Criminal Justice and Behavior

This article outlines a script theory of macho personality and discusses its potential forensic application in the understanding of criminal behavior, the prediction of future dangerousness, and the treatment of male offenders. The macho personality constellation consists of the view of violence as manly, the view of danger as exciting, callous sexuality toward women, and toughness as self-control. Research using the Hypermasculinity Inventory, developed to operationalize the macho personality construct, indicates that macho men are more likely to act violently toward other men, to act violently and callously toward women, and to seek out dangerous situations. Potential areas of criminal justice application include substance abuse, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, gang violence, “lust” murders, and abuse of women and children in general.

This article examines female prisoners' reasoning about the causes and transmission of AIDS. At two women's prisons in Texas, 113 inmates were administered the Concepts of AIDS Protocol, an AIDS information test, and an acceptance of people with AIDS questionnaire. The majority of subjects evidenced a middle developmental level of understanding AIDS, with Whites scoring higher than Blacks or Hispanics. Subjects' developmental level of understanding AIDS was moderately correlated with their scores on the AIDS information test, acceptance of people with AIDS, IQ, and level of education. These results were similar to earlier findings with male prisoners. Issues related to AIDS education in prisons are discussed.

Despite widespread rape reform laws that have been implemented in this country, victims of rape still face the risk of receiving social stigma should they decide to make their victimization known to authorities. Because formal sanctions have been found to deter rape at both individual and aggregate levels, it is important to understand as much as possible about the pivotal point at which this formal sanctioning process begins: the reporting decision a rape victim makes. Using a contemporary sample from the National Crime Victimization Survey for the years 1987 to 1990, this article investigated the factors related to the police-reporting behavior of rape victims. The results indicated that victims were significantly more likely to report a rape if the offender had used physical force and if the victim had received medical attention for injuries sustained during the commission of the crime. Although the pertinent analyses approached significance, it was found that, unlike earlier studies, victims were not more likely to report a rape if the perpetrator was a stranger or if the victimization occurred away from the victim's home.

Bachman (1993) concluded that the prior relationship between the rapist and the victim does not affect the victim's decision to report the crime to the police. The present commentary argues that, for both conceptual and statistical reasons, this conclusion is too strong, although it may simply be premature. Conceptually, the victim-offender relationship is important because it helps both the victim and others define whether or not an action is rape and whether or not reporting the crime to the police would be worthwhile. Statistically, in light of prior findings, Bachman could justifiably have used a one-tailed test of significance. In any case, her results are not significantly different from those of a comparable prior study, which found that the victim-offender relationship was important. Furthermore, Bachman's argument of changing societal standards over time calls for a time-series analysis of victim survey data. A table of reporting percentages for victims of stranger and nonstranger rapists over the past 19 years indicates an increase in reporting of nonstranger rapes over time, although over the entire time period, rapes by strangers were more likely to be reported to the police than were rapes by nonstrangers.

Previous research has found some forms of post-event activity, such as working with a sketch artist or viewing mugshots, to negatively affect the subsequent identification performance of an eyewitness. The present experiment examined potential carryover effects of forming an Identi-kit composite and writing a verbal description on the identification of an assailant from a photoarray. Both interventions were compared to a no-treatment (control) condition. Forming an Identi-kit composite increased witness sensitivity, causing subjects to be less likely to select any photo. In contrast, writing a description increased the likelihood that subjects identified the photo of the assailant. Neither intervention affected the likelihood of misidentification. Alternative theoretical explanations for the results and implications for field procedures are explored.

The Sensation Seeking Scale was administered to 69 patrol officers of a suburban police department to investigate the relationship between sensation seeking and officers' tendencies to engage in high-speed vehicular pursuit. Pursuit tendencies were measured by official departmental records, self-reports of previous pursuits, and responses to two hypothetical situations. The official records and self-report measures of pursuit were found to correlate significantly with sensation seeking. It was concluded that attention to personality differences may help supervisors implement a more predictable pursuit policy.