Sexual harassment in the context of double male dominance

It has been suggested that numerically male-dominated workplaces propagate cultural norms that support sexual bravado, sexual posturing, and the denigration of feminine behaviour (Sbraga & O'Donohue, 2000 Sbraga, T. P. and O'Donohue, W. 2000. Sexual harassment. Annual Review of Sex Research, 11: 258–285. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). These cultural norms are features of normative male dominance, which have been shown to increase the risk of sexual harassment. This implies that the effect of numerical male dominance on sexual harassment may be mediated by the level of normative male dominance in the work environment. The aim of this study was to test this assumption. Our sample consisted of 1295 police women, who filled out an Internet questionnaire. The results suggest that normative male dominance indeed mediates the relation between numerical male dominance and sexual harassment. We add to the sexual harassment literature by building on Gruber's concept of double dominance. Our study helps to make clear why women are at greater risk of sexual harassment in work situations where men outnumber women than in more gender-balanced workplaces.     

Job Stress and Dyadic Synchrony in Police Marriages: A Preliminary Investigation

Despite reports documenting adverse effects of stress on police marriages, few empirical studies focus on actual emotional behaviors of officers and spouses. In this preliminary investigation, 17 male police officers and their nonpolice wives completed daily stress diaries for 1 week and then participated in a laboratory‐based discussion about their respective days. Conversations were video‐recorded and coded for specific emotional behaviors reflecting hostility and affection, which are strong predictors of marital outcomes. We examined associations between officers' job stress (per diaries and the Police Stress Survey) and couples' emotional behavior (mean levels and behavioral synchrony) using a dyadic repeated measures design capitalizing on the large number of observations available for each couple (1020 observations). When officers reported more job stress, they showed less hostility, less synchrony with their wives' hostility, and more synchrony with their wives' affection; their wives showed greater synchrony with officers' hostility and less synchrony with officers' affection. Therefore, for officers, greater job stress was associated with less behavioral negativity, potentially less attunement to wives' negativity, but potentially greater attunement to wives' affection—perhaps a compensatory strategy or attempt to buffer their marriage from stress. These attempts may be less effective, however, if, as our synchrony findings may suggest, wives are focusing on officers' hostility rather than affection. Although it will be important to replicate these results given the small sample, our findings reveal that patterns of behavioral synchrony may be a key means to better understand how job stress exacts a toll on police marriages.     

Target prototypicality moderates racial bias in the decision to shoot

Research shows that target race can influence the decision to shoot armed and unarmed Black and White males (e.g., Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002). To date, however, research has only examined category level effects by comparing average responses to Blacks and Whites. The current studies investigated whether target prototypicality influences the decision to shoot above and beyond the effect of race. Here, we replicated racial bias in shoot decisions and demonstrated that bias was moderated by target prototypicality. As target prototypicality increased, participants showed greater racial bias. Further, when targets were unprototypic, racial bias reversed (e.g., participants mistakenly shot more unarmed Whites than Blacks). Study 2 examined whether these effects were observed among police officers. Although police showed no racial bias on average, target prototypicality significantly influenced judgments. Across both studies, sensitivity to variability in Whites' prototypicality drove these effects, while variation in Black prototypicality did not affect participants' decisions.     

Race and the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: A Systematic Review

Prior research has consistently documented that the vast majority of sexual assault cases do not progress through the criminal justice system. However, there is less agreement in prior work on how race influences case progression, resulting in a literature frequently described as “inconsistent.” This systematic review examines all prior research that has included race as an independent variable in predicting the criminal justice system response to sexual assault (N = 34) in an effort to provide insight into seemingly disparate findings. We assess each study for the degree to which race was a focal point of interest, if and what theory was used to inform the investigation of race, how samples were drawn, and how and whose race was measured. Results illustrate that findings in prior research are not inconsistent, but rather unite to tell a nuanced story of the role of race in the criminal justice system response to sexual assault. The review demonstrates how decisions made by researchers throughout the research process can have significant impacts on reported findings, and how such findings may be used to influence policy and practice.     

The Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) and Hilson Research inventories: Development and rationale

This article provides a “behind-the-scenes” account of how and why the Inwald/ Hilson tests were developed. Since the 1970s, personality testing has been adapted and customized for use in selecting applicants for different occupations, including police, public safety, fire and emergency services personnel. The author developed the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) in 1979 as the first comprehensive behaviorally-based personality measure designed and validated specifically for use in high risk occupations, such as law enforcement. Over time, studies consistently demonstrated that the IPI was a better predictor of poor job performance than were traditional tests of psychopathology. While antisocial behavior patterns and characteristics measured by the IPI predicted poor job performance, there also developed a need for measures that would predict above-average/excellent performance in the workplace. In 1988, the author designed and validated the first comprehensive test of “positive” work-related characteristics or “emotional IQ,” the Hilson Personnel Profile/Success Quotient (HPP/SQ). Other instruments followed, including the Inwald Survey 5 — Revised (IS5-R) with questions added on domestic violence. This article describes the theoretical rationale, development and validation of several instruments developed by the author and now widely used for high risk occupations and for screening corporate managers and key personnel in occupational settings.     

Delinquent Development in Dutch Childhood Arrestees: Developmental Trajectories,Risk Factors and Co-morbidity with Adverse Outcomes during Adolescence

Heterogeneity of re-offending patterns was studied in a group of 287 male early onset offenders who were first arrested before age 12. By combining data on the frequency and severity of offending as registered by the police over a 5-year follow-up period, three delinquent trajectories were identified; low, escalating, and high level re-offenders. Predicting group membership by individual and environmental characteristics known to the police at the time of the first arrest proved difficult. Compared to low level re-offenders, escalators were older and more often came from disadvantaged neighborhoods. High level re-offenders were also older at onset, more often had a non-Western ethnic background, and initially committed more vandalism. Furthermore, at the first police encounter, the police reacted more severely towards those who later became high level re-offenders. Finally, high and escalating re-offenders more often had other adverse outcomes, such as criminal victimization and Child Welfare Agency involvement.

Judges' views of child sexual abuse: Evaluating beliefs against research findings in a Finnish sample

Beliefs impact our decision‐making and different professionals have been shown to have beliefs about child sexual abuse (CSA) that do not coincide with scientific findings. In the present study, judges' beliefs regarding CSA were explored. Finnish judges (N = 104) answered a questionnaire about CSA related issues as well as questions regarding their professional experience of CSA cases. The judges held both correct and incorrect beliefs; while their CSA prevalence estimates were rather well in line with research findings, half of the participants estimated that no professionals use suggestive methods when interviewing children and more than 40% thought suggestive methods can be useful when trying to get a child to tell about real events. Judges correctly assumed symptoms cannot be used to assess a CSA case, however, the majority thought play observations were appropriate means for evaluating such suspicions. Experience seemed to lead to more confidence in their own expertise but not in an actual increase in knowledge, namely, judges thought themselves more expert when more experienced although their expertise as measured by the questionnaire did not improve. Overall, the judges had both correct and erroneous beliefs but while experience did not improve the situation, gaining information about CSA did. More research about the beliefs of judges and how such beliefs impact legal decision‐making is needed.     

Private Investigations of White‐Collar Crime Suspicions: A Qualitative Study of the Blame Game Hypothesis

The activity of private investigations by fraud examiners is a business of lawyers, auditors, and other professionals who investigate suspicions of financial crime by white‐collar criminals. This paper presents results from an empirical study of investigation reports. The available sample consists of 28 reports written mostly by auditing firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PwC. The blame game can occur at two stages in a private investigation. First, the mandate formulated by a client may point investigators in a specific direction. Next, investigators sometimes suffer from a tunnel view of predetermined opinions. In the sample of 28 investigations reports, more than half of them involve potential blame game victims. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Methods and aims of investigative interviewing of adult witnesses: An analysis of professional practices

Eyewitnesses provide crucial evidence for the investigation of criminal cases. We analysed professional police interviewers’ behaviour by conducting a literature review. Our results indicate that the interviewing techniques used by untrained and trained investigators are predominantly inappropriate and harmful to memory recall. The way investigators curtail and select witnesses’ responses suggests that they look for specific information. As a subsequent step, we analysed investigative interviewing in terms of professional objectives, identifying the types of information that the police inquire about during the interview. Based on our results, we conclude future research should perform a fine-grained analysis of professional interviewing procedures with the aim of producing effective interviewing techniques that meet investigators’ real-world objectives.