Scott E. Culhane’s research while affiliated with Austin Peay State University and other places

The current study examined 119 incidents of off-duty police shootings resulting in 123 deaths. Results show that the majority (69%) of off-duty deaths were the cumulative result of the officer being a target of a crime or interjecting themselves to assist others who were targeted. Those who intercede on behalf of others were not subjected to criminal proceedings. Other findings of note revealed how off-duty fatal police shootings frequently involved people of color. The various approaches of states, police departments, and district attorney offices in reporting of these cases was problematic. A greater transparency within the investigation is discussed.

Inconsistent alibis often are viewed negatively, but they may be due to simple mistakes and not deception. The strength of alibi evidence also matters; alibis supported by strong corroborative physical evidence are more believable than alibis with no physical evidence. The timing at which the alibi is disclosed to the prosecution also can affect alibi believability. Two hundred and seventy online participants evaluated a consistent or inconsistent alibi that had corroborative physical evidence or not, and was disclosed early or late. Collapsing across the three conditions, more participants voted guilty than not guilty, and more believable alibis were associated with more not guilty verdicts. Consistent alibis were more believable, and the defendant was viewed more positively on five character traits than when the alibi was inconsistent. There were few effects of alibi timing. In sum, consistency led to positive views of alibis and defendants.

Culhane describes the memory test asked of suspects when developing (or generating) their alibi. He discusses the two-part process by illustrating first the “Story Phase” (where the suspect states their whereabouts during the time of the crime to be away from the location where the crime occurred), and next the “Validation Phase” (where the suspect is expected to provide supporting evidence of their alibi story, typically in the form of person or physical corroborating evidence) of alibi generation. He examines the literature to date on motivational differences for person-based corroboration, and ease of fabrication for physical evidence (both part of the original taxonomy), but expands the discussion by mentioning the technological advancements that may make developing corroborative evidence more complicated. He devotes specific attention to the potential generation and corroboration of false alibi statements and discusses the legal requirements to disclose alibi statements to the court in different levels and systems. Culhane concludes with a call for additional research on alibis in the context of generating both the statement itself and the corroborating evidence to support it.KeywordsAlibiGenerationCorroboratorStory PhaseValidation PhaseAlibi statementPerson evidencePhysical evidenceFalse alibi

The current research reports 61 male serial murderers’ responses to self-report questionnaires designed to assess levels of psychopathy and criminal thinking. Three separate measures of psychopathy were included. Contrary to our predictions, results indicated that our sample of serial murderers did not demonstrate strong evidence of psychopathy. Rather, the percentage of inmates who could be classified as having psychopathic tendencies is on par with the general population of prisoners. Only half of the participants had an interpretable criminal thinking style scale. Temperament and power issues were the two factors of greatest significance for understanding the serial homicide perpetrators’ criminal cognition. In line with expectations, multiple significant correlations were observed for the measures. Implications and limitations of the research are discussed.

Using an experimental design, this research looked at the medium of presentation (text, audio, video) through which members of the public were exposed to a controversial police shooting. Furthermore, this research tested whether the officer’s immediate reaction to the shooting (crying, talking, or calling his attorney) across mediums of presentation impacted the public’s perception of justification. We found that the medium of presentation did matter; those who were exposed to the shooting through video were significantly more likely to perceive of the shooting as unjustified when compared to those who were exposed to the shooting through text or audio. However, officer’s reaction did not have an impact on perceptions of justification for the shooting. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Police departments across many countries have rapidly begun implementing the use of body cameras to document their interactions with the public. Previous research has shown that body camera footage of a police shooting was viewed positively before, but negatively immediately following, the media coverage of the Ferguson, MO shooting of Michael Brown [Culhane, S.E., Boman IV, J., and Schweitzer, K., 2016. Public perceptions of the justifiability of police shootings: the role of body cameras in a pre/post-Ferguson experiment. Police quarterly, 19, 251–274. doi:10.1177/1098611116651403]. This paper presents a partial replication of their final study. In this replication, participants watched, heard, or read about a police shooting involving a man with a weapon. The data collection was conducted one year after Brown’s death. Results indicated that judgments of the shooting’s justification returned to those seen before the Ferguson incident. When participants could see the event unfold, they were significantly more likely to judge the shooting was justified when compared to participants in the study shortly after the Ferguson incident.

Although there are multiple statistical approaches used in understanding reentry, there is little consensus on the benefits and limitations of some of the more popular techniques as they relate to each other. Here, two common methods, lagged dependent variable modeling and hierarchical generalized linear modeling, are contrasted. To examine how particular modeling strategies may lead to different understandings of recidivism within reentry, we use data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI; N = 1,697) to provide an example of the two statistical approaches and discuss the benefits and limitations of each strategy. While researchers will need to make important decisions about which strategy best addresses their research question, results of our analyses show that in dealing with reentry data across more than two waves, a hierarchical generalized linear model is often the preferred approach. © 2016, © 2016 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology.

This project reports the results of 60 male serial homicide offenders’ profiles on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III (MCMI-III). The geographical distance between potential participants increases the difficulty in effectively measuring psychological features. Therefore, self-report is a viable option for this type of research. Using a computer-generated correctional report, the Severe Personality Pathologies and Clinical Personality Patterns were analyzed for possible traits relating to Axis I and Axis II suggested diagnoses.1 Results show that the majority of murderers sampled had at least one Axis I classification and nearly half had more than one. All participants had either features or traits of an Axis II disorder, with slightly more than half having met the cutoff for a diagnosed disorder. The measurement of a highly violent specialized group requires many considerations and extensive resources, but a preliminary understanding is possible with a carefully gauged approach.

We conducted two studies, wherein participants from across the United States watched, heard, or read the transcript of an actual police shooting event. The data for Study 1 were collected prior to media coverage of a widely publicized police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Results indicated that participants who could hear or see the event were significantly more likely to perceive the shooting was justified than they were when they read a transcript of the encounter. Shortly after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, we replicated the first study, finding quite different results. Although dissatisfaction with the shooting was seen in all forms of presentation, video evidence produced the highest citizen perceptions of an unjustified shooting and audio evidence produced the least. Citizens were nonetheless overwhelmingly favorable to requiring police to use body cameras. Body-mounted cameras with high-quality audio capabilities are recommended for police departments to consider.