Who are the most highly cited forensic scientists in the United States?

The most highly cited forensic practitioners in the United States were identified using a publicly available citation database that used six different citation metrics to calculate each person's composite citation score. The publication and citation data were gleaned from Elsevier's SCOPUS database, which contained information about ~7 million scientist each of whom had at least five entries in the database. Each individual was categorized into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, one of which was legal and forensic medicine (LFM). The database contained citation records for 13,388 individuals having LFM as their primary research discipline and 282 of these (2%) were classified as being highly cited. Another 99 individuals in the database had LFM as their secondary discipline, making a total of 381 highly cited forensic practitioners from 35 different countries. The career-long publication records of each individual were compared using their composite citation scores. Of the 381 highly cited scientists, 93 (24%) had an address somewhere in the United States. The various branches of forensics they specialized in were anthropology, criminalistics, DNA/genetics, odontology, pathology, statistics/epidemiology, and toxicology. The two most highly cited scientists, according to their composite citation score, were both specialists in DNA/genetics. Bibliometric methods are widely used for evaluating research performance in academia and a similar approach might be useful in jurisprudence, such as when an expert witness is instructed to testify in court and explain the meaning of scientific evidence.     

中国行政法学三十年高影响论文之回顾与反思——基于主流数据库(1978—2008年)的引证分析

结合两大引用数据库CSSCI和CNKI,两大文摘数据库《新华文摘》和《复印报刊资料》,采用被引用和被转载两项指标,挖掘反映行政法学术影响力的高引率论文,力图通过客观的数据分析,纵览改革开放30年中国行政法学的研究焦点,从而试图为今后行政法学术发展形成共同的文献基础。     

Which articles and which topics in the forensic sciences are most highly cited?

Forensic science is a multidisciplinary field, which covers many branches of the pure, the applied and the biomedical sciences. Writing-up and publishing research findings helps to enhance the reputation of the investigators and the laboratories where the work was done. The number of times an article is cited in the reference lists of other articles is generally accepted as a mark of distinction. Indeed, citation analysis has become widely used in research assessment of individual scientists, university departments and entire nations. This article concerns the most highly cited papers published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFS) between 1956 and 2005. These were identified with the help of Web-of-Science, which is the on-line version of Science Citation Index, produced by Thomson Institute for Scientific Information (Thomson ISI) with head offices in Philadelphia, USA. This database tracks, among other things, the annual citation records of articles published in several thousand scientific journals worldwide. Those JFS articles accumulating 50 or more citations were identified and rank-ordered according to the total number of citations. These articles were also evaluated according to the name of first author, the subject category of the article, the country of origin and the pattern of co-authorship. This search strategy located 46 articles cited between 50 and 292 times since they first appeared in print. The most highly cited paper by far was by Kasai, Nakamura and White (USA and Japan) concerning DNA profiling and the application of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in forensic science. Some forensic scientists appeared as first author on two to three highly cited articles, namely Wetli (USA), Budowle (USA) and Comey (USA). When the highly cited articles were sub-divided into subject category, 15 were identified as coming from toxicology, closely followed by criminalistics (14 articles), pathology (nine articles), physical anthropology (five articles), forensic psychiatry (two articles) and one from odontology. The number of co-authors on these highly cited articles ranged from one to nine and the names of some investigators appeared on as many as four highly cited papers. The vast majority of papers originated from US laboratories although five came from Japan, two each from Sweden and Canada and there was also a joint USA-Swiss collaboration. The Thompson ISI citation databases provide unique tools for tracking citations to individual articles and impact and citation records of scholarly journals.     

Strategic Anticipation of En Banc Review in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

The quest for empirical evidence of strategic judicial behavior has produced mixed results. This study finds such evidence in the decisions made while crafting an opinion. Central to any opinion is which precedents are cited and whether their scope is limited (negative treatment) or expanded (positive treatment). I look for evidence of strategic anticipation of en banc review in these decisions using an original dataset of published search and seizure cases from the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 1953 to 2010. A panel is less likely to negatively treat a precedent with which the full circuit is more closely aligned. Circuit preferences also have an effect on citation itself, but only when the panel is at least moderately aligned with a precedent. Moreover, the panel's own ideology is only a significant predictor of citation when the full circuit is favorably disposed toward a particular precedent.     

Prevention Research in Schools

The August Vollmer Award Address is intended to focus on contributions to justice and on the recipient's research and policy experiences. This is a story of one person's career devoted mainly to developing effective collaborations between researchers and practitioners to produce useful knowledge. Her early work focused on delinquency prevention in schools and included evaluations of two different efforts aimed at altering school and classroom environments to reduce student misbehavior in Charleston, SC, schools, and an organization development intervention intended to reduce violence and related problem behaviors in Baltimore City, MD, schools. For many years, the author directed a project that provided research expertise to the Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention. She also partnered with public agencies to develop and implement randomized experiments to test the effectiveness of the Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court, the Strengthening Families Program in Washington, D.C., and afterschool programs in Baltimore County, MD. She is currently implementing a randomized trial of a gang prevention program in Philadelphia, PA, and a study of the effects of School Resource Officers in Florida and California.     

Against the one-way-street: analyzing knowledge transfer from industry to science

Knowledge flows from industry to science have mostly been neglected by empirical studies. This work aims at contributing to this issue by analyzing differences in the factors that influence the probability of knowledge transfer within industry and from industry to science in the biotechnology sector. In order to model these knowledge flows we conduct a citation analysis on the basis of patent data. We then estimate a weighted bivariate probit model on the citation probability of industry and science on the basis of a combined sample of citing and cited patent pairs and an equal number of control patent pairs. The empirical results suggest that there are considerable differences in the citation probability. Cultural closeness for instance has a positive effect on the citation probability from industry to industry while the citation probability of scientific institutions is not affected by cultural distance.     

Elder abuse in nursing homes: Prevention and resolution strategies and barriers

Recent concern about elder abuse prompted a great deal of research on the characteristics and risk factors for abuse. Most of this research, however, centered on the abuse of older persons living in a community-based setting. Much less research examined abuse occurring in nursing homes. Using routine activities theory as a guide, this article reports on a survey of seventy-six nursing home administrators with specific attention given to the elder abuse prevention and response strategies cited by nursing home administrators. Obstacles impeding successful prevention and intervention efforts were also considered.     

Knowledge diffusion from university and public research. A comparison between US,Japan and Europe using patent citations

This paper estimates the process of diffusion and decay of knowledge from university, public laboratories and corporate patents in six countries and tests the differences across countries and across technological fields using data from the European Patent Office. It finds that university and public research patents are more cited relatively to companies’ patents. However these results are mainly driven by the Chemical, Drugs & Medical, and Mechanical fields and US universities. In Europe and Japan, where the great majority of patents from public research come from national agencies, there is no evidence of a superior fertility of university and public laboratory patents vis à vis corporate patents. The distribution of the citation lags shows that knowledge embedded in university and public research patents tends to diffuse more rapidly relative to corporate ones in particular in the US, Germany, France and Japan.

Using Google Scholar to Determine the Most Cited Criminology and Criminal Justice-Related Books

Building on recent research investigating the role of books in the discipline of criminology and criminal justice (C/CJ), this paper uses Google Scholar to identify the most cited books in the field. In particular, the researchers examined the most cited books in four different eras. Prior to1900, the most cited C/CJ-related book was On the Origin of Species. Merton’s Social Theory and Social Structure was the most cited book in the second era (1900–1949). The third era (1950–1999) produced the most cited work in the study, Foucault’s Discipline & Punish. And in the final era (2000 to present), Garland’s Culture of Control was the most cited work. The researchers also sought to determine the most cited books by women and African Americans/Blacks. The most cited book by a female author was Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, and the most cited book by an African American/Black scholar was William Julius Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged. The authors conclude by arguing for the continued emphasis on demarcating the “great books” in the discipline.     

Justifying the use of non-experimental methods and disqualifying the use of randomized controlled trials: challenging folklore in evaluation research in crime and justice

The key limitation of non-experimental evaluation methods is that they require an assumption that all confounding factors related to treatment are identified in the statistical models developed. The key advantage of randomized experiments is that this assumption can be relaxed. In this paper, I describe and explain why this assumption is so critical for non-experiments and why it can be ignored in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). I also challenge what I describe as “folklores” that are used to justify the use of non-randomized studies despite this statistical limitation, and to justify the failure of evaluation researchers in crime and justice to use randomized experiments despite their unique ability to overcome this limitation. I conclude by reinforcing what Joan McCord had argued after a life time of review of evaluations: “(W)henever possible” evaluation studies “should employ random assignment.”     

民间法与裁判规范

裁判规范是法官在司法中援引或运用一定规则以直接适用于个案的规范。裁判规范分为两种：一种是法官援引一定规范所直接形成的裁判规范；另一种是法官运用一定规范而构造的裁判规范。民间法作为法律渊源，既可以被法官直接援引作为裁判规范，也可以被法官作为构造裁判规范的“原材料”加以运用。民间法作为法律渊源有一些制约性条件，需要法官识别民间法，也给法官增加了论证义务，以便使民间法作为裁判规范或者以民间法为据构造裁判规范时，获得当事人及其他社会主体的接受。     

Wikipedia in the Courts: An examination of the citation of Wikipedia in judicial opinions in Uganda

Wikipedia has been cited at least fourteen times by courts of record in Uganda. Courts have a constitutional mandate to interpret the laws of the land. The idea that they are basing their interpretations on information from an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit is rightfully alarming. The ease with which Wikipedia can be edited raises questions about the accuracy, impartiality and permanence of the information contained on the website. This article examines the citation of Wikipedia by courts of record in Uganda highlighting the limitations and potential pitfalls of this practice.     

Holistic Representation: A Randomized Pilot Study of Wraparound Services for First‐Time Juvenile Offenders to Improve Functioning,Decrease Motions for Review,and Lower Recidivism

Mental health diagnoses, substance abuse issues, and school problems are often cited as contributors to adolescents’ involvement with the juvenile justice system. Yet, few youth receive assessment, evaluation, or intervention prior to their involvement with the juvenile courts. This pilot study evaluated whether providing a randomized trial of wraparound forensic social work services in addition to court‐appointed legal services would improve functioning, decrease motions for review, and lower recidivism for first‐time juvenile offenders. Findings indicate statistically significant improvement for youth receiving wraparound services on six out of eight measures. A case study example is provided and implications for service provision are explored.     

Ludic Negation: Thrasher's The Gang and the Creative Foundations of Gang Sociality

Critical Criminology - In the following essay, I describe how one of the most cited but least analyzed texts in gang studies, Frederic Thrasher's The Gang (1927), has informed my approach to...     

Blood droplet dynamics--I

The interpretation of bloodstain patterns at crime scenes has received increased attention in recent years. Important to an understanding of this is knowledge of the fundamentals of blood droplet formation and impact dynamics. A review of the literature reveals that a considerable amount of work has been done with aqueous drop dynamics. Workers in the forensic science area seem to have been unaware of this. In addition, some of the most important and comprehensive early work with blood droplet dynamics seems to have been forgotten. It is not cited in more recent publications dealing with bloodstain pattern interpretation. This literature is reviewed and discussed as well. The present study presents results of experiments with blood droplet dynamics and high-speed photographs of blood droplet impacts on stationary target surfaces. Some longstanding misconceptions of importance to forensic scientists engaged in crime scene reconstruction are discussed.     

When the study of delinquent groups stood still: In defense of a classical tradition

This essay focuses on reductionism, the study of delinquent groups, and citation analysis. It describes Frederick Thrasher’s epistemological break with reductionists like Sigmund Freud and William Healy. It shows how Freudian, neoFreudian, and social-control theorists attributed ‘the group factor’ in delinquency to pathological traits, early childhood disorders, frustrated desires for mobility, or social disabilities of group members. From 1950 to 1970, the mobilization of bias accompanying these regressive developments nullified a classical sociological view of delinquent groups by transforming a fruitful legacy of non-reductionist theory and research into ‘non events’. When criminologists employ citation indices to legitimate such degenerative developments, they rely on spurious subjective criteria for gauging scientific contributions to knowledge.     

Reconciling questions about dichotomizing variables in criminal justice research

Purpose

Despite accumulating evidence against the practice of artificial dichotomization, its continued use among criminal justice researchers indicates that there are still unresolved questions about its appropriateness. Farrington and Loeber (2000) provided a discussion of how these issues impact research on delinquency, and many researchers have cited their article as a justification for dichotomization within the field of criminal justice. In the current study, we examine the reasons why researchers have cited Farrington and Loeber as a mechanism for answering some unresolved questions about whether and when dichotomization may be justified.

Methods

We used a forward citation search in PsycInfo to locate all articles citing Farrington and Loeber (2000) in support of dichotomization.

Results

This search identified 126 articles which provided a total of 191 reasons supporting dichotomization. We explore these reasons, discussing whether they are consistent with evidence from simulation-based analyses and whether they are supported by existing statistical and methodological theory.

Conclusions

Despite the large number of reasons for dichotomization provided by authors, we found very few that had empirical or theoretical support.     

Randomized experiments in criminology: What have we learned in the last two decades?

This paper aims to review randomized experiments in criminology with offending outcomes and reasonably large numbers that were published between 1982 and 2004. A total of 83 experiments are summarized, compared with only 35 published between 1957 and 1981: 12 on policing, 13 on prevention, 14 on corrections, 22 on courts, and 22 on community interventions. Randomized experiments are still relatively uncommon, but there have been more large-scale multi-site experiments and replication programs. There have also been several experiments in which 100 or more places were randomly assigned. Relatively few experiments (only 10 out of 83) were conducted outside the United States. Meta-analyses suggest that prevention methods, correctional therapy, batterer programs, drug courts, juvenile restitution and deterrent policing were effective in reducing offending, while Scared Straight and boot camp programs caused a significant increase in offending.     

Bullying prevention programs: the importance of peer intervention, disciplinary methods and age variations

Objectives

The aim of this paper is to respond to the commentary of Peter K. Smith, Christina Salmivalli, and Helen Cowie (Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2012), who raise concerns regarding some of the findings of our systematic review and meta-analyses on the effectiveness of bullying prevention programs. They target three findings in particular: (1) the significant association of ??Work with Peers?? with greater victimization; (2) the significant association of ??Disciplinary Methods?? with less bullying perpetration and victimization; and (3) the age variations in effectiveness, suggesting larger effect sizes for older age students.

Methods

We provide explicit information and further detailed analyses on the relationship between these features and effect sizes, including heterogeneity tests and results from weighted regression analyses. For one element in particular (work with peers), we present further research findings from evaluations conducted by Smith, Salmivalli, and Cowie (and also findings from other independent researchers) which support our previous findings. New within-program analyses to examine variations in effect sizes with the age of the students are also presented.

Results

Evaluations conducted by Smith, Salmivalli and Cowie (and by other independent researchers) indicate the same research conclusions: although peer support schemes appear effective based on attitudinal surveys, these schemes are not related to actual levels of bullying or victimization and, in fact, are quite often related to an increase in bullying and victimization. Our definition of ??disciplinary methods?? did not include the zero-tolerance approach or any type of harsh discipline as suggested in the commentary. In all relevant cases, ??disciplinary methods?? included sanctions within a warm and loving framework, following the Olweus bullying prevention guidelines. While most programs that utilized firm disciplinary methods were inspired by Olweus, the relationship between disciplinary methods and less victimization was not driven by the Olweus program (which was not related to the victimization effect size). Larger effect sizes (i.e. reductions in bullying and victimization) for programs implemented with older students is a robust result also found in a more recent systematic review regarding the effects of anti-bullying programs on bystander intervention. In within-program analyses, most results suggested that effect sizes were greater for younger students, but these results were driven by the less controlled evaluations. The most controlled evaluation (randomized experiment) provided the opposite result.

Conclusions

More research is clearly needed on the effectiveness of bullying prevention programs with students of different ages, and we also recommend randomized experiments to assess the importance of different intervention components.