Issue Voting and Partisan Defections in Congressional Elections

In every election cycle the fate of some candidates is determined by partisans who defect from their usual voting habits to cast a ballot for the candidate of the opposing party. Defections in congressional elections have been attributed to incumbency, presidential approval, partisan strength, and factors related to individual voters. Our systematic assessment of the impact of issues on voter defections shows that party‐owned issues and performance issues associated favorably with one party affect the likelihood of partisan defections. The results suggest that congressional candidates can use issues to draw supporters away from the opposing party and to keep partisan voters loyal.     

CONSERVATIVE PROTESTANTISM AND THE PERCEIVED WRONGFULNESS OF CRIMES: A RESEARCH NOTE*

This research addresses the relationship between conservative Protestantism and the perceived wrongfulness of crimes. In a recent study, Warr (1989) identified “nondiscriminators”—people who perceived a wide range of crimes to be equally morally wrong. Although lacking measures of religion, Warr hypothesized, based on their written comments, that the respondents used religious beliefs to assess wrongfulness. Since Protestant theology tends to view morality categorically, with no gradations between the extremes, those individuals who most strongly adhere to this doctrine may be the nondiscriminators. This study tests and finds strong support for this hypothesis, which has important implications for the recent shift toward increased punitiveness in sentencing, research concerning public perceptions of crime, and studies of religion.     

Using FastID to analyze complex SNP mixtures from indoor dust

Forensically relevant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can provide valuable supplemental information to short tandem repeats (STRs) for investigative leads, and genotyping can now be streamlined using massively parallel sequencing (MPS). Dust is an attractive evidence source, as it accumulates on undisturbed surfaces, often is overlooked by perpetrators, and contains sufficient human DNA for analysis. To assess whether SNPs genotyped from indoor dust using MPS could be used to detect known household occupants, 13 households were recruited and provided buccal samples from each occupant and dust from five predefined indoor locations. Thermo Fisher Scientific Precision ID Identity and Ancestry Panels were utilized for SNP genotyping, and sequencing was completed using Illumina^® chemistry. FastID, a software developed to permit mixture analysis and identity searching, was used to assess whether known occupants could be detected from associated household dust samples. A modified “subtraction” method was also used in FastID to estimate the percentage of alleles in each dust sample contributed by known and unknown occupants. On average, 72% of autosomal SNPs were recovered from dust samples. When using FastID, (a) 93% of known occupants were detected in at least one indoor dust sample and could not be excluded as contributors to the mixture, and (b) non-contributor alleles were detected in 54% of dust samples (29 ± 11 alleles per dust sample). Overall, this study highlights the potential of analyzing human DNA present in indoor dust to detect known household occupants, which could be valuable for investigative leads.     

SELF‐REPORTED GANG INVOLVEMENT AND OFFICIALLY RECORDED DELINQUENCY*

Field studies and survey research have sometimes been critical of the utility of law enforcement data on gang activity. Survey information on gang involvement in early adolescence is linked to delinquent offending as recorded by the Chicago Police Department over a five‐year period. Self‐reported gang involvement is found to be a significant correlate of the probability of officially recorded delinquency even when ethnicity, prior self‐reported offending, and prior officially recorded offending are controlled. The conclusion is that while survey and official records sources of data do not perfectly coincide, together they can enhance the view of gang involvement.     

Resourceful communities: empowering traditional knowledge holders

Community Resources is itself a community resource (CR), interrogatingand reframing the debate over IP and traditional knowledge (TK)with a range and spirit that is rare in dense, arid academicliterature. With energy, insight, and originality, it probesthe dilemmas of global governance initiatives that aim to addressintrinsically local TK systems. The hundred-page bibliography, itself a CR, measures both theauthor's industry and the diffuse academic discourse this bookaugments. TK is a rich resource for the academic community.Yet can this analytical effort respect the irreducible diversityof those communities for whom TK is integral to their collectiveidentities? Community Resources systematically critiques international efforts,underscoring their limitations and embedded values, before settingout the conceptual foundations for a new form of internationalgovernance, with CR as the central organizing idea. How canjustice be done to the cultures, values, and interests of disparate     

A “concrete” identification in a dismemberment case

Homicide perpetrators can use concrete as a means to conceal their victims. When concrete encasement is encountered in the forensic field, albeit rarely, it is often coupled with postmortem dismemberment. This method of obscuring the evidence presents unique investigative obstacles, specifically related to identification. Various approaches to obtaining fingerprints from decedents encased in concrete have been suggested and implemented over the years. The presented case is that of an initially unidentified 44-year-old male, who was subject to postmortem dismemberment and concrete encasement. Meticulous excavation techniques facilitated preservation of evidence and an anatomical reconstruction of the body. These techniques enabled inspection of the incision sites of the dismembered remains during the postmortem examination. Identifiable jewelry and tattoos were noted at autopsy. Further, the resulting concrete molds could be utilized to obtain fingerprints. These prints were used to ultimately identify the decedent.     

GANG HOMICIDE,DELINQUENCY, AND COMMUNITY*

Analysis of community-level data on community areas in Chicago substantiates two conceptual differences: the first. between gang crime and delinquency as community-level phenomena; and the second, between theoretical associations of each of the former to community-area patterns of social disorganization and poverty. One pattern is more common in Chicago's Hispanic communities; the other, in Chicago's black communities. Five measures of the quality of community life used are gang homicide rate, delinquency rate, unemployment rate, percentage living below the poverty level, and mortgage investment per dwelling. Identifying communities as white, black, Hispanic, or mixed and applying discriminant analysis reveal the racial-ethnic communities as distinct social worlds. Regression analyses of gang homicide and delinquency rates show that the two measures display very different patterns of association with other community characteristics. An analysis of the residual change score for gang homicide rate over two time periods indicates the relative stability of community patterns with poverty measures explaining much of the change in patterns. It is concluded that gang homicide rates and delinquency rates are ecologically distinct community problems. The distribution of gang homicide rates conforms to classic theories of social disorganization and poverty, and the distribution of delinquency rates is more generally associated with poverty.