who had witnessed homicidal violence, which is considered to be a highly stressful experience. More specifically, we explored the possible effects of prior violence exposure and of repeated questioning on the amount of details reported. Results showed that the majority of children provided detailed reports about the homicidal violence they had witnessed, including details concerning what happened before, during, and after the violent act. The children provided detailed and vivid testimonies from their experiences, whether they witnessed the event for the first time or had prior experience of witnessing severe violence against the victim by the perpetrator. Children with no prior experience of repeated violence who underwent repeated interviews provided more details than those interviewed once. The present data indicate that children are competent witnesses when questioned in legal contexts after having been exposed to extremely stressful events. These findings have implications for research related to children's memories and reporting of traumatic experiences, as well as practical implications for future treatment and evaluation of children's testimonies.