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While prior research has established that traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a risk factor for violent offending, there is little understanding of mechanisms that may underpin this relationship. This is problematic, as a better understanding of these mechanisms could facilitate more effective targeting of treatment. This study aims to address these gaps in the extant literature by examining TBI as a predictor of violent offending and test for mediation effects through cognitive constructs of dual systems imbalance and hostility among a sample of justice-involved youth (JIY).

The Pathways to Desistance data were analyzed. The first three waves of this data set comprising the responses of 1,354 JIY were analyzed. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to test for direct and indirect effects of interest. A bootstrap resampling process was used to compute unbiased standard errors for determining the statistical significance of mediation effects.

Lifetime experience of TBI was associated with increased violent offending frequency at follow-up. Hostility significantly mediated this relationship, but dual systems imbalance did not. This indicated that programming focused on reducing hostility among JIY who have experienced TBI could aid in reducing violent recidivism rates.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study was the first to identify significant mediation of the relationship between TBI and violent offending through hostility.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate how judges and the general population formulate judgments on legal cases, considering both legal and extralegal factors, with a focus on the significance of the defendant’s sex.

The first experiment aimed to determine if non-lawyers’ judgments are affected by the defendant’s sex, using brief excerpts from indictments with the defendant’s sex interchanged. Study 2 aimed to verify if this effect applies to future lawyers, suggesting a peculiar approval granted by men to women displaying illegal sexual behaviour towards young men.

The findings showed that the sex of the offender only influenced judgments in sexual offences, with male participants being more lenient towards female offenders.

The originality/value of the paper lies in its examination of the influence of the defendant’s sex on judgments made by both judges and the general population, specifically focussing on non-lawyers’ judgments. While previous studies have shown that judges tend to be more lenient towards women in certain cases, this paper adds novelty by investigating whether a similar effect is observed among non-lawyers. Moreover, the research sheds light on the relevance of the defendant's sex in cases of sexual offences and identifies a gender-specific leniency towards female offenders, particularly among male participants. The study also explores how this effect might extend to future lawyers, providing insights into societal attitudes regarding illegal sexual behaviour involving women and young men. Overall, the paper contributes valuable information to the understanding of how sex-based biases can influence legal judgments and decision-making processes.

The present study aims to examine the scope and contribution of behavioural investigative advice (BIA) reports from the National Crime Agency (NCA).

The 77 BIA reports reviewed were written between 2016 and 2021. They were evaluated using Toulmin’s (1958) strategy for structuring pertinent arguments, current compliance with professional standards, the grounds and backing provided for the claims made and the potential utility of the recommendations provided.

Consistent with previous research, most of the reports involved murder and sexual offences. The BIA reports met professional standards with extremely high frequency. The 77 reports contained a total of 1,308 claims of which 99% were based on stated grounds. A warrant and/or backing was provided for 73% of the claims. Most of the claims in the BIA reports involved a behavioural evaluation of the crime scene and offender characteristics. The potential utility of the reports was judged to be 95% for informative behavioural crime scene analysis and 40% for potential new lines of enquiry.

The reports should serve as a model for the work of behavioural investigative advisers internationally.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to systematically evaluate BIA reports commissioned by the NCA; it adds to previous similar studies by evaluating the largest number of BIA reports ever reviewed, and uniquely provides judgement of overall utility.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether indicating victims of sexual attacks actively resisted their attacker or froze during their assault affected perceptions of victim blame, perpetrator blame and seriousness of the crime. We also tested whether victim and perpetrator gender or participants’ rape myth endorsement moderated the outcomes.

This study was a cross-sectional, vignette survey study with a 2 × 2 between-participants experimental design. Participants read a mock police report describing an alleged rape with a female or male victim who either resisted or froze, while perpetrator gender was adjusted heteronormatively.

Freezing and male victims were blamed more than resisting and female victims. Perpetrators were blamed more when the victim resisted, but male and female perpetrators were blamed equally. Seriousness of the crime was higher for male perpetrators and when the victim resisted. Female, but not male, rape myth acceptance moderated the relationship between victim behaviour and outcome variables.

This study highlights the influence of expectations about victim behaviour on perceptions of rape victims and the pervasive influence of rape myths when evaluating female rape victims. The data is drawn from the German border region of the Netherlands, which is an especially valuable population given the evolving legal definitions of rape in both countries.

The current review aims to focus on how risk and protective factors for self-harm in secure mental health hospitals are captured in the literature.

Fifty-seven articles were included in a systematic review, drawn from an initial 1,119 articles, post duplicate removal. Databases included Psycinfo, Psycarticles, Psycnet, Web of Science and EBSCO host. A thematic analysis was used, which included a meta-ethnographic approach for considering qualitative papers.

There was a clear focus on risk factors, with eight identified (in order of occurrence): raised emotional reactivity and poor emotion regulation; poor mental health; traumatic experiences; personality disorder diagnosis and associated traits; increased use of outward aggression – dual harm; constraints of a secure environment and lack of control; previous self-harm and suicide attempts; and hopelessness. Protective factors featured less, resulting in only three themes emerging (in order of occurrence): positive social support and communication; positive coping skills; and hope/positive outlook.

This includes a proposal to move focus away from “risk” factors, to incorporate “needs”, in terms of individual and environmental factors. There is also a need for more attention to focus on developing high quality research in this area.

The research captures an area where a synthesis of research has not been comprehensively undertaken, particularly with regards to capturing protective as well as risk factors.

This study explores the determinants of police officer support for pre-arrest/booking deflection programs that divert people presenting with substance use and/or mental health disorder symptoms out of the criminal justice system and connect them to supportive services.

This study analyzes responses from 254 surveys fielded to police officers in Delaware. Questionnaires asked about views on leadership, approaches toward crime, training, occupational experience and officer’s personal characteristics. The study applies a new machine learning method called kernel-based regularized least squares (KRLS) for non-linearities and interactions among independent variables. Estimates from a KRLS model are compared with those from an ordinary least square regression (OLS) model.

Support for diversion is positively associated with leadership endorsing diversion and thinking of new ways to solve problems. Tough-on-crime attitudes diminish programmatic support. Tenure becomes less predictive of police attitudes in the KRLS model, suggesting interactions with other factors. The KRLS model explains a larger proportion of the variance in officer attitudes than the traditional OLS model.

The study demonstrates the usefulness of the KRLS method for practitioners and scholars seeking to illuminate patterns in police attitudes. It further underscores the importance of agency leadership in legitimizing deflection as a pathway to addressing behavioral health challenges in communities.

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of those volunteering within a restorative justice service thus enabling an insight into their perceptions of the different methods used, their beliefs about restorative justice effectiveness, and its place within the criminal justice system. The study also sought to identify any challenges and positive experiences the participants encountered during their role as volunteers, with volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic explored specifically.

Data was collected from the participants (n = 5) via semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis, thus enabling patterns within the experience of the volunteers to be identified.

A prior understanding and interest in restorative justice was evident within the data, with participants demonstrating a preference for direct, face-to-face mediation. The perceived lack of support from external agencies was discussed along with the role of education in their volunteering experience. Finally, it was acknowledged that although face-to-face practice was deemed the most effective overall, certain practices adopted during COVID-19 enabled aspects of the role to be carried out more efficiently and equally as effectively.

The findings from this study draw out real-world implications, producing tangible action points for restorative justice services. Some tentative suggestions for future practice are outlined.

The volunteers’ role within restorative justice is often overlooked within the literature (Paul and Borton, 2013) and time constraints can add additional barriers to a hard-to-reach population. However, volunteers play a vital role in restorative justice. By exploring and listening to the volunteers’ experience, this study expands an additional strand within the literature in terms of what makes restorative justice effective and the challenges that are faced from a volunteer perspective.

The purpose of this study is to compare violent and non-violent extremists in terms of their age when they first perpetrate an extremist act, and to understand how this relates to other factors underlying extremist behaviours. While the end goal of many extremists may be functionally similar, the pathways into extremism vary, and the literature has demonstrated that a “one-size-fits-all” explanation does not exist. Motivational drivers are complex and dynamic; therefore, attempting to identify a terrorist “profile” has limited applied efficacy.

This study applied a temporal approach (“crime script analysis” or CSA) to identify, map and compare the sequential stages (or “scenes”) in the life histories of violent and non-violent extremists who have committed acts of extremism across different age groups. Crime scripts comprising mainly qualitative data for 40 male extremists (20 violent, 20 non-violent “cases”) were developed, and CSA was conducted according to the age at which they committed their first extremist offence.

Results demonstrated key temporal, developmental differences between the pathways of extremists who commit their first offence at different ages. One key difference was that for both the violent and non-violent extremists, those under 30 used the internet as a main means of joining networks and spreading information, whereas the over 30s made more personal, community links.

This research can aid identification of potential environmental triggers and potential increased susceptibility to triggers across certain age groups.

The purpose is to understand how farmers in rural American communities perceive crime, safety and policing.

An online survey, adapted from a version used in Victoria, Australia (Harkness, 2017), was modified and administered through social media and farming organizations throughout three US states. The survey covers topics relating to crime and victimization, feelings of safety or fear in rural areas, policing practices and trust in police in their areas and any crime prevention practices that respondents use.

With nearly 1,200 respondents and four scales investigated, results indicate that those respondents with more favorable views of law enforcement and the criminal justice system had the highest fear of crime, those who had been prior victims of crime had a higher fear of crime than those who did not, those with higher community involvement had higher fear of crime, and those from Nebraska compared to Colorado had higher fear of crime.

A better understanding of the agricultural community’s perceptions of crime, safety and policing will aid law enforcement in community policing efforts and in farm crime investigation and prevention. Limitations of the study, including the distribution method will be discussed.

Farm- and agriculture-related crimes have serious financial and emotional consequences for producers and local economies. Stereotypes about rural areas being “safe with no crime” are still prevalent. Rural American farmers’ perceptions of crime, safety and police are largely absent from the literature and are important for improving farm crime prevention.