Attitudes toward sex doll ownership: Scale development and preliminary validation

Sex dolls are beginning to become more mainstream, both in the public’s consciousness and in academic research. However, there is no current systematic examination of public attitudes toward sex dolls within the peer-reviewed literature, which represents a barrier to the efficient study on this topic. In this paper we report the development and initial validation of such a measure. Using an international public sample (N = 377) we found that public attitudes toward sex doll owners were underpinned by three factors: ‘Acceptability of Doll Ownership’, ‘Doll Owners as Immoral’, and ‘Doll Owners as Dysfunctional’. Scores on each of these factors, which make up the Sex Doll Ownership Attitudes Scale (SDOAS), were predicted by participant sex, religiosity, permissive sexual attitudes, right-wing authoritarianism, and the endorsement of moral intuitions that favor personal liberty. We present a full form 66-item version of the SDOAS, as well as an 18-item short form which both possess strong psychometric properties. We highlight potential future uses of the SDOAS as this emerging field of study continues to rapidly grow.

Deception Detection Tests: A Subdued Investigating Tool

The increasing demand to dispose of the cases swiftly, police often resort to third-degree methods to extract information from the individual; and in the process violate the fundamental rights to life and personal liberty stated under article 21 of the constitution of India. With the development of science and technology quickly eliciting the information is possible by adopting methods of polygraph, brain mapping, and narco analysis. In the past various experts, committees and judgements in courts have recommended these technologies to be used. Though there is a demand, it also raises serious legal, ethical and medical issues. Through this article we attempted to analyze the issues from various angles, and should take steps in the future to implement them. Keywords: Deception Detection Test (DDT), polygraph, brain mapping, narco analysis.

Police: A Public Safety Institution of Governance

The most and constantly visible institution of governance” police” constitute the embodiment more pervasively than any other unit of administration. In a democratic welfare policy like India, the police, in addition to their primary role of maintenance of law and order, prevention and detection of crime, have to perform the crucial task of reconciliation of authority with human dignity and personal liberty and assure the functions of a social service organization. Police have to operate within the legal framework and in conformity with the Indian constitution. Its activities are constantly scrutinized by the judiciary, legislature, and the people. They have to be courteous, gentle, and friendly with the law-abiding citizens and have to be tough and fearsome to the criminals and law breakers being the executives of law and executers of the rule of law. They should ensure the safety of the lives and properties of the citizens. They should provide relief and succor to the needy and so should develop an attitude ode of respect for the dignity of the citizens, understanding the human rights and strict adherence to the principles will earn goodwill and adulation of the people. The equations between the police and the community have to be built on firm foundations of social accountability and mutual appreciation and support. The mantle of ideal citizen is the most prominent one for the policeman. A law-abiding policeman is the visible symbol of all that is good in society. On his moral and ethical fiber, depends on the quality of life in a democracy. They have to be model law-abiding citizen even when dealing with the hardened criminals. The policeman stands for good citizenship, on emblem of’ Truth’ and ‘Right.’ He is the reality that the most ignorant man can comprehend. Keywords: police, Democratic welfare policy, law and order, legal framework, judiciary, legislature, criminals and law breakers, law abiding citizens, rule of law, executives of law, social accountability, moral ethical fiber.

ARRESTS WITHOUT WARRANT: THE SCA BRINGS CLARITY Minister of Safety and Security v Sekhoto 2011 1 SACR 315 (SCA); [2011] 2 All SA 157 (SCA)

Section 40(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides for a number of different instances where a peace officer may effect an arrest without an arrest warrant. A perusal of the reported case law pertaining to the lawfulness of arrests without warrant reveals that section 40(1)(b) of the Act, in particular, has received much attention from the courts. In terms of this subsection a peace officer may arrest without warrant any person whom he reasonably suspects of having committed an offence referred to in Schedule 1, other than the offence of escaping from lawful custody. It is settled law that any deprivation of freedom is regarded as prima facie unlawful. The arrestor therefore bears the onus of proving that the arrest was justified. The following jurisdictional facts must be present for a peace officer to rely on the defence created by section 40(1)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Act in cases, where it is alleged that the arrest was unlawful: (i) the arrestor must be a peace officer; (ii) the arrestor must entertain a suspicion; (iii) the suspicion must be that the suspect committed an offence in Schedule 1; and (iv) the suspicion must rest on reasonable grounds. For a discussion of the differenttypes of jurisdictional facts provided for in section 40(1) see Watney. In Louw v Minister of Safety and Security Bertelsman J held, with reference to the right to personal liberty, that arresting officers are under a constitutional obligation to consider whether there are no less invasive options to bring the suspect to court than the drastic measure of arrest, thereby effectively requiring a further jurisdictional fact for successful reliance by a peace officer on the provisions of section 40(1). If a reasonable apprehension exists that the suspect will abscond, or fail to appear in court if a warrant is first obtained for his or her arrest, or awritten notice or summons to appear in court is obtained, then the arrest would be constitutionally untenable and unlawful. Bertelsman J relied on academic opinion and an obiter remark made by De Vos J in Ralekwa v Minister of Safety and Security and held that the approach in Tsose v Minister of Justice that there is no rule that requires the milder method of bringing a person to court if it would be as effective as arrest, could no longer be acceptable in a constitutional dispensation. This approach was followed in a number of reported High Court judgments but not approved of in Charles v Minister of Safety and Security. In Minister of Safety and Security v Van Niekerk the Constitutional Court found it not to be in the interests of justice on the facts of the case before it to pronounce on the constitutional tenability of the approach in Tsose, but nevertheless held that the constitutionality of an arrest will be dependent upon its factual circumstances. Watney succinctly discusses some of the abovementioned developments. However, on 19 November 2010 the Supreme Court of Appeal in Minister of Safety and Security v Sekhoto (2011 1 SACR 315 (SCA), also reported in [2011] 2 All SA 157 (SCA)) held that the approach of the different high courts requiring a further jurisdictional fact for the lawfulness of an arrest did nothave proper regard for the principles in terms of which statutes must be interpreted in the light of the Bill of Rights and that they have conflated the issue of jurisdictional facts with the issue of discretion. This lucid judgment brings clarity to the issue of the lawfulness of arrests without warrant.

How Milton Friedman Exploited White Supremacy to Privatize Education

This paper traces the origins of today’s campaigns for school vouchers and other modes of public funding for private education to efforts by Milton Friedman beginning in 1955. It reveals that the endgame of the “school choice” enterprise for libertarians was not then—and is not now--to enhance education for all children; it was a strategy, ultimately, to offload the full cost of schooling onto parents as part of a larger quest to privatize public services and resources. Based on extensive original archival research, this paper shows how Friedman’s case for vouchers to promote “educational freedom” buttressed the case of Southern advocates of the policy of massive resistance to Brown v. Board of Education. His approach—supported by many other Mont Pelerin Society members and leading libertarians of the day --taught white supremacists a more sophisticated, and for more than a decade, court-proof way to preserve Jim Crow. All they had to do was cease overt focus on race and instead deploy a neoliberal language of personal liberty, government failure and the need for market competition in the provision of public education.

Moral reframing of messages about mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Despite evidence in support of the benefits of wearing masks, attitudes about mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic became politicized, and therefore tied with political values and group identities. When communicating about political issues, messages targeted to resonate with the core values of the receiver may be effective, an approach known as moral reframing. We first tested the relationships between moral values and mask-wearing in a sample (N=540) of self-identified liberals, conservatives, and moderates in the United States. Anti-mask attitudes were stronger in conservatives, and were associated with increased concerns for in-group loyalty, national identity, and personal liberty. We then crafted messages about the benefits of mask-wearing framed to resonate with these moral concerns, and in a pre-registered study of N=597 self-identified U.S. conservatives, tested the effect of moral reframing on anti-mask attitudes and behaviors. We found that messages framed in terms of loyalty, with appeals to the protection of the community and America, were effective in reducing anti-mask beliefs, compared with unrelated control messages and messages delivering purely scientific information, and that these changes in belief persisted for at least one week. Exploratory analyses showed that participants who saw loyalty-framed messages reported wearing masks in public more frequently in the subsequent week. These data provide evidence that moral reframing of messages about politicized issues can be effective, and specifically that framing messages about health behaviors in terms of group loyalty may be the most productive way of communicating with conservative audiences.

From Tory Boy to #sadmanonatrain: Great British Railway Journeys and the hard and soft masculinities of Michael Portillo

Before 2005, Michael Portillo was a reviled populist, right-wing British Conservative politician. Seemingly, he is a now a mellowed national treasure due largely to his approachable, friendly, prolific series of travelogues, Great British Railway Journeys (2010–present). This multi-series documentary has been a remarkable BBC success: delivering upbeat music, dynamic camera work, a repetitive format, rosy-tinted Victoriana and celebratory subject matter, the programme makers ensure that the programme is feel-good, cosy, nostalgic and soothing. But Portillo’s political inclinations are apparent: Portillo, sometimes quite subtly, expresses consistently his passion for free enterprise, for the supposed benefits of historical colonialism, for the monarchy, for the military and for social liberalism. A believer in an enterprise-encouraging small state and in personal liberty and social mobility, Portillo’s politics chime in directly with the current thinking of the Conservative Party leadership. In short, the apparently benign travelogue series promotes Portillo’s mainstream post-Thatcherite British Conservatism: an analysis of the ubiquitous programme’s understated but clear Conservatism counters right-wing accusations about the BBC’s alleged leftist bias.

Habeas Corpus: A Very Short Introduction

For nearly eight hundred years, the writ of habeas corpus has limited the executive in the Anglo-American legal tradition from imprisoning persons with impunity. Writing in the eighteenth century, William Blackstone declared the writ a “bulwark” of personal liberty. Across the Atlantic, in the lead up to the American Revolution, the Continental Congress declared that the habeas privilege and the right to jury trial were among the most important rights in a free society. This Very Short Introduction chronicles the storied writ of habeas corpus and how it spread from England throughout the British Empire and beyond, witnessing its use today all around the world. Beginning with the English origins of the writ, the book traces its historical development as a part of the common law and as grounded in the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, a statute that dramatically limited the executive's power to detain and that Blackstone called no less than a “second Magna Carta.” The book then takes the story forward to explore how the writ has functioned in the centuries since, including its controversial suspension by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. It also explores the role of habeas corpus during World War II and the War on Terror. The story told in these pages reveals the immense challenges that the habeas privilege faces today and suggests that in confronting them, we would do well to remember how the habeas privilege brought even the king of England to his knees before the law.