Scare tactics are often used in road safety campaigns even though years of research into fear appeals have yielded inconsistent results. In Ghana, where all efforts are being made to reduce traffic accidents, the use of fear appeals and threat of enforcement has not been spared. In an experimental study, the researchers investigated the effectiveness of this message on risky driving attitude and also explored the effect of an alternative strategy, fear of prosecution. Findings from this study suggest that fear appeals, fear of prosecution and combination of these two strategies do not have an effect on risky driving attitudes. These findings are used to make conclusions about the design of road safety campaigns incorporating such scare tactics.
Among others, the study sought to find out whether being convicted of the possession of marijuana for personal use for the first time or multiple times, would predict marijuana, and other drug use within the past 30 days. Using a cross-sectional survey, two hundred and fifty three (253) male offenders were conveniently sampled from three prisons in Ghana. The average age of participants was 31.26 (SD = 10.19). It was established that those who had been convicted of the possession of marijuana for personal use for the first time were likely to have used marijuana within the past 30 days (OR = 4.15, 95% CI = 2.00, 8.58), and other drugs within the past 30 days (OR = 2.44, 95% CI = 1.09, 5.47). Also, those who were recidivist robbers were likely to have used other drugs within the past 30 days (OR = 6.63, 95% CI = 2.55, 17.25). These, and other findings are discussed.
More often than not, people automatically make guilty inferences from physical appearance despite little evidence for their accuracy. This has usually been extended to the criminal justice system. Wrongful convictions have therefore not been uncommon in our society and people who are culpable are sometimes exonerated. Sometimes it is not until innocent persons have finished their sentence or executed before their innocence is known. Research in legal psychology has thus, usually focused on physical characteristics and its impact on trustworthiness, and guilty decisions and severity of sentences. This paper systematically reviewed studies on the influence of physical characteristics on legal decisions so far. In addition, some recommendations have been proposed for further research based on gaps identified from our analysis.
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