Are Female Offenders Underreported Compared to Male Offenders? A German-Greek Comparison of Crime Reporting,Rating of Offence Seriousness and Personal Experiences of Victimisation

The difference in official crime statistics between women and men is a constant fact in criminology, but has yet to be explained in a satisfactory way. There are few studies addressing the issue of why this gender gap is larger in registered crime than it is in self-report studies. The study at hand comprises a survey among Greek and German students to examine whether this gap could be attributed to a gender-specific reporting of crime. Participants’ self-reported experiences of victimisation and their rating of the seriousness of offences depicted in case vignettes were used to gain insight into varying tendencies to report a crime depending on the offender’s gender. The act of reporting a crime did not vary gender-specifically.     

Examining the Effects of Health in Explaining Fear of Crime: A Multi-Dimensional and Multi-Level Analysis

We examine the understudied link between mental/physical health problems and their relationship with perceived unsafety via higher levels of vulnerability. We examine this relationship by linking data at the individual-level, the neighborhood-level, and the county-level using the Portraits of American Life Survey (PALS). Using this data we examine the effect of individual and neighborhood conditions on perceived safety while controlling for county-level crime rates. Findings indicate that higher numbers of physical impairment and mental health issues are independently related to higher levels of perceived unsafety. Both mental and physical health problems are associated with higher levels of fear. These higher levels of vulnerability then directly contribute to higher levels of feeling of unsafety. Unlike past research, we find a mental health link to fear of crime that cannot be explained by physical impairments.     

Cardiac Ventricular Laceration Due to Child Abuse: Abusive Ventricular Laceration

Traumatic cardiac ventricular ruptures in children are rare. Only a single case of left ventricular rupture due to child abuse has been reported. We report a child who sustained a fatal left ventricular apical rupture. It appeared to have resulted from hydrostatic forces resulting from abusive blunt thoracic injury. That he was being abused was previously missed when he was presented to the emergency department with facial pyoderma. It was not noted that he also had lip and oral mucosal injury, sites not affected by staph toxins. As a result, his underlying, abusive and secondarily infected, facial flow type scald burn was not appreciated. Within a week thereafter his fatal injury occurred, accompanied by extensive and obvious associated abusive injuries. Postmortem high‐detail whole body computed tomography scanning aided the autopsy. Although rare, ventricular rupture from abusive blunt thoracic injury can occur.     

Fathers as carers in UK law and policy: dominant ideologies and lived experience

This article explores how working fathers are conceptualised within the UK’s work-family law and policy framework and whether a dominant ideology of fatherhood can be discerned. The socio-legal literature on men and masculinities is considered alongside established feminist theory on families, paid work and unpaid care to provide a backdrop to the analysis of current policy provision in this area. Three ‘ideal’ type ideologies of fatherhood are identified (‘absent’, ‘involved’ and ‘active’) which are used to critically examine the current legal framework. Despite claims to the contrary, the current framework supports and reaffirms the gendering of care so that the intransigence on the part of men and women to rebalance related responsibilities is unsurprising. The authors argue for a more care-centric approach to work-family policy in place of gender-specific normative modelling. A legal framework which enabled and encouraged all care providers to participate regardless of gender and biological relationship would not only improve the workplace experiences of women, but also enable men to develop and fulfil their care-giving aspirations and potential.     

The Prevalence of Paraphernalia Found at the Scene of Drug‐Related Deaths

Many illicit drugs involve the use of paraphernalia, and the presence of paraphernalia found at the scene of death may suggest that the death is drug‐related. Few sources of objective data are available regarding the prevalence of drug paraphernalia found at the scene of drug‐related deaths or the likelihood of a death with drug paraphernalia found at the scene to be drug‐related. This study reviews the deaths which were investigated by the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office in an attempt to provide objective data. Over 4000 deaths with scene investigations were reviewed, and the presence of paraphernalia was found to be strongly associated with the death being drug‐related, heroin‐related, or cocaine‐related with the relative risk for each being 5.0, 15.4, and 6.6, respectively. This confirms that the presence of drug paraphernalia at the scene of death strongly suggests the death to be drug‐related and in particular heroin‐related.     

Race,criminal justice professionals,and intellectual authority in fictional crime dramas

The purpose of this research is to extend the existing media and crime literature by discussing how minority criminal justice personnel are granted or not granted intellectual authority in fictional crime dramas by their representation as presenters of crime and non-crime fact-based statements. An analysis of 117 episodes from four fictional crime dramas appearing in the top 20 Nielson ratings from 2003 to 2010 indicate that Black characters are not given the same intellectual authority as White characters, and therefore are imbued with less power and status than their White counterparts. In some cases, Black characters are not even given intellectual authority within their respective intellectual fields.     

Assessing the Violent Offending and Violent Victimization Overlap Among Discharged Psychiatric Patients

Prior studies have documented linkages between mental disorder and both offending and victimization. However, few studies have examined the violent offending–violent victimization overlap among mentally disordered individuals and none have examined the factors that are jointly related to their covariation. Here, we assess this overlap during the first ten weeks following hospital discharge among a large sample of psychiatric patients from three large cities. Findings indicate that: (1) violent offending and violent victimization show substantial covariation; (2) although each of the two outcomes were predicted by a few unique risk factors, several risk factors were similarly predictive of both outcomes; and (3) even after adjusting for demographic, clinical, and social risk factors, the correlation between violent offending and violent victimization remained robust. Implications for theory, research, and policy are highlighted.     

Significance of additional RFLP single locus probes analysis after STR based determination of sibship

Autosomal STR typing alone seems to be no sufficient tool for resolving deficiency cases (e.g. cases of questioned paternity or half-sibships). Therefore, we investigated whether the additional analysis of RFLP single locus probes can improve the solution of such complicated kinship cases. We analyzed 207 children and men from 101 families using the AmpFlSTRIdentifiler multiplex PCR kit and three RFLP single locus probes. A comparison between each child and all unrelated men resulted in 11,023 man / child pairs. Less than three excluding STRs were found in 125 child / unrelated man pairs (1.13%). Additional analysis of RFLP results reduced the number of ambiguous cases to 35. Half-sibling pairs were simulated using STR results from 20 cases with high paternity probabilities (group 1) and relatively low paternity probabilities (group 2). Using a commercially available computer program we calculated probabilities for 778 half-sibling pairs. In 35 pairs (4.49%) half-sibling probabilities over 90.0% could be calculated. Additional investigation of RFLP single locus probes did not lead to a more reliable evaluation of these results. The combined investigation of autosomal STRs and RFLP single locus probes can satisfactorily solve deficient paternities but does not contribute to the solution of questioned half-sibships.     

On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility

Various authors debate the question of whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility. However, a plethora of different techniques and technologies, each with their own abilities and drawbacks, lurks beneath the label “neuroscience”; and in criminal law responsibility is not a single, unitary and generic concept, but it is rather a syndrome of at least six different concepts. Consequently, there are at least six different responsibility questions that the criminal law asks—at least one for each responsibility concept—and, I will suggest, a multitude of ways in which the techniques and technologies that comprise neuroscience might help us to address those diverse questions. In a way, on my account neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility in many ways, but I hesitate to state my position like this because doing so obscures two points which I would rather highlight: one, neither neuroscience nor criminal responsibility are as unified as that; and two, the criminal law asks many different responsibility questions and not just one generic question.