Remorse, Psychopathology, and Psychopathy among Adolescent Offenders

Remorse has long been important to the juvenile justice system. However, the nature of this construct has not yet been clearly articulated, and little research has examined its relationships with other theoretically and legally relevant variables. The present study was intended to address these issues by examining relationships among remorse, psychopathology, and psychopathy in a sample of adolescent offenders (N = 97) using the theoretically and empirically established framework of guilt and shame (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Findings indicated that shame was positively related to behavioural features of psychopathy, whereas guilt was negatively related to psychopathic characteristics more broadly. In addition, shame was positively associated with numerous mental health problems whereas guilt was negatively associated with anger, depression, and anxiety. These results provide empirical support for theory that psychopathy is characterized by lack of remorse (e.g., Hare, 1991), and also underscore shame and guilt as potentially important treatment targets for adolescent offenders

Procedural Justice Versus Risk Factors for Offending: Predicting Recidivism in Youth

Theories of procedural justice suggest that individuals who experience respectful and fair legal decision-making procedures are more likely to believe in the legitimacy of the law, and, in turn, are less likely to reoffend. However, few studies have examined these relationships in youth. To begin to fill this gap in the literature, in the current study the authors studied 92 youth (67 male, 25 female) on probation regarding their perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy, and then monitored their offending over the subsequent six months. Results indicated that perceptions of procedural justice predicted self-reported offending at three months but not at six months, and that youths’ beliefs about the legitimacy of the law did not mediate this relationship. Furthermore, procedural justice continued to account for unique variance in self-reported offending over and above the predictive power of well-established risk factors for offending (i.e., peer delinquency, substance abuse, psychopathy, and age at first contact with the law). Theoretically, the current study provides evidence that models of procedural justice developed for adults are only partially replicated in a sample of youth; practically, this research suggests that by treating adolescents in a fair and just manner, justice professionals may be able to reduce the likelihood that adolescents will reoffend, at least in the short term.&nbsp

Instantons in N=2{\cal N}=2 Sp(N)Sp(N) Superconformal Gauge Theories and the AdS/CFT Correspondence

We study, using ADHM construction, instanton effects in an {\CN}=2 superconformal $Sp(N)$ gauge theory, arising as effective field theory on a system of $N$ D-3-branes near an orientifold 7-plane and 8 D-7-branes in type I' string theory. We work out the measure for the collective coordinates of multi-instantons in the gauge theory and compare with the measure for the collective coordinates of $(-1)$-branes in the presence of 3- and 7-branes in type I' theory. We analyse the large-N limit of the measure and find that it admits two classes of saddle points: In the first class the space of collective coordinates has the geometry of $AdS_5\times S^3$ which on the string theory side has the interpretation of the D-instantons being stuck on the 7-branes and therefore the resulting moduli space being $AdS_5\times S^3$, In the second class the geometry is $AdS_5\times S^5/Z_2$ and on the string theory side it means that the D-instantons are free to move in the 10-dimensional bulk. We discuss in detail a correlator of four O(8) flavour currents on the Yang-Mills side, which receives contributions from the first type of saddle points only, and show that it matches with the correlator obtained from $F^4$ coupling on the string theory side, which receives contribution from D-instantons, in perfect accord with the AdS/CFT correspondence. In particular we observe that the sectors with odd number of instantons give contribution to an O(8)-odd invariant coupling, thereby breaking O(8) down to SO(8) in type I' string theory. We finally discuss correlators related to $R^4$, which receive contributions from both saddle points.Comment: 28 pages, no figures, typos corrected, a reference adde

Incremental and Predictive Validity of the Antisocial Process Screening Device in a Community Sample of Male and Female Ethnic Minority and Caucasian Youth

The Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD) is a well-supported tool for assessing psychopathic features in youth. However, most research with the APSD has been derived from clinical and forensic samples comprised mainly of male Caucasian and African American adolescents. In this prospective study, the incremental and predictive validity of the self-report APSD for violent and non-violent offending was examined in an ethnically diverse community sample of male and female youth (N = 335) aged 12 to 14. High-school students from a moderate sized city in Western Canada completed the self-report APSD and then completed the Self-Report of Offending 6 months later. Receiver Operating Characteristics analysis indicated that APSD total and subscale scores were predictive of violent and non-violent offending at 6-month follow-up with moderate to large effect sizes. In addition, total scores on the APSD added incremental predictive utility above and beyond traditional criminogenic predictors of youth offending (i.e., prior offending, delinquent peer affiliation, poor school achievement, substance use, low parental monitoring). Although sex differences emerged in the predictive utility of the Impulsivity subscale of the APSD vis-à-vis violent offending, sex did not moderate the relationship between APSD total, Narcissism, or Callous/Unemotional scores and offending. In addition, the predictive utility of the APSD did not vary as a function of the youth’s ethnic background. These findings suggest that: (1) the self-report APSD may have utility for risk or threat assessment with normative school populations, (2) APSD findings from higher risk samples generalize to a lower risk sample of high-school youth, and (3) predictive utility of APSD total scores do not differ across male and female Caucasian and ethnic minority youth. &nbsp

A Note on c=1 Virasoro Boundary States and Asymmetric Shift Orbifolds

We comment on the conformal boundary states of the c=1 free boson theory on a circle which do not preserve the U(1) symmetry. We construct these Virasoro boundary states at a generic radius by a simple asymmetric shift orbifold acting on the fundamental boundary states at the self-dual radius. We further calculate the boundary entropy and find that the Virasoro boundary states at irrational radius have infinite boundary entropy. The corresponding open string description of the asymmetric orbifold is given using the quotient algebra construction. Moreover, we find that the quotient algebra associated with a non-fundamental boundary state contains the noncommutative Weyl algebra.Comment: 21 pages, harvmac; v2: minor clarification in section 3.4; v3: a discussion on cocycles added in section 2, and low energy limit mistake removed and clarifications added in section 4.

The energy and stability of D-term strings

Cosmic strings derived from string theory, supergravity or any theory of choice should be stable if we hope to observe them. In this paper we consider D-term strings in D=4, N=1 supergravity with a constant Fayet-Iliopoulos term. We show that the positive deficit angle supersymmetric D-term string is non-perturbatively stable by using standard Witten-Nester techniques to prove a positive energy theorem. Particular attention is paid to the negative deficit angle D-term string, which is known to violate the dominant energy condition. Within the class of string solutions we consider, this violation implies that the negative deficit angle D-term string must have a naked pathology and therefore the positive energy theorem we prove does not apply to it. As an interesting aside, we show that the Witten-Nester charge calculates the total gravitational energy of the D-term string without the need for a cut-off, which may not have been expected.Comment: 18 pages. v2: minor changes and references adde

Dynamics of intersecting brane systems -- Classification and their applications --

We present dynamical intersecting brane solutions in higher-dimensional gravitational theory coupled to dilaton and several forms. Assuming the forms of metric, form fields, and dilaton field, we give a complete classification of dynamical intersecting brane solutions with/without M-waves and Kaluza-Klein monopoles in eleven-dimensional supergravity. We apply these solutions to cosmology and black holes. It is shown that these give FRW cosmological solutions and in some cases Lorentz invariance is broken in our world. If we regard the bulk space as our universe, we may interpret them as black holes in the expanding universe. We also discuss lower-dimensional effective theories and point out naive effective theories may give us some solutions which are inconsistent with the higher-dimensional Einstein equations.Comment: 44 pages; v2: minor corrections, references adde

TeV-Scale Z' Bosons from D-branes

Generic D-brane string models of particle physics predict the existence of extra U(1) gauge symmetries beyond hypercharge. These symmetries are not of the E_6 class but rather include the gauging of Baryon and Lepton numbers as well as certain Peccei-Quinn-like symmetries. Some of the U(1)'s have triangle anomalies, but they are cancelled by a Green-Schwarz mechanism. The corresponding gauge bosons typically acquire a mass of order the string scale M_S by combining with two-index antisymmetric fields coming from the closed string sector of the theory. We argue that in string models with a low string scale M_S proportional to 1-10 TeV, the presence of these generic U(1)'s may be amenable to experimental test. Present constraints from electroweak precision data already set important bounds on the mass of these extra gauge bosons. In particular, for large classes of models, rho-parameter constraints imply M_S >= 1.5 TeV. In the present scheme some fraction of the experimentally measured Z^0 mass would be due not to the Higgs mechanism, but rather to the mixing with these closed string fields. We give explicit formulae for recently constructed classes of intersecting D6- and D5-brane models yielding the Standard Model (SM) fermion spectrum.Comment: 46 pages, LaTeX, JHEP.cls, 21 Figures. minor correction

Split Supersymmetry from Anomalous U(1)

We present a scenario wherein the anomalous U(1) D-term of string origin triggers supersymmetry breaking and generates naturally a Split Supersymmetry spectrum. When the gaugino and the Higgsino masses (which are of the same order of magnitude) are set at the TeV scale, we find the scalar masses to be in the range (10^6 - 10^8) GeV. The U(1) D-term provides a small expansion parameter which we use to explain the mass and mixing hierarchies of quarks and leptons. Explicit models utilizing exact results of N = 1 suersymmetric gauge theories consistent with anomaly constraints, fermion mass hierarchy, and supersymmetry breaking are presented.Comment: 20 pages in LaTeX, version published in NPH

A Mini-Landscape of Exact MSSM Spectra in Heterotic Orbifolds

We explore a ``fertile patch'' of the heterotic landscape based on a Z_6-II orbifold with SO(10) and E_6 local GUT structures. We search for models allowing for the exact MSSM spectrum. Our result is that of order 100 out of a total 3\times 10^4 inequivalent models satisfy this requirement.Comment: 13 pages, for associated information see http://www.th.physik.uni-bonn.de/nilles/Z6IIorbifold/, v2: matches version published in PL