Psychology, Public Policy, and LawThis is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader, such as GoogleReader, or to display this data on your own website or blog. Subscribe to this data using MyMedWorm.Subscribe to this data using GoogleReader.Subscribe to this data using Bloglines.Subscribe to this data using MyYahoo.

This page shows you the latest items in this publication.

43 records returned

Intoxicated witnesses and suspects: Procedures and prevalence according to law enforcement.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Legal psychologists have generally neglected intoxicated witnesses and suspects in their research. One possible reason is the lack of objective information about the prevalence and characteristics of this witness and suspect group. Also unclear is whether standard police procedures for dealing with intoxicated individuals exist and what these may be. The present survey was conducted to help fill this void. Law enforcement officers completed a survey about their experiences with intoxicated witnesses and suspects. Their responses provide clear evidence that dealing with intoxicated witnesses and suspects is common and that ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - August 25, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Evans, Jacqueline R.; Schreiber Compo, Nadja; Russano, Melissa B. Source Type: journals

Using the “Mr. Big” technique to elicit confessions: Successful innovation or dangerous development in the Canadian legal system?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Canada’s legal system recognizes that police interrogation procedures may contribute to false confessions, and has provided safeguards designed to protect the rights of the accused and reduce the likelihood of these errors. Police in Canada are using a complex noncustodial interrogation procedure called the “Mr. Big” technique, to elicit confessions for recalcitrant suspects. Remarkably, this undercover (in that suspects do not know they are speaking to law enforcement officers) interrogation technique boasts a 75% confession rate and a 95% conviction rate when used (Gardner, 2004). However, it is possible that suspe...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - August 25, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Smith, Steven M.; Stinson, Veronica; Patry, Marc W. Source Type: journals

Procedural justice in resolving family disputes: Implications for childhood bullying.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
High levels of family conflict and poor family conflict resolution strategies are often associated with externalizing behaviors in children, including the behavior of bullying. Through family interactions, parents have the opportunity to convey a variety of messages to the child. Some of these messages are sent through the child’s appraisal of procedural justice, which refers to the judgments of fairness directed at the process by which a conflict is resolved. The current study investigated the relationship between appraisals of procedural justice in family conflict resolution and bullying among middle-school students. A...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - August 25, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Brubacher, Michael R.; Fondacaro, Mark R.; Brank, Eve M.; Brown, Veda E.; Miller, Scott A. Source Type: journals

Psychological mediators of the effects of opposing expert testimony on juror decisions.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study examined the effectiveness of the opposing expert safeguard against unreliable expert testimony and whether beliefs about experts as hired guns and general acceptance mediate the effect of opposing expert testimony on juror decisions. We found strong evidence that the presence, but not the content, of opposing expert testimony affected jurors’ trial judgments and that these effects were mediated by mock jurors’ beliefs about general acceptance. The presence of an opposing expert affected jurors’ ratings of the general acceptance of research investigating sexual harassment in the workplace. Jurors’ belief...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 3, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Levett, Lora M.; Kovera, Margaret Bull Source Type: journals

Judging the credibility of historic child sexual abuse complainants: How judges describe their decisions.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Criminal prosecutions of child sexual abuse alleged to have occurred in the distant past raise myriad challenges. One significant challenge involves assessing the credibility of complainants. In the present study, 51 bench trials involving 87 complainants were coded into categories related to complainants’ memory for the offense, as well as credibility of the complainant, reliability of the evidence, and judicial inferences. A total of 4,827 judicial comments were identified and categorized. Judges were more likely to describe the allegations specifically than generally; however, they were sensitive to the predictably im...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 3, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Connolly, Deborah A.; Price, Heather L.; Gordon, Heidi M. Source Type: journals

“Reactive cognition, reactive emotion: Toward a more psychologically-informed understanding of reactive homicide”: Correction.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article addresses these and related questions regarding the differential and interactive contributions of dysfunctional cognition and emotion in the execution of reactive homicide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law)
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 3, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Fontaine, Reid Griffith Source Type: journals

Do offensive words harm people?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The harm thesis—the assumption that words harm people—is a defining feature of sexual harassment, hate speech, verbal abuse, and obscene telephone call (OTC) offenses. This thesis ignores the possibility that swearing can be advantageous, cathartic, or an acceptable substitute for physical aggression. Observational data, courtroom evidence and verbal abuse research reviewed here produce conflicting conclusions on the question of harm. The best evidence of harm resides in harassment and OTC studies, but verbal abuse research is indeterminate because of flawed research methodology. Public swearing research reveals that s...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 3, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Jay, Timothy Source Type: journals

Predictors of high-risk alcohol consumption in young offenders on community orders: Policy and treatment implications.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The present study examined the relationship between a set of individual and contextual variables and high-risk alcohol use among young offenders placed on community orders in New South Wales, Australia. Participants (n = 777) were compared on a set of factors known to be strong predictors of high-risk alcohol use among adolescents. The authors assessed the strength of the relationship between gender, age, ethnicity, geographical region of residence, school attendance, father absence, history of childhood trauma, and the presence of severe conduct disorder on weekly levels of alcohol use. Living in rural locations, not curr...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 23, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Kenny, Dianna T.; Schreiner, Istvan Source Type: journals

Rater (dis)agreement on risk assessment measures in sexually violent predator proceedings: Evidence of adversarial allegiance in forensic evaluation?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Actuarial risk assessment measures are often admitted in court, partly because strong psychometric properties such as interrater agreement suggest that they increase reliability and reduce subjectivity in forensic evaluation. But how strong is rater agreement when raters are retained by opposing sides in adversarial legal proceedings? The authors review sexual offender civil commitment cases in which opposing evaluators reported scores on the STATIC-99, the Minnesota Sex Offender Sex Offender Screening Tool—Revised (MnSOST–R), or the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL–R) for the same individual. Differences between...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 23, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Murrie, Daniel C.; Boccaccini, Marcus T.; Turner, Darrel B.; Meeks, Meredith; Woods, Carol; Tussey, Chriscelyn Source Type: journals

The gatekeeper effect: The impact of judges' admissibility decisions on the persuasiveness of expert testimony.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In a pair of mock-trial studies of a possible “gatekeeper” effect, our participants were presented with a summary of a trial that included a piece of expert scientific evidence. The judge's decision was manipulated to admit the scientific evidence, as well as the quality of the evidence and the credibility of the expert. Participants were found to be less critical of and more persuaded by expert evidence when it was presented within a trial, compared with the same evidence presented outside of a courtroom context. These findings suggest that, when judges allow expert testimony to reach the jury although the evidence is...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 23, 2009 Category: Medical Law Authors: Schweitzer, N. J.; Saks, Michael J. Source Type: journals

Does a watched pot boil? A time-series analysis of New York State's sex offender registration and notification law.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Despite the fact that the federal and many state governments have enacted registration and community notification laws as a means to better protect communities from sexual offending, limited empirical research has been conducted to examine the impact of such legislation on public safety. Therefore, utilizing time-series analyses, this study examined differences in sexual offense arrest rates before and after the enactment of New York State's Sex Offender Registration Act. Results provide no support for the effectiveness of registration and community notification laws in reducing sexual offending by: (a) rapists, (b) child ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - December 22, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Sandler, Jeffrey C.; Freeman, Naomi J.; Socia, Kelly M. Source Type: journals

Do some evaluators report consistently higher or lower PCL-R scores than others? Findings from a statewide sample of sexually violent predator evaluations.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study examined whether some evaluators tend to report consistently higher or lower scores than other evaluators for offenders on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991, 2003). Data for the study were PCL-R total scores for 321 sex offenders, evaluated by 1 or more of 20 different state-contracted evaluators, during a process of screening for civil commitment as sexually violent predators. More than 30% of the variability in PCL-R scores was attributable to differences among evaluators, with mean PCL-R scores given by 2 of the most prolific evaluators differing by almost 10 points. In a subsample of...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - December 22, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Boccaccini, Marcus T.; Turner, Darrel B.; Murrie, Daniel C. Source Type: journals

Reactive cognition, reactive emotion: Toward a more psychologically-informed understanding of reactive homicide.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article addresses these and related questions regarding the differential and interactive contributions of dysfunctional cognition and emotion in the execution of reactive homicide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law)
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - December 22, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Fontaine, Reid Griffith Source Type: journals

What's wrong with believing in repression?: A review for legal professionals.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some courts in recent years have tarnished their credibility by willingly and blindly adopting the theory of repressed memory. Such acceptance can destroy the reputations of falsely accused individuals, and, by failing to pay due attention to scientific evidence, gives credence to pseudoscience and demeans the scientific method. This paper was written to inform judges and attorneys about the relevant evidence, which shows that: (a) the concepts of repressed and recovered memory are not generally accepted in the psychological and psychiatric community; (b) the studies cited to support these concepts reveal significant flaws...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - November 12, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Piper, August; Lillevik, Linda; Kritzer, Roxanne Source Type: journals

"Shouldn't we consider...?": Jury discussions of forbidden topics and effects on damage awards.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We presented summaries of the evidence that varied in the severity of the plaintiff's injuries and the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct. These variables influenced judgments of liability and damage awards. Analysis of the content of jury deliberations regarding damages showed that, although nearly all juries talked about silent factors, the size of their damage awards was unrelated to the frequency of these discussions and that such discussion accounted for only a very small portion of the variance in awards. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law)
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - November 12, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Greene, Edith; Hayman, Kari; Motyl, Matt Source Type: journals

Clinician variation in findings of competence to stand trial.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study uses 2 statewide samples to present the first available data addressing how individual clinicians vary in rates of IST opinions. Across 60 clinicians who conducted a combined total of more than 7,000 evaluations, the rates of IST findings varied considerably (range: 0% to 62%). Results suggested that some of the variability across evaluators may be attributable to the evaluator's discipline and how the evaluator considered the relationship between competence and psychosis. However, these findings raise questions about the many other evaluator, system, and policy-level characteristics that may influence evaluator...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - November 12, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Murrie, Daniel C.; Boccaccini, Marcus T.; Zapf, Patricia A.; Warren, Janet I.; Henderson, Craig E. Source Type: journals

Shame and guilt in restorative justice.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this article, I examine the relevance and desirability of shame and guilt to restorative justice conferences. I argue that a careful study of the psychology of shame and guilt reveals that both emotions possess traits that can be desirable and traits that can be undesirable for restoration. More in particular, having presented the aims of restorative justice, the importance of face-to-face conferences in reaching these aims, the emotional dynamics that take place within such conferences, and the relevant parts of the empirical psychology of shame and guilt, I argue that restorative justice practitioners have to take acc...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - October 16, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Rodogno, Raffaele Source Type: journals

Tackling football hooliganism: A quantitative study of public order, policing and crowd psychology.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper contributes to the science of crowd dynamics and psychology by examining the social psychological processes related to the relative absence of "hooliganism" at the Finals of the 2004 Union Européenne de Football Association (UEFA) Football (Soccer) Championships in Portugal. Quantitative data from a structured observational study is integrated with data from a questionnaire survey of a group associated ubiquitously with 'hooliganism'--namely England fans. This analysis provides support for the contention that the absence of 'disorder' can be attributed in large part to the non-paramilitary policing style adopte...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - October 16, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Stott, Clifford; Adang, Otto; Livingstone, Andrew; Schreiber, Martina Source Type: journals

An examination of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as applied to juveniles: Evaluating the ability to predict sexual recidivism.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The recently enacted Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act will expand and standardize the registration of adolescent sex offenders. To evaluate the effectiveness of this and similar legislation, the authors assessed 91 juvenile males who had been adjudicated for a sexual felony offense and 174 juvenile males who had no history of sexual offending with several risk measures. On admission to treatment, all participants were assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV; A. E. Forth, D. Kosson, & R. D. Hare, 2003). The Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol-II (J-SOAP-II; R. A. Prentky & S. Righthand...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - October 16, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Caldwell, Michael F.; Ziemke, Mitchell H.; Vitacco, Michael J. Source Type: journals

Effectively implementing psychiatric advance directives to promote self-determination of treatment among people with mental illness.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Statutes on psychiatric advance directives (PADs) allow competent individuals to document instructions for future mental health treatment in the event of an incapacitating crisis. PADs are aimed at promoting a stronger sense of patient self-determination, considered a central tenet of psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery; however, it is unknown what factors (if any) lead psychiatric patients with PADs to experience this benefit long term. The current study involves examination of 1 year effects on perceived treatment self-determination among 125 people with mental disorders who completed PADs via a 1-on-1 facilitated P...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 1, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Elbogen, Eric B.; Swanson, Jeffrey W.; Swartz, Marvin S.; Van Dorn, Richard; Ferron, Joelle; Wagner, H. Ryan; Wilder, Christine Source Type: journals

The case against corporal punishment of children: Converging evidence from social science research and international human rights law and implications for U.S. public policy.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Although support for corporal punishment of children remains widespread in the United States, there is a substantial body of research from psychology and its allied disciplines indicating corporal punishment is ineffective as a disciplinary practice and can have unintended negative effects on children. At the same time, there is a growing momentum among other countries to enact legal bans on all forms of corporal punishment, bolstered by the fact that the practice has come to be regarded as a violation of international human rights law. The authors summarize these developments in research and law as well as the current leg...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 1, 2008 Category: Medical Law Authors: Gershoff, Elizabeth T.; Bitensky, Susan H. Source Type: journals

Disentangling the psychology and law of instrumental and reactive subtypes of aggression.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article compares and contrasts the psychological and legal models and demonstrates that the purposes for distinguishing between instrumental and reactive aggression in psychology and law are undeniably different in meaningful ways. As such, a perceived shift in law away from differentiating murder and manslaughter has no bearing on the usefulness of the instrumental-reactive aggression distinction in psychological science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law)
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - November 1, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Fontaine, Reid Griffith Source Type: journals

Brain imaging, culpability and the juvenile death penalty.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the U.S. Supreme Court banned the death penalty for offenders under the age of 18 years. Central to Simmons's defense was new brain imaging evidence suggesting that the regions of the brain responsible for decision making and impulse control are not as well developed in adolescents as in adults, thereby rendering adolescents less culpable for the crimes they commit. Although these images were not explicitly cited in the Court's decision, they were hailed by anti-death penalty advocates as the wave of the future. However, legal advocates and scientists should be cautious in using cutting-edge neu...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - November 1, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Aronson, Jay D. Source Type: journals

Prospects for remediating juveniles' adjudicative incompetence.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
With the application of adjudicative competence requirements to adolescent defendants, there is a growing need for interventions to enhance the legal capacities of adolescents who are found to be incompetent. By reviewing developmental, clinical, and educational research, the authors discuss whether it is possible to enhance youths' legal capacities and, if so, what the most promising approaches may be. Psychoeducational interventions for youth are discussed, as well as the possibility of changing the demands of the juvenile justice system to try borderline-competent youth in juvenile court. The authors conclude that there...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - November 1, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Viljoen, Jodi L.; Grisso, Thomas Source Type: journals

Transfer to Adult Court: A National Study of How Juvenile Court Judges Weigh Pertinent Kent Criteria.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Evaluation of juvenile offenders considered for transfer to adult court entails consideration of three factors: (a) potential risk of dangerousness, (b) level of sophistication-maturity, and (c) treatment amenability. Despite the centrality of these concepts to dispositional decision making, virtually no information or guidelines exist describing how juvenile court judges or mental health professionals should weigh these constructs when making vivid line distinctions with respect to transfer. The authors asked judges (N = 361) from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to examine a hypothetical case that...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Brannen, Dia N.; Salekin, Randall T.; Zapf, Patricia A.; Salekin, Karen L.; Kubak, Franz A.; DeCoster, Jamie Source Type: journals

Incapacity Principles in Mental Health Laws in Europe.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Many North American jurisdictions permit involuntary psychiatric treatment to proceed only when a person lacks the capacity (or competence) to consent or when an emergency exists, even following lawful civil commitment. This may prevent the rapid commencement of treatment, but it shows considerable respect for personal autonomy, and it brings mental health law more into line with other branches of health care law. The authors examine how these issues are handled within European human rights law and within the civil codes and involuntary hospitalization laws of selected European nations. This material reveals that many diff...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Dawson, John; Kämpf, Annegret Source Type: journals

The Validity and Reliability of the Violence Risk Scale: A Treatment-Friendly Violence Risk Assessment Tool.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study is the first in a 2-step process to validate the Violence Risk Scale (VRS), a risk assessment tool that integrates violence assessment, prediction, and treatment. Ratings of the 6 static and 20 dynamic VRS variables assess the client's level of risk. Ratings of the dynamic variables identify treatment targets linked to violence, and ratings of the stages of change of the treatment targets assess the client's treatment readiness and change. The VRS scores of 918 male offenders showed good interrater reliability and internal consistency and could predict violent and nonviolent recidivism over both short- and longe...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Jane Goodman-Delahunty, JD, PhD Wong, Stephen C. P.; Gordon, Audrey Source Type: journals

Moral Monsters and Patriot Acts: Rights and Duties in the Worst of Times.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The majority of people, regardless of nationality, believes that rights and duties ought to be equally balanced. How to make them so and why they should be so are less than clear--particularly when the balance seesaws and the concepts dilate and constrict during the worst of times. Rights, duties, and their relationship are the broad issues that are examined in 3 enactment areas dealing with bad Samaritans, sexually violent predators, and alleged terrorists. This is where one finds moral monsters and hydraulic pressures increasing. In these areas, where debate, discourse, and traditional checks and balances have faltered o...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Finkel, Norman J. Source Type: journals

The Role and Relevance of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in Court: A Case Law Survey of U.S. Courts (1991-2004).Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991, 2003) is the most empirically validated instrument for measuring psychopathy in correctional and forensic psychiatric populations. The PCL-R's predictive utility with criminal justice populations has led to its frequent use by clinicians conducting forensic assessments in criminal and sexually violent predator (SVP) cases. Despite its apparent wide acceptance in U.S. courts, little is known about how often the PCL-R is being introduced, the types of cases in which it is being used, and whether claims made in court regarding psychopathy are empirically defensible a...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: DeMatteo, David; Edens, John F. Source Type: journals

Causal and Associative Hypotheses in Psychology: Examples From Eyewitness Testimony Research.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Two types of hypotheses interest psychologists: causal hypotheses and associative hypotheses. The conclusions that can be reached from studies examining these hypotheses and the methods that should be used to investigate them differ. Causal hypotheses examine how a manipulation affects future events, whereas associative hypotheses examine how often certain events co-occur. In general, experimental methods with random allocation are well suited for addressing causal hypotheses, whereas random sampling is an asset when examining associative hypotheses. These hypotheses are discussed primarily with reference to 4 topics withi...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Wright, Daniel B. Source Type: journals

Tethering the Elephant: Capital Cases, IQ, and the Flynn Effect.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Capital offenders cannot be executed if they are mentally retarded. Therefore, the IQ scores of offenders are important, and the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the Flynn effect is relevant to interpreting their IQ scores. The Flynn effect (IQ gains over time) means that different IQ tests will give different scores purely as a result of when the tests were normed. Because execution must not be a random result of what test defendants take, a formula is provided to convert IQ scores to a common metric: the norms current at the time the test was taken. The formula also includes a correction based on evidence ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Flynn, James R. Source Type: journals

Sequential vs. Simultaneous Lineups: A Review of Methods, Data, and Theory.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A considerable amount of empirical research has been conducted on ways to improve the eyewitness identification process, with emphasis on the use of lineups. Public policy changes are currently underway with respect to lineup procedures: Sequential lineups are being recommended to police as the best practice. This may be premature because the conditions under which sequential lineups are superior to simultaneous lineups are not well understood given the current literature: Many studies are reported with insufficient detail needed to judge the adequacy of the research design, new data show that the sequential superiority ef...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 19, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Jane Goodman-Delahunty, JD, PhD McQuiston-Surrett, Dawn; Malpass, Roy S.; Tredoux, Colin G. Source Type: journals

An Empirical Test of the Assumptions of Case Linkage and Offender Profiling With Serial Commercial Robberies.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Case linkage, the identification of crimes suspected of being committed by the same perpetrator on the basis of behavioral similarity, and offender profiling, the inference of offender characteristics from offense behaviors, are used to advise police investigations and, in relation to case linkage, have been admitted in legal proceedings. Criteria for expert evidence, such as the Daubert criteria (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993), place stringent conditions on the admissibility of expert evidence. The future contribution of these practices to legal proceedings depends, in part, on whether they are underpinned ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 24, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Woodhams, Jessica; Toye, Kirsty Source Type: journals

Does Use-of-Force Simulation Training in Canadian Police Agencies Incorporate Principles of Effective Training?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Numerous police agencies in Canada incorporate use-of-force simulation training into their overall instructional regime. A prominent theory of learning, known as cognitive load theory, suggests that in order for this training to be effective, instructional methods must facilitate the acquisition and automation of task-relevant schemas without overwhelming the limited processing capacity of the learner. In this article, several instructional effects, proposed and supported by the cognitive load literature, are discussed. These training effects operate by minimizing unnecessary cognitive demands, by drawing on instructional ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 24, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Bennell, Craig; Jones, Natalie J.; Corey, Shevaun Source Type: journals

Moderators of Nonverbal Indicators of Deception: A Meta-Analytic Synthesis.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In many legal proceedings, fact finders scrutinize the demeanor of a defendant or witness, particularly his or her nonverbal behavior, for indicators of deception. This meta-analysis investigated directly observable nonverbal correlates of deception as a function of different moderator variables. Although lay people and professionals alike assume that many nonverbal behaviors are displayed more frequently while lying, of 11 different behaviors observable in the head and body area, only 3 were reliably associated with deception. Nodding, foot and leg movements, and hand movements were negatively related to deception in the ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 24, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Sporer, Siegfried L.; Schwandt, Barbara Source Type: journals

Considerations for Experts in Assessing the Credibility of Recovered Memories of Child Sexual Abuse: The Importance of Maintaining a Case-specific Focus.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this article, the authors argue that a variety of psychological factors stand in the way of providing expert advice to the courts in terms of assessing the credibility of a complainant's account of sexual abuse when there is a significant delay in reporting. These include difficulties in assessing (a) the complainant's account of how he or she claims to have remembered or forgotten the abuse, (b) whether (and how) the claim of abuse originated within a therapeutic setting, and (c) the difficulty of generalizing from empirical evidence. It is argued that all of these issues can be more easily avoided if experts maintain ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 5, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Alison, Laurence; Kebbell, Mark; Lewis, Penney Source Type: journals

A Policy Evaluation of Simultaneous and Sequential Lineups.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Many states and communities are rewriting their eyewitness identification policies. Some of these jurisdictions are excluding simultaneous lineups altogether, and others are allowing them if double-blind administration of sequential lineups is not possible. The Innocence Project advocates the latter and puts forward blind sequential-lineup administration as the best form of lineup identification. Although sequential lineups are claimed to be superior, no explicit policy analysis has been done. In the present study, the author uses a policy-analysis model based on decision theory to examine the utility of simultaneous and s...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 5, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Malpass, Roy S. Source Type: journals

Sexually Violent Predators in the Courtroom: Science on Trial.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Adjudication of sexually violent predator commitment laws places demands on science. In the current article, the authors discuss the determination of mental abnormality and its reliance on medical nosological systems. Second, the authors examine the determination of current risk by reviewing three common concerns: (a) mechanistic estimations of risk, (b) mitigation of risk as a function of age, and (c) estimation of contemporaneous (dynamic) risk. The authors focus specifically on determinations of risk posed by the nexus of mental abnormality with prior history of sexually violent acts. Third, the article examines relevan...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 5, 2007 Category: Medical Law Authors: Prentky, Robert A.; Janus, Eric; Barbaree, Howard; Schwartz, Barbara K.; Kafka, Martin P. Source Type: journals

Thinking About Tax.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article reports the findings of several experiments about perceptions of various aspects of tax-law design. The authors find that people are vulnerable to a wide range of heuristics and biases in evaluating public finance systems, leading to inconsistent judgments and evaluations. These errors in judgment are specific instances of a more general isolation effect, whereby people respond quickly to a decision or choice set, focusing on salient aspects while ignoring or underusing logically relevant information that is not immediately before them. In tax and public finance, this tendency to make decisions as if with blin...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 30, 2006 Category: Medical Law Authors: McCaffery, Edward J.; Baron, Jonathan Source Type: journals

Violence Classifications and Their Impact on Observed Relationships With Key Factors in Young Offenders.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study evaluated 6 classifications of violent juvenile offenses derived from the legal system and published research. The authors compare frequencies from different classifications and examine the influence of classifications on observed associations with expected predictor variables. Differences in frequencies and perceived associations between classifications highlight the need to adopt a consistent method of coding violent offenses for research purposes in order to obtain valid results that are capable of informing policy, the judiciary, and the development of effective interventions. The final classification system...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 30, 2006 Category: Medical Law Authors: Kenny, Dianna T.; Press, Aimee L. Source Type: journals

Low Base Rates Limit Expert Certainty When Current Actuarials Are Used to Identify Sexually Violent Predators: An Application of Bayes's Theorem.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The author applied Bayes's theorem to agewise sexual recidivism rates and the accuracy of high actuarial scores for predicting sexual recidivism in civil commitment cases. Recidivism rates consistently declined with age, paralleling the age-invariance pattern found for other offenders. Furthermore, actuarials were efficient for only the youngest group, were inaccurate for identifying recidivists, and misclassified many nonrecidivists as recidivists. Opinions about the accuracy of actuarials are therefore often wrong, and actuarials need to be reformulated. Finally, actuarials are useless for identifying likely sexual recid...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 30, 2006 Category: Medical Law Authors: Wollert, Richard Source Type: journals

Mixed Motives and Racial Bias: The Impact of Legitimate and Illegitimate Criteria on Decision Making.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Discussion focuses on policy and legal implications for employment discrimination, affirmative action, and courtroom proceedings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law)
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 30, 2006 Category: Medical Law Authors: Norton, Michael I.; Sommer, Samuel R.; Vandello, Joseph A.; Darley, John M. Source Type: journals

Defining a Threshold for Client Competence to Participate in Divorce Mediation.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The ultimate aim of court-ordered divorce mediation is to produce settlement agreements. Once ratified by the court, these agreements are legally binding and extremely difficult to modify. Courts assume that everyone is adequately equipped to mediate and, with increasing frequency, order litigants into mediation. Nonetheless, commentators have acknowledged that at least occasionally, a party may be unable to proceed. Currently, no standard exists for determining when a party lacks sufficient understanding and ability to participate in mediation, yet the legally binding outcomes of mediation are too important to leave a det...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 30, 2006 Category: Medical Law Authors: Jane Goodman-Delahunty, JD, PhD Beck, Connie J. A.; Frost, Lynda E. Source Type: journals