Laundering Police Lies

Police officers—like ordinary people—are regularly dishonest. Officers lie under oath (testilying), on police reports (reportilying), and in a myriad of other situations. Despite decades of evidence about police lies, the U.S. Supreme Court regularly believes police stories that are utterly implausible. Either because the Court is gullible, willfully blind, or complicit, the justices have simply rubber-stamped police lies in numerous high-profile cases. For instance, the Court has accepted police claims that a suspect had bags of cocaine displayed in his lap at the end of a police chase (Whren v. United States), that officers saw marijuana through a covered greenhouse from a moving helicopter hundreds of feet in the air (Florida v. Riley), and that a secretive drug dealer just happened to be standing on the front porch holding a bag of drugs at the moment the police showed up (United States v. Santana). In the famous case of Terry v. Ohio, the Court ignored the fact that the officer changed his story multiple times. And in less-famous cases like Ornelas v. United States, the Court has been unfazed when police officers were caught lying about the appearance of crucial evidence. This Article explores the prevalence of police lying and examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s unquestioning acceptance of police lies. In addition to identifying the Court’s gullibility and possible complicity, this Article examines criminal procedure doctrines that enable police to bake lies into cases at an early stage. This Article recognizes that the Court cannot eradicate police dishonesty, but advocates for heightened judicial alertness for police lies and an increased willingness to reverse convictions based on them. The Court should additionally utilize its educational function to signal to lower courts, police departments, and the general public—which is more attuned to police misconduct than ever before—that police lying is present and will not be tolerated

The challenge of monoculturalism: What books are educators sharing with children and what messages do they send?

The importance of recognising, valuing and respecting a child’s family, culture, language and values is increasingly articulated in educational policy. Diversity and inclusion are central themes of the guiding principles of early childhood education and care in Australia. Children’s literature can be a powerful tool for extending children’s knowledge and understandings of themselves and others who may be different culturally, socially or historically. However, evidence suggests many settings provide monocultural book collections which are counterproductive to principles of diversity. This paper reports on a larger study investigating factors and relationships influencing the use of children’s literature to support principles of cultural diversity in the kindergarten rooms of long day care centres. The study was conducted within an ontological perspective of constructivism and an epistemological perspective of interpretivism informed by sociocultural theory. A mixed methods approach was adopted and convergent design was employed to interpret significant relationships and their meanings. Twenty-four educators and 110 children from four long day care centres in Western Australia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, video-based observations, field notes, document analysis and a book audit. This study identified that current book collections in these four kindergarten rooms of long day care centres promote monocultural viewpoints and ‘othering’ of minority groups through limited access to books portraying inclusive and authentic cultural diversity. These findings have important social justice implications. The outcomes of this study have implications for educators, policy makers, early childhood organisations and those providing higher education and training for early childhood educators

Book sharing with young children: A study of book sharing in four Australian long day care centres

Research has consistently established the positive impact of sharing books with young children. Evidence suggests several important factors when evaluating book sharing with young children, including the quality of educator practice = and the nature of groupings, as well as the frequency and duration of book sharing sessions and access to books. Other evidence suggests book sharing may be particularly important for children from low ses backgrounds attending early learning settings. This paper reports on a larger study which investigated the factors and relationships influencing the use of children’s literature to support principles of diversity in kindergarten rooms of long day care centres. A mixed methods approach was adopted and a convergent design was employed to synthesise the qualitative and quantitative data and interpret significant relationships and their meanings. The quality of educator practice was measured through the Systematic Assessment of Book Reading (SABR) and Children’s engagement in book sharing was assessed using the Children’s Orientation to Book Reading Rating Scale. Detailed analysis of 148 video recorded book sharing sessions produced statistical representations of the frequency and duration of book sharing across the contexts and the nature of involvement of the children in the study. Twenty four educators and 110 children from four long day care centres in Western Australia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, video-based observations, field notes, document analysis and a book audit. The results showed that while the children in this study had a range of book sharing experiences, few of these were frequent or of high quality. Of great concern is the finding that the children in this study most likely to be considered at risk of educational disadvantage were those with the least exposure to book sharing in general, and, even less so, to high quality book sharing, raising concerns about equitable outcomes for them

Quality of life impacts from rotavirus gastroenteritis on children and their families in the UK.

AIMS: Rotavirus vaccines (RV) are safe and effective but demand significant investment of healthcare resource. In countries with low mortality due to rotavirus, a key component to assessing cost-effectiveness is quantifying the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) lost due to rotavirus acute gastroenteritis (RVAGE). METHODS: Families with children less than six years old with gastroenteritis were recruited from attendees to Bristol Children's Hospital Emergency Department. Stools were tested for viral causes of gastroenteritis. Children's HRQoL was assessed at presentation using Health Utilities Index 2 (HUI2) with visual analogue scale (VAS). The effect of the child's illness on the HRQoL of up to two adult carers was assessed using EQ-5D-5L. Families completed a daily symptom diary to assess time to recovery and within-family transmission. RESULTS: 127 families consented to take part, 84(65%) had rotavirus as the cause of illness. At the time of attendance, mean paediatric HRQoL with RVAGE was 0.74(HUI2) and 0.42(VAS). Primary/secondary carer's HRQoL was 0.68/0.80 (EQ5D) or 0.70/0.79 (VAS). The mean number of QALYs lost due to RVAGE was 3.1-3.5 per thousand children and 7.7-8.7 per thousand family units. In 52% of RVAGE families at least one other member developed a secondary case of gastroenteritis. For working parents, 69% missed work, for a mean of 2.8 days (95% CI 2.3-3.4). CONCLUSIONS: We have found the HRQoL loss associated with RVAGE in children and their carers to be significantly higher than estimates used for all RV medical attendances in UK cost-effectiveness calculations.The study was supported by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Evaluation of Interventions. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or Public Health EnglandThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.07.01

Vertical Atmospheric Structure in a Variable Brown Dwarf: Pressure-dependent Phase Shifts in Simultaneous Hubble Space Telescope-Spitzer Light Curves

Heterogeneous clouds or temperature perturbations in rotating brown dwarfs produce variability in the observed flux. We report time-resolved simultaneous observations of the variable T6.5 brown dwarf 2MASSJ22282889-431026 over the wavelength ranges 1.1-1.7 microns and broadband 4.5 microns. Spectroscopic observations were taken with Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope and photometry with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The object shows sinusoidal infrared variability with a period of 1.4 hr at most wavelengths with peak-to-peak amplitudes between 1.45% and 5.3% of the mean flux. While the light curve shapes are similar at all wavelengths, their phases differ from wavelength to wavelength with a maximum difference of more than half of a rotational period. We compare the spectra with atmospheric models of different cloud prescriptions, from which we determine the pressure levels probed at different wavelengths. We find that the phase lag increases with decreasing pressure level, or higher altitude. We discuss a number of plausible scenarios that could cause this trend of light curve phase with probed pressure level. These observations are the first to probe heterogeneity in an ultracool atmosphere in both horizontal and vertical directions, and thus are an ideal test case for realistic three dimensional simulations of the atmospheric structure with clouds in brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets.Comment: Accepted to ApJL, 6 pages, 3 figures. Minor language updates from v1 to match published versio

Workforce commuting and subjective well-being

Commuting to and from work can constitute a significant proportion of a person’s day and can have a considerable impact on one’s well-being. Using the UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS) dataset, the experienced well-being effects of commuting, in terms of enjoyment, were evaluated relative to other daily activities. Commutes using passive modes of transport (e.g., car, train) were found to be the least enjoyable activities carried out in the day. Commuting using active modes of transport (e.g., cycle, walk) was also amongst the least enjoyable activities, although enjoyment of active commuting was significantly higher than that of passive commuting. This paper also assessed differences in the experienced well-being of other daily activities (such as working and physical exercise) during the workday between those who did and those who did not commute. Using a series of multilevel analyses, commuting was shown to have little impact on an individual’s enjoyment of the other daily activities in which they partake. Enjoyment of all daily activities was found to be just as high on workdays on which participants commuted using active modes of transport as on non-commuting workdays. With the exception of only Personal Care activities and Sleep, there were no meaningful differences in enjoyment of any daily activities between any of the three commuting workday groups and non-commuting workdays

“Portray cultures other than ours”: How children’s literature is being used to support the diversity goals of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework

Catering for diversity within birth to 5-year-old settings continues to be an on-going concern for policy makers and educators worldwide. This research contributes to discussion on the value of children’s literature in achieving international principles of diversity and, in particular, the Principles, Practice and Outcomes outlined in the Australian Early Years Learning Framework. The article considers the selection and use of children’s literature related to diversity, as well as what influences these processes. Seventeen educators from five long day care centres located in or near the Perth metropolitan area participated in the study. Data were drawn from interviews and a book audit. The findings revealed educators had limited understandings of the role of literature in acknowledging and valuing diversity and rarely used it to promote the diversity-related outcomes of the EYLF. The key challenges which emerged from the findings concerned beliefs of educators, professional learning and the application of the EYLF in practice

Correction to: “Portray cultures other than ours”: How children’s literature is being used to support the diversity goals of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework

The article “Portray cultures other than ours”: How children’s literature is being used to support the diversity goals of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework, written by Helen Adam, Caroline Barratt-Pugh and Yvonne Haig, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently Springer- Link) on 20 January 2019 without open access. With the author(s)’ decision to opt for Open Choice the copyright of the article changed on 30 August 2019 to © The Author(s) 2019 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The original article has been corrected