EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF INCREASED COURT REVIEW ON PERMANENCY OUTCOMES FOR ABUSED AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN

This article provides a brief history of a federally funded court improvement program, describes the Dane County Court Improvement Project, and discusses the implications of the project evaluation's findings. As part of Wisconsin's efforts under the federally funded state court improvement program, Dane County developed and evaluated a form of accelerated review of selected juvenile court cases. The accelerated review intended to expedite permanency outcomes for abused and neglected children in out-of-home care. The evaluation's findings of the initiative suggest that more frequent court reviews than those mandated by law may increase the likelihood of adopting children entering out-of-home care with no decrease in the likelihood of family reunification. However, because many of the children whose parental rights had been terminated had yet to be placed for adoption at the time of the study's conclusion, the encouraging early findings of the initiative should be regarded with some caution.     

Photogrammetric Documentation of Regions of Interest at Autopsy—A Pilot Study

In this pilot study, the authors tested whether photogrammetry can replace or supplement physical measurements made during autopsies and, based on such measurements, whether virtual computer models may be applicable in forensic reconstructions. Photogrammetric and physical measurements of markers denoting wounds on five volunteers were compared. Virtual models of the volunteers were made, and the precision of the markers' locations on the models was tested. Twelve of 13 mean differences between photogrammetric and physical measurements were below 1 cm, which indicates that the photogrammetric method has a high accuracy. The precision of the markers' location on the models was somewhat less, although the method is still promising and potentially superior to the current procedures used for reconstructions. The possibility to measure any distance on a body, even after the autopsy is concluded and the corpse is no longer available, is one of the biggest benefits of photogrammetry.     

Influence of Velocity on Variability in Gait Kinematics: Implications for Recognition in Forensic Science

Closed circuit television (CCTV) footage is often available from crime scenes and may be used to compare perpetrators with suspects. Usually, the footage comprises incomplete gait cycles at different velocities, making gait pattern identification from crimes difficult. This study investigated the concurrence of joint angles throughout a gait cycle at three different velocities (3.0, 4.5, 6.0 km/h). Six datasets at each velocity were collected from 16 men. A variability range VR throughout the gait cycle at each velocity for each joint angle for each person was calculated. The joint angles at each velocity were compared pairwise, and whenever this showed values within the VR of this velocity, the case was positive. By adding the positives throughout the gait cycle, phases with high and low concurrences were located; peak concurrence was observed at mid‐stance phase. Striving for the same velocity for the suspect and perpetrator is recommended.     

Environmental Income as a Pathway Out of Poverty? Empirical Evidence on Asset Accumulation in Nepal

Using unique, environmentally augmented household panel data reflecting households’ annual cash and subsistence income portfolios, we model change over time in the value of four assets – livestock, implements, savings, and jewellery. A seemingly unrelated regression model reveals that although environmental resources on average contribute 16 per cent of the total household income, the contribution to asset accumulation is limited. Hence, environmental income does not constitute a pathway out of poverty in Nepal under the current set of regulations and tenure regimes. Asset accumulation was instead associated (both negatively and positively) with agricultural income (particularly as subsistence income), wage and business income. Most environmental income was obtained as subsistence income indicating that the environmental resources that households have access to present little opportunity for cash generation. Securing access of the poor to environmental resources may increase its role in poverty alleviation.     

Dialect on trial: use of African American Vernacular English influences juror appraisals*

ABSTRACT

We investigated the effect of dialect and race on juror decision making. Mock jurors read a summary of an ambiguous criminal case, which included audio of a defense witness (Study 1) or defendant (Study 2). Both speaker dialect [General American English (GAE)/African American Vernacular English (AAVE)] and race (White/Black) were crossed; Study 2 also included three levels of case (Ambiguous/Pro-Prosecution/Pro-Defense) to evaluate any effects of evidentiary context. In both studies, jurors who listened to the AAVE recording found the AAVE-speaking witness to be less professional and less educated than their GAE-speaking counterparts. Interestingly, jurors in Study 2 who heard the defendant use GAE were more likely to find him guilty and found him less credible when the case favored the prosecution, hinting that ingroup biases such as the black sheep effect may also play a role in perceptions of dialect. Secondary analyses found that AAVE predicted more negative overall evaluations of the speaker, and these negative evaluations were associated with an increase in guilty verdicts. Together, these findings suggest that dialect plays an under-investigated role in the courtroom, and that bias against AAVE negatively impacts juror appraisals of its speakers and can potentially influence juror decision making.     

Saving the Nation's Expendable Children: Amending State Education Laws to Encourage Keeping Students in School

Disciplinary codes are designed to govern the behavior of millions of students attending U.S. public schools. As currently implemented, a great majority of these codes afford school personnel expansive, if not full, discretion to impose any sanction they deem appropriate in response to a student's alleged misconduct. Suspension and expulsion are two frequently used exclusionary sanctions that result in a large group of students who are pushed out of their learning environments around the nation on a daily basis. These detrimental exclusionary punishments have been increasingly used to address minor misbehavior rather than be reserved solely for serious offenses. This Note will describe the harmful implications currently associated with suspending and expelling children as a means to address misbehavior in school. This Note will then propose that all states amend their current education laws to limit infractions that may be punishable by suspension and/or expulsion exclusively to felonies as well as discuss practical alternatives schools should consider as a response to student misconduct. Implementation of this proposal would minimize the high rate of children being removed from their classrooms and would ultimately heighten the opportunity for children to learn.     

INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN MICROELECTRONICS

Federal, state and local governments have encouraged university-industry cooperation in recent years through a number of different policies and programs. Industry has increasingly been looking to universities for new ideas, closer collaboration and more timely access to research results. Various levels of government have become increasingly involved in joint funding with industry in new university-industry research centers and institutes. State and local governments spend considerable effort to attract high-technology industry, using university-industry collaborative programs as one incentive. Yet despite the theoretical and policy importance of this topic, it has received little systematic research attention.
This contribution reports the results of a National Science Foundation-funded study investigating technology transfer in microelectronics between Arizona State University located in the Phoenix metropolitan area and surrounding microelectronics firms. The results describe state and local initiatives influencing such technology transfer, how the initial technology transfer contact comes about, how research goals, topics and activities are decided upon, and how resources and funding support is secured. In addition satisfaction from, benefits and costs of, as well as attitudes bout technology transfer are reported.     

The Deterrent Effects of the International Criminal Court: Evidence from Libya

ABSTRACT

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was designed to try the worst war criminals for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other instances of mass human suffering. By providing a permanent, international mechanism to hold perpetrators of mass human rights abuse accountable, the ICC is also meant to be a deterrent—to prevent potential genocidaires from committing systematic human rights abuses in the first place. But what if the effect is actually quite the opposite? While advocates of international justice have made conjectures about the effect of the ICC on stopping human rights abuses, the existing scholarship does not empirically test assumptions about the relationship between international criminal justice and violence. This article outlines the causal mechanisms by which the ICC could affect ongoing violence and tests these assumptions using event count models of the relationship between the ICC and the level of violence against civilians in Libya during the 2011 crisis. These analyses suggest that the ICC’s involvement in conflict does have a dampening effect on the level of mass atrocities committed. The results also call for a broad and sustained research agenda on the effect of international accountability efforts on ongoing violence.