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A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework; often using terminology focused on identifying those who are ‘addicted’ to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of ‘social media addiction’ focus on motivations for online social information seeking, many of which could be motivations for offline social information seeking. It could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly-cited pathological social media use scales to reflect “spending time with friends”. Our methodology for validation follows literature precedent in social media addiction scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N=807 and these factors were stable in a four-week retest (r= .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same ‘polythetic classification techniques’ as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an ‘addiction’ and issues with the validation of new ‘addiction’ measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures

BACKGROUND:: Management of a cleft of the lip and/or palate (CL/P) involves a multidisciplinary team approach lasting from birth to potentially postskeletal maturity. This condition is complex, with both medical and psychosocial implications that may place individuals with a cleft at higher risk of developing psychosocial problems. METHODOLOGY:: A self-administered questionnaire was completed by a sample from the Western Australian cleft population comprising 3 age groups: child (n = 100), adolescent (n = 101), and adult (n = 158). RESULTS:: Public speaking, being photographed, special relationships, and participation in school were identified as the areas most impacted by having a cleft. Hearing and speech were reported to have a higher importance than facial and dental appearance. Participants rated support given to them by their parents as the most important, with high ratings for treatment providers. For teasing, the impact of cleft was significantly higher among participants with cleft lip and palate for both the adolescent and adult age groups. There was little significant difference by gender across the variables, which suggests that males are just as likely to require support as females. CONCLUSION:: The impact of a cleft across multiple psychosocial domains needs to be recognized and addressed as part of craniofacial team care across age groups.

BACKGROUND: People with a cleft of the lip and/or palate (CL/P) differ from their peers due to their facial appearance, hearing and speech difficulties, and the significant time spent attending appointments and recovering from surgical interventions. These differences may impact life outcomes including occupation, income, education, relationships, psychosocial health issues, and lifestyle choices. METHODOLOGY: A self-administered questionnaire was posted to 338 former and current patients of the Cleft Lip and Palate Unit of Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), Perth, Western Australia. RESULTS: Completed questionnaires were returned by 158 former and current patients. In comparison to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, study participants attained equivalent highest education levels, full-time annual income levels, occupational categories, employment rates, and home ownership levels. They did not marry later and demonstrated positive health-related lifestyle behaviors. However independent living was significantly delayed, and the number of romantic relationships, marriages, and children was lower, with separation/divorce rates also being lower. A key finding was that 78% of participants self-reported that they experienced at least 1 psychosocial health issue and more than half experienced anxiety and/or depression. CONCLUSION: When comparing the sociological outcomes for the study participants, the psychosocial outcomes were the areas of most concern. Further investigation is required to determine the causes for the high self-reported rates of anxiety and/or depression found in this study.

Background: The long-term care of patients with a visible appearance difference may involve many years of multidisciplinary treatment. In addition to providing the physical treatment component, support for the emotional and psychosocial implications must also be considered. The primary objective of this project was to survey healthcare professionals (HCPs) from each of the participating countries to ascertain their level of awareness and understanding of the issues facing those with visible differences, their level of confidence in supporting those patients, and their current and required level of training. Secondary objectives were to gauge the perceived importance of appearance and the psychosocial impact for individuals with visible differences. Methods: Questionnaires were completed by multidisciplinary HCPs in four European countries and Australia. Results: The results for all countries (110 participants) indicate that the majority of HCPs do not feel confident in dealing with the psychosocial needs of people with an appearance disfigurement. Conclusion: All countries identified and supported the need for training of multidisciplinary HCPs to be able to identify and support the psychosocial problems experienced by individuals and families. A collaborative future training program aimed at providing effective psychosocial support and was identified to be the most efficient mode to meet the training requirement. Provision of training will offer the knowledge base for effective psychosocial support and address the unintentional marginalization and social exclusion that may occur by untrained HCPs.

Fire is being prescribed and used increasingly to promote ecosystem restoration (e.g., oak woodlands and savannas) and to manage wildlife habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachian regions, USA. However, questions persist as to how fire affects hardwood forest communities and associated wildlife, and how fire should be used to achieve management goals. We provide an up-to-date review of fire effects on various wildlife species and their habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachians. Documented direct effects (i.e., mortality) on wildlife are rare. Indirect effects (i.e., changes in habitat quality) are influenced greatly by light availability, fire frequency, and fire intensity. Unless fire intensity is great enough to kill a portion of the overstory, burning in closed-canopy forests has provided little benefit for most wildlife species in the region because it doesn't result in enough sunlight penetration to elicit understory response. Canopy reduction through silvicultural treatment has enabled managers to use fire more effectively. Fire intensity must be kept low in hardwoods to limit damage to many species of overstory trees. However, wounding or killing trees with fire benefits many wildlife species by allowing increased sunlight to stimulate understory response, snag and subsequent cavity creation, and additions of large coarse woody debris. In general, a fire-return interval of 2 yr to 7 yr benefits a wide variety of wildlife species by providing a diverse structure in the understory; increasing browse, forage, and soft mast; and creating snags and cavities. Historically, dormant- season fire was most prevalent in these regions, and it still is when most prescribed fire is implemented in hardwood systems as burn-days are relatively few in the growing season of May through August because of shading from leaf cover and high fuel moisture. Late growing- season burning increases the window for burning, and better control on woody composition is possible

Fire is being prescribed and used increasingly to promote ecosystem restoration (e.g., oak woodlands and savannas) and to manage wildlife habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachian regions, USA. However, questions persist as to how fire affects hardwood forest communities and associated wildlife, and how fire should be used to achieve management goals. We provide an up-to-date review of fire effects on various wildlife species and their habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachians. Documented direct effects (i.e., mortality) on wildlife are rare. Indirect effects (i.e., changes in habitat quality) are influenced greatly by light availability, fire frequency, and fire intensity. Unless fire intensity is great enough to kill a portion of the overstory, burning in closed-canopy forests has provided little benefit for most wildlife species in the region because it doesn't result in enough sunlight penetration to elicit understory response. Canopy reduction through silvicultural treatment has enabled managers to use fire more effectively. Fire intensity must be kept low in hardwoods to limit damage to many species of overstory trees. However, wounding or killing trees with fire benefits many wildlife species by allowing increased sunlight to stimulate understory response, snag and subsequent cavity creation, and additions of large coarse woody debris. In general, a fire-return interval of 2 yr to 7 yr benefits a wide variety of wildlife species by providing a diverse structure in the understory; increasing browse, forage, and soft mast; and creating snags and cavities. Historically, dormant- season fire was most prevalent in these regions, and it still is when most prescribed fire is implemented in hardwood systems as burn-days are relatively few in the growing season of May through August because of shading from leaf cover and high fuel moisture. Late growing- season burning increases the window for burning, and better control on woody composition is possible

This document provides the full item list of the Perceptions of Sex Offenders (PSO) scale, along with scoring instructions.

Much research has examined the views held by citizens about sexual offenders and related policy responses. Although studies have extensively examined demographic correlates of such views, little attention has been paid to psychological mechanisms that underpin them. Gaining a deeper understanding of such mechanisms may ultimately prove useful for informing communication strategies around the problem of sexual violence. We propose the application of moral foundations theory as a means of exploring the roots of the current punitive consensus around sexual crime policy at the macro level, as well as individual variability in attitudes about sexual violence. Following an overview of the sexual offender policy landscape, and a description of MFT principles, we outline how this framework can help to explain both convergence and divergence in responses to sexual offending among members of the public. We also provide a series of testable hypotheses to stimulate further research in this area.

Dual-process models of decision making assume that we process information using two distinct ‘systems’: a deliberate and analytical system, and an intuitive system. This article uses 148 UK press articles about sexual crime to apply one such model – the ‘prototype-willingness’ model – to the study of social discourses about sexual crime in England and Wales. A small number of cases were significantly over-represented within the article sample (for example, the recent Jimmy Savile scandal). This finding is examined within the context of contemporary debates about sexual crime, and a model of social and political discourse is advanced. Implications for legislation and future research are discussed.

In June 2016, British voters took part in a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU). By a margin of 52%:48%, they voted to leave. Studies have demonstrated that fixed demographic factors were the best predictors of voting intentions in either direction, or that ‘Leave’ voters were driven by perceived threats from immigration. In this paper, we examine the role of moral intuitions in referendum voting intentions. In Study 1, demographic variables did not predict voting intentions after adding psychological variables to our statistical model. Instead, voting ‘Leave’ was predicted by political conservatism, social change insecurities, and placing moral importance on personal liberty. In contrast, only an adherence to the care foundation of morality predicted ‘Remain’ voting. These findings were also reflected in linguistic analyses of campaign materials and news items (Study 2). We discuss these data in relation to common discourses around the Brexit vote.

Implicit theories structure the way people understand and respond to various human actions. Typically, people believe attributes are either fixed (entitists) or malleable (incrementalists). The present study aimed to examine (a) whether attitudes toward sexual offenders differ depending upon one’s implicit theory about human nature and sexual offenders, and (b) whether implicit theories are associated with judgments made about different types of child abusers. A sample of 252 community participants was recruited. Their attitudes, implicit theories, and political orientation were assessed via self-report. One of three vignettes describing an incidence of child sexual abuse was then presented. The cases were identical except the perpetrator was either an adult male, an adult female, or a male juvenile. Participants then made judgments about the offender’s deserved sentence and moral character. Entitists (across both domains) held more negative attitudes than incrementalists, although the magnitude of the difference was greatest when examining implicit theories about sexual offenders. Compared with those with an incremental theory of sexual offenders, entity theorists judged sexual offending to be more (a) indicative of the perpetrator’s moral character and (b) deserving of punishment. However, scores were greater toward the adult male relative to the adult female and juvenile. The findings suggest that implicit theories about sexual offenders are domain specific. They also indicate that judgments made by those with an entity theory (about sexual offenders) are affected by whether a case is representative of a stereotypical sexual offender. Implications of the findings are discussed, along with limitations and future research.

Stigmatization and societal punitiveness about pedophilia has a range of potential consequences, such as the social isolation of people with sexual interest in children, and the formation of policies that are not consistent with empirical research findings. Previous research has shown that people with pedophilic sexual interests use societal thinking to self-stigmatize, which in turn may actually serve to increase their risk of committing a sexual offense. In this study, we compared two attitudinal interventions (first-person narrative vs. expert opinion) using a student sample (N =100). It was hypothesized that both interventions would lead to reductions in stigmatization and punitive attitudes about pedophiles on an explicit (self-report) level, but that only the narrative intervention would lead to reductions of these constructs at the implicit level. Our findings supported both hypotheses. We further discuss the role of narrative humanization in this area, and offer suggestions for further research based upon the theoretical and methodological implications of the findings.

We present two studies examining the role of the British press in promoting heuristic-based decision-making about sexual crime. In Study 1, 1014 press articles were used in order to examine the role of the availability heuristic. That is, we used the recent highprofile Jimmy Savile sexual offending scandal to investigate how this case impacted upon press reporting of sexual crime. We found a 295% increase in the frequency of sexual crime coverage after this case, in addition to a 22:1 over-representation of sexual crime prevalence. Linguistically, tabloid stories about sexual crime did not significantly differ in the 12 months following the Jimmy Savile scandal, though broadsheets were less negative in their coverage after the scandal broke. Tabloid headline descriptors of sexual offenders were also substantially more offensive than those used by broadsheets. In Study 2, tabloid readership was associated with more negative attitudes and preferences for harsher punishments for sexual offenders, which we propose may be attributable to the affect heuristic. We discuss our findings within the context of dual-process cognition, and argue that the national press promote heuristic-based thinking about the issue of sexual offending. Future research avenues, and potential implications for press engagement, are also identified.

Attitudes towards sexual offenders have been widely studied in forensic psychology and criminology research over the past 25 years. At present, however, studies examining these views are predominantly descriptive in nature. That is, self-report questionnaire measures are typically distributed to different groups (e.g., general public samples, and members of different occupational categories), with the resultant between-groups differences being reported in research papers. While these studies have provided some interesting findings, the results gained from them fail to inform researchers about the psychological mechanisms that underpin views about this offending population. The overarching aim of this thesis was to begin to fill this knowledge gap. That is, a range of studies were designed to use robust experimental methods, within validated theoretical paradigms, in order to examine some of the potential constructs that influence people’s attitudes towards sexual offenders. Chapter 1 presents a review of the current state of the field in relation to attitudes towards sexual offenders, with gaps in current knowledge being identified. In Chapter 2, the theoretical framework within which the empirical aspects of the thesis operate is set out. Key constructs in this section include dual-process cognition, and our reliance on implicit (i.e., non-conscious) mental processes when making decisions. Chapter 3 builds upon criticisms of one measure of attitudes towards sexual offenders in order to reconceptualise its use into one of an outcome measure. This is then used throughout Chapters 4, 5, and 6 as a measure of sentencing and risk judgements, in order to examine the effects of various experimental manipulations. Studies presented in Chapter 4 found that heuristic-based processes based around the principles of availability appear to influence decision-making about sexual offenders at the macro (political) level, but not at the micro (individual) level. Instead, individual

The psychological factors underpinning responses to sexual offenders are beginning to receive increased empirical scrutiny. One such factor is offender representativeness, which refers to the extent to which a given offender example matches a stereotype of those who are typically labelled as “sexual offenders”. Using a sample of 252 community members, we examined the role of implicit theories about sexual offenders (i.e., whether sexual offending is seen as fixed or malleable) in mediating the relationship between affective responses to sexual offenders and policy outcome judgements. We found support for this mediating effect, although this was eliminated when participants were presented with a “non-representative” offender vignette. We argue that the relationship between affective responses and policy judgements is contingent on the activation of a sexual offender stereotype, and that this link can be disrupted via the increased presentation of nonstereotypical case examples. Implications for public debate and professional practice are discussed.

Over the past two decades, a large body of research on attitudes towards sexual offenders has been conducted across a number of different contexts. However, there has been less discussion of their implications. Clinically, attitudes may be related to therapeutic climates and treatment outcomes and risk judgments, while in the social context, the views of the public about sexual offenders may play a key role in the reintegration of these offenders, and the political responses associated with sexual offending. Sexual crime is advocated as a public health issue, with attitudes towards the perpetrators of such offenses being of critical importance when trying to create a social environment within which to successfully reduce rates of sexual offending. In this article, the research evidence currently available in this area is reviewed. An analysis of the conceptualization and measurement of attitudes towards sexual offenders is provided, before the existing literature on the factors underlying such attitudes is explored. Following this, the malleability of attitudes towards sexual offenders is examined. The review concludes with some suggestions for future theoretical, empirical, and practical advancements in this important area.

Media reporting of controversial issues seek to reflect and shape public opinion. In this presentation, I will explore the role of the British national press in guiding social discourse around sexual offending. Data are drawn from several studies, which examine the linguistic underpinnings of newspaper stories about convicted cases of sexual crime, and the links between newspaper readership and attitudes towards individuals who have committed sexual offenses in the UK. Contrary to popular sentiment, no significant linguistic differences were found between tabloid-style and ‘quality’ broadsheet publications in relation to the linguistic makeup of articles on this issue. However, tabloids were found to use much more offensive descriptors for the perpetrators of sexual crimes within article headlines. Further, data from several studies are discussed, which link tabloid readership to negative attitudes towards ‘sexual offenders’. These findings are combined and explained using moral disengagement theory. Ongoing research looking at this theoretical account of public discourse will also be discussed.

Incidents of sexual crime and dog bite fatalities both score highly over the range of news values (including negativity, recency and unexpectedness; Ghavamnia and Dastjerdi, 2013). The two issues share some characteristics in how they are represented in the news media, with common themes of ‘angelic victim’ vs. ‘demonic dog/offender’. Media reporting often adversely influences political decision making. An example of this is the construction and development of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 following widespread coverage of extreme cases of dog aggression. This law was not informed by scientific inquiry and has been shown to be ineffective at reducing dog bite prevalence (Klaassen et al., 1996). Similarly, the media construction of the ‘predatory sex offender’ following high profile press-led campaigns forced the British government to pass community notification legislation, granting residents privileged access to information about the offending histories of convicted sex offenders in their area. To now, very little empirical evidence has been produced showing notification procedures to be an effective option for reducing sexual offenses (McCartan, 2014), with several US-based studies providing evidence of possible iatrogenic effects of community notification (e.g. Levenson and Cotter, 2005). To our knowledge, there have been no published studies investigating the media representation of dog bite incidents in the UK. However, anecdotal observation of recent press coverage indicates similarities between the representations of dog aggression and sexual crimes. News coverage of both topics are typified by negativity and unrepresentative prototypes, with audiences inferring these extreme cases as grounds for punitive legislation. The populist and reactionary nature of modern politics contributes to a self-perpetuating cycle of inadequate legislation, increased public concern, and emotional news coverage. In this talk, we formulate these ideas into a model for thinking about

At the recent 30th Annual PsyPAG Conference in Glasgow, I was fortunate enough to be awarded the organisation’s Rising Researcher Award. As part of this award, I was invited to present work that myself and colleagues have been doing at the University of Lincoln on the social psychology of social and political orientations. In this article, I review some of the key theories currently used in this area, before describing some data that we’ve collected prior to the 2015 British General Election. I then conclude the article by outlining some potential avenues for further research.

There has recently been a noticeable shift within the area of criminal justice relating to the importance of high-profile cases on societal discourse. This paper extends previous work on representations of sexual crime in the media to specifically look at the impact of the recent Jimmy Savile scandal on press reporting. Three studies are presented. First, an analysis of changes in crime rate prevalence representations (frequency data) and linguistic characteristics of sexual crime stories within the media (using LIWC computer software) will be discussed. Second, survey data investigating the impact of newspaper readership on individual attitudes will be explored. Third, frequency data looking at high-profile sexual crime cases within the national press will be examined in relation to recent changes to sentencing guidelines. Frequency data show a marked increased in the coverage of sexual crime cases in the national press in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal, however, this reporting appears to have become less negative following this case. A clear and significant relationship was found between reading lower-brow newspapers compared to broadsheets, despite a lack of significant differences in the linguistic characteristics of sexual crime articles in these publication types. Evidence was found for high-profile cases guiding legislative discussions and decision making. Literature relating to moral disengagement theory, and heuristic information processing, offer useful insights that could aid our understanding of societal discourse around sexual crime. A dual-process model is developed and discussed, along with suggestions for promoting more rational social discussions about this important issue.

The Community Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale purports to measure respondents' attitudes towards sexual offenders. However, previous studies question its factor structure. To address this, we sought to ‘reimagine’ the CATSO as an outcome measure of perceptions, as opposed to an attitudinal measure. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a three factor 20-item scale being developed. This paper outlines the development of this scale, and suggests how it may be best used in future research.

With the recent increase in the number of 'memorial laws' being enacted in response to specific cases of criminal activity, this talk examines the use of sexual crime prototypes in guiding social and political discussions around sexual crime policy. Data are drawn from studies into the representations of sexual crime within the British national press in order to develop a dual-process model of this discourse, with specific cases of sexual offending being identified as guiding social and political discussions about the best ways to reduce incidents of sexual offending, and to sentence and manage its perpetrators. Specifically, the impact of the recent Jimmy Savile sex offending scandal will be drawn upon. Next, a number of empirical studies are then presented, providing experimental support for the notion that the activation of sexual crime prototypes can contribute to public preferences for punitive policies in relation to the sentencing and post-conviction management of sexual offenders. The talk concludes with an outline about how to reduce the impact of misrepresentative sexual crime prototypes through the sharing of ‘success stories’, with a call for greater public engagement from academics in this area to address social misconceptions about this important legislative issue.

The Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale is an 18-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward sex offenders. Its original factor structure has been questioned by a number of previous studies, and so this paper sought to reimagine the scale as an outcome measure, as opposed to a scale of attitudes. A face validity analysis produced a provisional three-factor structure underlying the CATSO: ‘punitiveness,’ ‘stereotype endorsement,’ and ‘risk perception.’ A sample of 400 British members of the public completed a modified version of the CATSO, the Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders scale, the General Punitiveness Scale, and the Rational-Experiential Inventory. A three-factor structure of a 22-item modified CATSO was supported using half of the sample, with factors being labeled ‘sentencing and management,’ ‘stereotype endorsement,’ and ‘risk perception.’ Confirmatory factor analysis on data from the other half of the sample endorsed the three-factor structure; however, two items were removed in order to improve ratings of model fit. This new 20-item ‘Perceptions of Sex Offenders scale’ has practical utility beyond the measurement of attitudes, and suggestions for its future use are provided.

The Community Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders Scale (CATSO) is a measure respondents' attitudes towards sex offenders. However, previous studies indicate that it has a questionable factor structure. To address this, the present paper used new validation data to ‘reimagine’ the scale as an outcome, as opposed to attitudinal, measure. First, face validity analysis of the original 18 CATSO items produced a three-factor structure: 'punitiveness', 'stereotype endorsement', and 'risk perception'. Next, four items were removed because of poor loadings in previous studies and their reference to 'sex offences' as opposed to 'sex offenders'. Eight new items were added to improve the power of the three proposed factors. A sample of 400 British community members then completed the resulting 22-item CATSO. A three-factor structure emerged using data from half of the sample. These factors were labelled 'sentencing and management', 'stereotype endorsement', and 'risk perception'. Confirmatory factor analysis using data from the other half of the sample supported this structure. Finally, two items relating to sex offenders' levels of sexual activity were removed in order to improve goodness-of-fit statistics. The practical utility of the resultant 20-item 'Perceptions of Sex Offenders Scale' will be explored along with avenues for future research.

The relationships between the media, public attitudes, and crime are complex, with evidence suggesting that public interaction with these press reports influencing wider social and political attitudes. Here, 543 articles from 8 of the 10 most-read British national newspapers were examined in terms of their representativeness of crime rates, and their linguistic properties. Results include a 9:1 representation of sexual crime, a 2.5:1 representation of violent crime, and a 1:4 representation of acquisitive crime within press articles compared with official statistics. Rating the linguistic content indicates that sexual crime articles comprised angrier and more emotionally negative tones than stories on all other groups. Tabloid and broadsheet differences were found in headlines, but not in the main bodies of the articles. Cognitive–experiential self-theory is offered as just one social psychological framework for understanding the role of emotion in sexual crime reporting.

With the recent increase in the number of 'memorial laws' being enacted in response to specific cases of criminal activity, this paper examines the use of sexual crime prototypes in guiding social and political discussions around sexual crime policy. Data are drawn from studies into the representations of sexual crime within the British national press in order to develop a dual-process model of this particular discourse. Also, specific cases of sexual offending are identified as guiding social and political discussions about the best ways to reduce incidents of sexual offending, and to sentence and manage its perpetrators. Specifically, the impact of the recent Jimmy Savile sex offending scandal is drawn upon. Next, early empirical data will be presented, providing experimental support for the notion that the activation of sexual crime prototypes can contribute to public preferences for punitive policies in relation to the sentencing and post-conviction management of sexual offenders. The talk will conclude with an outline about how to reduce the impact of misrepresentative sexual crime prototypes through the sharing of ‘success stories’, with a call for greater public engagement from academics in this area to address social misconceptions about this important legislative issue.

The relationships between the media, public attitudes and crime are complex. There is some evidence to suggest that public interaction with press reports about sexual crime may have some effect on wider societal attitudes. With this in mind, 543 articles from eight of the ten most-read British national newspapers were examined in terms of (a) their representativeness about crime rates, and (b) their linguistic properties. A control sample of articles about immigrant groups was included in this analysis in order to establish how offender populations were described in comparison to another negatively-stereotyped population. Key results include a nine- and two-and-a-half-times over-representation of sexual and violent crime, respectively, and a four-and-a-half-times under-representation of acquisitive crime within press articles compared to official crime statistics. Linguistically, sexual crime articles comprised angrier and more emotionally negative tones than stories on violent crime, acquisitive crime, and immigrant groups, respectively, and this trend was observed in both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers. An analysis of the headlines of sexual crime articles found clear differences between tabloids and broadsheets with regard to the descriptors of those perpetrating sexual crimes. These findings are analysed within the social, political, and legal contexts of news reporting, with cognitive dissonance theory being offered as one social psychological framework for understanding the purpose of sexual crime reporting. The implications of such misrepresentative news reporting on sex offender reintegration and desistance from crime are discussed, and possible avenues for future research are suggested.

This piece addresses issues pertaining to the privatisation of probation services and the 'Transforming Rehabilitation' agenda. I argue here that all of British public services are currently subject to a vreeping marketisation, aimed at reducing central Government expenditure. However, singling out probation services for this type of treatment may be short-sighted given its successes relative to other aspects of the justice system.

In light of recent press coverage of historic child sexual abuse, we aimed to examine contemporary representations of sexual crime within the British national press. Media reports both inform and enhance public attitudes toward a host of social issues - particularly criminal justice. From ‘name and shame’ to ‘holiday camp prisons’, newspaper reports about the criminal justice system are increasingly setting the course of public debate, impacting upon societal responses to crime, political discourse of crime control, and penal policy. Data were extracted from a database search of British national press reports about convicted cases of sexual, violent, and acquisitive crime. Newspaper articles about convicted cases of sexual, violent, and acquisitive crimes were sourced through the LexisNexis Library from August-November 2013. In total, 454 articles were sampled from 8 of the 10 most-read national newspapers. These were analysed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. A nine-times over-representation of sexual crime, a two-and-a-half-times over-representation of violent crime, and a four-and-a-half-times under-representation of acquisitive crime was found in the article sample compared with official crime statistics. These over- and under-representations were accompanied by significantly higher levels of negativity and anger in the sexual crime article subsample compared to articles about both violent and acquisitive crime. Tabloid headlines about sexual crime were more offensive than those from broadsheets. Over-representations and negative reporting of sexual crime form the basis of punitive societal responses to this kind of offending, hindering the reintegration prospects of former offenders.

Media reports both inform and enhance public attitudes toward a host of social phenomena, not least criminality. From ‘name and shame’ through to ‘holiday camp prisons’, the press’ reporting of crime frequently sets the course of public debate, which then impacts upon societal responses to crime, the political discourse on crime control, and penal policy. This talk addresses some of the press motivations for reporting crime in sensationalist ways, and looks at the representativeness of crime reporting compared with the realities of criminality in the UK. Furthermore, the linguistic characteristics of press reports will be discussed, and linked to the increasingly hostile public rhetoric about crime and punishment, with a particular emphasis on ‘the paedophile’. Using linguistic data from over 400 newspaper articles, along with recent examples of media reports, it is suggested that the press are ignoring empirical findings and promoting a stereotypical caricature of (sex) offenders, which hardens attitudes toward this population and hinders attempts at reintegration and subsequent desistance from crime.

The political fallout post-Leveson has led to the press needing to re-evaluate some of its methods of reporting issues deemed to be ‘in the public interest’. As a part of the Leveson Inquiry, the Howard League made a submission in which it was suggested that the media, and in particular the printed press, are fuelling public outrage at the supposed ‘softness’ of prison, and downplaying the role that community sentencing can play in reducing overall levels of re-offending. This poster presents findings from a recent study that demonstrates that the printed news media’s misrepresentation of criminal justice issues is not confined to the debate about whether ‘prison works’, but rather extends to representations of the prevalence of different crime types. A nine times over-representation of sexual crime was found, along with an almost two-and-a-half times over representation of violent crime, whilst acquisitive crime – the type of offending most prevalent within the UK – was found to be under-represented within British press reports by four-and-a-half times. These findings are considered within the context of linguistically hostile press articles (particularly about sexual crime) as a potential block to engaging the public in informed debate about offending and crime reduction. Opportunities for more representative press reporting are identified, as are the implications of not acting on such a disparity between press reports and the realities of crime in the UK.

This paper looks at the increasing power of the British press in relation to (in)forming political responses to crime. Drawing on the example of the Sun Justice campaign, we examine the trend of the celebrification of news and the use of emotional language in relation to sexual offending. We argue that criminologists should be more forceful in their response to misrepresentative press reporting about crime, and unashamedly promote empirical findings in mass-media circles to redress the balance between ideology and evidence.

Positive attitudes toward sex offenders can lead to favourable treatment outcomes and with psychology students being among the most likely graduates to move into offender rehabilitation, it is important to investigate the attitudes of this group. Students from British psychology and non-psychology courses read vignettes depicting an adult and a juvenile committing a contact sexual offence on a child, and completed modified versions of the attitudes towards sex offenders [ATS] questionnaire. The adult offender was viewed significantly more punitively than the juvenile offender, but no significant differences were found between subgroups of participants. It was concluded that undergraduate psychology degrees do not go far enough to address some of the stigmatised views held by the general population towards sex offenders. Implications for media reporting, recidivism and psychology education are discussed.

Undergraduate psychologists are among the most likely group to move into therapeutic roles relating to sex offender rehabilitation. A positive attitude and good working knowledge about characteristics of sex offenders improves the therapeutic alliance between psychologist and offender, which is a factor cited as potentially increasing the likelihood of treatment success (Craig, 2005; Timimi 2009). With this in mind, and Given the range of psychology courses now offered by British universities, it was considered important to examine the contributions of different specialities in the breaking down of stereotypical thinking and encouragement of positive attitudes toward stigmatised populations. Establishing success of undergraduate psychology programmes in addressing stereotypical thinking is important for developing courses that produce high-quality psychologists for professional practice in their subsequent careers.

The poster (presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Mental Health Research Network 2013) questions the validity of certain mental health diagnoses within forensic settings.

The aim of the study was to examine and understand the phenomenon of male undergraduate gambling from the viewpoint of a male undergraduate gambler in order to formulate hypotheses for future studies. It is hoped that, due to the lack of data currently available, the findings of the study will both encourage and inform future quantitative studies into the area by identifying variables which may be critical to the development of problem gambling in undergraduate males. This then has the potential to facilitate of the development of methods of identification and intervention for at-risk and pathological male student gamblers.

This chapter provides a brief critical overview of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders