Sexually Violent Predators: Toward Reasonable Estimates of Recidivism Base Rates

The sexual recidivism rate of sex offenders is a controversial issue. Perhaps as controversial is the sexual recidivism rate of the select group of sex offenders who are examined pursuant to sexually violent predator (SVP) statutes. At present, reliable estimates of SVP recidivism are unavailable. We propose that reasonable estimates of SVP recidivism can be reached by considering three available pieces of data: (i) a likely recidivism rate of the general population of sex offenders; (ii) procedures typically followed by jurisdictions that civilly commit sex offenders; and (iii) classification accuracy of procedures. Although sexual recidivism rates vary across jurisdictions, the results of our analyses suggest sex offenders referred for examination pursuant to SVP statutes recidivate at substantially higher rates than typical sex offenders. Our results further suggest that sex offenders recommended for commitment as SVPs recidivate at even greater rates than SVP respondents who are not recommended for commitment. We discuss practice and policy implications of these findings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relations between church and state in Russia today ∗

Abstract

According to its constitution the Russian Federation is a secular state in which all religious associations are equal before the law. The constitution also guarantees freedom of religious choice and practice. Federal legislation, as well as the legislation of the republics, should be in accordance with these clearly formulated principles. Many provisions in the federal law on religion of 1997, however, are in conflict with them. Moreover, in practice the statement in the preamble to that law regarding the historical role of Orthodoxy and that of other ‘traditional religions’ is arbitrarily interpreted to justify a privileged position for Orthodoxy and to some extent for Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. The ‘secularity’ of a state does not entail the marginalisation of religion. A secular state should take account of the historical role and importance of each religion. The Russian state may legitimately award Orthodoxy a position of primus inter pares and privileges of honour in comparison with other religions on the basis of proportionality. These should not, however, take the form of legal advantages. Orthodoxy can perfectly well play the role of ‘official’ religion, but it should not be a ‘state’ religion. It would be advisable to establish a system of bilateral agreements between each religious association and the state and to create a fiscal system that allowed citizens who declare that they belong to a given religious faith to devote part of their taxes to the financial support of that faith.     

The four faces of omission

In this paper, the ontological, terminological, epistemological, and ethical aspects of omission are considered in a coherent and balanced framework, based on the idea that there are omissions which are actions and omissions which are non-actions. In particular, we suggest that the approach to causation which best deals with omission is Mackie's INUS conditional proposal. We argue that omissions are determined partly by the ontological conditional structure of reality, and partly by the interests, beliefs, and values of observers. The final upshot is that moral judgments involved in cases of omissions cannot be grounded on, but are the ground for judgments about what INUS conditions count as omissions.     

New Strategies in the Assessment of Psychological Factors Affecting Medical Conditions

In this article, we examine research that may lead to a better assessment of psychological factors affecting medical conditions. We performed a review of the psychosomatic literature using both Medline and manual searches. We selected papers that were judged to be relevant to new strategies of assessment, with particular reference to the use of the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research. We assessed 8 areas concerned with the assessment of psychological factors in the setting of medical disease: hypochondriasis, disease phobia, persistent somatization, conversion symptoms, illness denial, demoralization, irritable mood, and Type A behavior. A new subclassification of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM-V]; not yet published) category of psychological factors affecting physical conditions appears to be feasible and may provide the clinician with better tools for identifying psychological distress.     

When REBT Goes Difficult: Applying ABC-DEF to Personality Disorders

ABC-DEF framework is at the core of rational emotive behavior therapy. It is a highly flexible framework and has proven to be applicable to many emotional disorders. We cannot take for granted, however, that this framework can be used successfully with all clients, particularly with those suffering from severe disorders or personality disorders. In fact, the difficulties of these clients in recognizing, naming and reflecting upon states of mind, their dysregulated emotions and self-defeating behavior, and their difficulty in establishing a strong working alliance with a therapist may hamper the correct implementation of the ABC-DEF framework and the disputing of their irrational beliefs. This paper aims to describe in detail the challenges that clients with personality disorders may pose during treatment and offer possible technical suggestions, derived from either REBT or non-REBT literature, that can help REBT and CBT practitioners adapting their interventions to resistant clients.     

Lateral head turning affects temporal memory

Spatial attention is a key factor in the exploration and processing of the surrounding environment, and plays a role in linking magnitudes such as space, time, and numbers. The present work evaluates whether shifting the coordinates of spatial attention through rotational head movements may affect the ability to estimate the duration of different time intervals. A computer-based implicit timing task was employed, in which participants were asked to concentrate and report verbally on colour changes of sequential stimuli displayed on a computer screen; subsequently, they were required to reproduce the temporal duration (ranging between 5 and 80 sec.) of the perceived stimuli using the computer keyboard. There was statistically significant overestimation of the 80-sec. intervals exclusively on the rightward rotation head posture, whereas head posture did not affect timing performances on shorter intervals. These findings support the hypothesis that the coordinates of spatial attention influence the ability to process time, consistent with the existence of common cortical metrics of space and time in healthy humans.     

How different is a 3D‐printed replica from a conspecific in the eyes of a zebrafish?

Robotics is emerging as a promising tool for aiding research on animal behavior. The possibility of generating customizable, controllable, and standardized robotic stimuli has been demonstrated through a number of behavioral assays, involving vertebrates and invertebrates. However, the specific appraisal of the nature of robotic stimuli is currently lacking. Here, we attempt to evaluate this aspect in zebrafish, through a within‐subject design in which experimental subjects are faced with three experimental conditions. In the first test, we investigated sociability by measuring zebrafish response to a conspecific separated by a one‐way glass. In the second test, we studied zebrafish behavior in response to a 3D‐printed zebrafish replica actuated along realistic trajectories through a novel four‐degree‐of‐freedom robotic platform. Last, we investigated fear responses in a shelter‐seeking test. In agreement with our expectations, zebrafish exhibited an equivalent preference for live and robotic stimuli, and the degree of preference for the robotic replica correlated negatively with the individual propensity to seek shelter. The equivalent preference for the replica and conspecific suggests that the appraisal of the target stimuli is analogous. The preliminary evidence of a correlation between behavioral responses across tests points to the readability of robotics‐based approaches to investigate interindividual differences.     

When affordances climb into your mind: Advantages of motor simulation in a memory task performed by novice and expert rock climbers

Does the sight of multiple climbing holds laid along a path activate a motor simulation of climbing that path? One way of testing whether multiple affordances and their displacement influence the formation of a motor simulation is to study acquired motor skills. We used a behavioral task in which expert and novice rock climbers were shown three routes: an easy route, a route impossible to climb but perceptually salient, and a difficult route. After a distraction task, they were then given a recall test in which they had to write down the sequence of holds composing each route. We found no difference between experts and novices on the easy and impossible routes, whereas on the difficult route, the performance of experts was better than that of novices. This suggests that seeing a climbing wall activates a motor, embodied simulation, which relies not on perceptual salience, but on motor competence. More importantly, our results show that the capability to form this simulation is modulated by individuals’ motor repertoire and expertise, and that this strongly impacts recall.     

What is the Reason for This Rule? An Inferential Account of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ratio Legis</Emphasis>

Several legal arguments use the notion of ratio legis in order to sustain a normative conclusion, in particular the argument from analogy and some forms of teleological argumentation. However, determining the ratio is often a difficult and controversial task. In this paper we look firstly at the speech acts typically performed by legal practitioners in order to determine the ratio and, secondly, we take into account the argumentative commitments they undertake in so doing and the argumentative constraints put on them. This will lead us to distinguish different uses of the notion of ratio legis and to ask on what conditions each of them is justified.