Profiling parental child sex abuse

Drawing on data from a sample of 213 offenders, this study augments knowledge about sex offender typologies by identifying ten key descriptive features of parental offenders. Foreword: Public policy initiatives to redress parental child sexual offenders have been hindered by the absence of an offending profile that characterises this core group of intrafamilial offenders. Drawing on data from a sample of 213 offenders, this study augments knowledge about sex offender typologies by identifying ten key descriptive features of parental offenders. The findings revealed that parental sex offenders have a distinctive profile unlike that of other child sexual offenders and are more criminally versatile than presupposed. This may provide useful information to support clinical practice and preventive interventions aimed at increasing offender desistance and reducing threats to the safety and welfare of young children and their families

Cultural Variation in Australia: Ethnicity, Host Community Residence, and Power-Distance Values

Effective communication within a multicultural society necessitates an understanding of how people’s values might vary according to their cultural background and immigration history. Etic approaches to the study of culture have indicated that national cultures are differentiated on the dimension of power-distance. Power-distance refers to the degree of inequality or hierarchy that people believe to be appropriate in societal and organisational authority structures. Recently, researchers have begun to investigate power-distance at an individual level. However, psychologists have not yet investigated systematic variation in power-distance within multicultural communities. This study examined whether power-distance varies within Australian society according to race/ethnicity. Based on previous research, we hypothesised that systematic variation in power-distance values would emerge within a university sample surveyed in Sydney, Australia. Results indicated that participants’ power-distance values varied across ethnic groups, but did not always correspond with power-distance indices of participants’ reported racial/ethnic backgrounds, qualified by length of residence in Australia. The power-distance variations described in this paper are discussed in terms of their implications for multicultural communities, and in particular, the way that people of different ethnic backgrounds within Australian society comprehend and evaluate their interactions with authority figures, such as employers

Development of an information sheet providing rapport advice for interpreters in police interviews

The present paper reports the development of an information sheet designed to aid interpreters in police interviews in recognizing, conveying and inadvertently obstructing rapport-building efforts by police interviewers. The contents of this sheet were informed by past research defining rapport, and rapport uses in police interviews. We used a mixed experimental design to test the information sheet. One group (Intervention, n = 35) was randomly assigned to read an information sheet before responding to short vignettes of police interviewing foreign non-English speaking suspects about international crimes, while another (Control) group (n = 37) simply responded to the vignettes. Perceptions of rapport cues by the intervention group exceeded that of the control group. However, the groups performed equally well at identifying appropriate methods to convey/avoid obstructing rapport. Feedback from the intervention group on the helpfulness of the information sheet was largely positive. The findings were used to improve the information sheet which can be used to alert interpreters to the importance of rapport in suspect interviews

Quasirational models of sentencing

Cognitive continuum theory points to the middle-ground between the intuitive and analytic modes of cognition, called quasirationality. In the context of sentencing, we discuss how legal models prescribe the use of different modes of cognition. These models aim to help judges perform the cognitive balancing act required between factors indicating a more or less severe penalty for an offender. We compare sentencing in three common law jurisdictions (i.e., Australia, the US, and England and Wales). Each places a different emphasis on the use of intuition and analysis; but all are quasirational. We conclude that the most appropriate mode of cognition will likely be that which corresponds best with properties of the sentencingtask. Finally, we discuss the implications of this cognition-task correspondence approach for researchers and legal policy-makers

Measuring trust and confidence in courts

Public trust and confidence in the courts and judiciary is a central tenet of the Rule of Law. While there are frequent attempts to measure trust and confidence, these often lack clear definitions of the concepts under investigation, and other methodological shortcomings can also make it difficult to draw conclusions from their findings. In this paper we explore understandings of ‘trust' and its relationship to ‘confidence', and examine how trust in courts is measured, focussing on the use of survey methodology and procedural fairness theory. We suggest ways in which the components of procedural fairness may be more fully conceptualised and applied to efforts to explore, more deeply, the factors that promote public confidence in courts. We also identify ways in which the insights gained from this research can be applied in practical ways by the courts to enhance public acceptance of their legitimacy as an essential component of the Rule of Law

Enhancing fairness in DNA jury trials

Controversies over how the law should regulate the presentation of expert testimony on DNA forensic science were explored in an experimental study comparing traditional verbal with audiovisual modes of delivery. The study found pre-trial DNA knowledge, as assessed in 3,611 jury-eligible Australians, was limited. However, showing jury members an expert tutorial on DNA profiling evidence significantly improved their DNA knowledge. This paper discusses these results and the procedures that could be adopted by courts and policymakers to enhance justice in criminal cases in which DNA is introduced. Image: dsevilla / Flick

Practitioners' Opinions of Best Interests of the Child in Australian Legislation

An online survey of 710 Australian practitioners working in child and family law investigated their views on the best interests of the child (BIC) criteria enumerated in s60CC of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth). This research inquired about BIC applied to