The Long Shadow of Police Racial Treatment: Racial Disparity in Criminal Justice Processing

This article explores racial disproportionality in criminal justice processing in an era of punitive criminal justice policies and mass incarceration. Using arrest data from New York State, the authors compare the racial disparity in prison sentencing with the disparity at arrest while controlling for crime type and criminal history of the arrest population. Findings show that the racial disparity in prison sentencing at the state level is established before courts begin criminal case proceedings. Scholars and policy makers interested in the sources of racial disparity in incarceration should concentrate on the processes that generate crime and arrests. However, a decrease in racial disparity at prison sentencing, relative to arrest, suggests that the practices of courtroom actors still merit scholarly attention.     

Support for emergency department screening for intimate partner violence depends on perceived risk

Emergency department (ED) screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) faces logistic difficulties and has uncertain efficacy. We surveyed 146 ED visitors and 108 ED care providers to compare their support for ED IPV screening in three hypothetical scenarios of varying IPV risk. Visitor support for screening was 5 times higher for the high-risk (86%) than for the low-risk (17%) scenario. Providers showed significantly more support for the need for ED IPV screening than visitors. Controlling for confounding by gender, race, experience with IPV, hospital, and marital status did not affect comparisons between groups. These responses indicate greater support for IPV screening in the ED for high-risk than for low-risk cases, particularly among visitors.     

La commission parlernentaire: mécanisrne d'imputabilitéà l‘égard des sous-ministres et des dirigeants d'organismes

Sommaire: Plusieurs parlementaires, divers analystes et deux commissions d'étude récentes, l'une au palier fédéral (Lambert) et l'autre au Québec (Bisaillon), ont traité de la possibilité d'implanter un régime d'imputabilité pour les administrateurs publics, particulièrement les sous-ministres et les dirigeants d'organismes. Les modifications apportées, au début de la présente année, aux règles de procédure de l'Assemblée nationale vont permettre une certaine expérimentation à cet égard. Une telle réforme améne l'auteur à examiner diverses contraintes qui pourraient influencer et même jouer contre son implantation, notamment: les principes de la responsabilité et de la solidarité ministérielles, l'évolution des rapports entre le gouvernement et l'administration, les différences de statut entre les sous-ministres et les dirigeants d'organismes et les précédents relatifs à la participation des sous-ministres et des dirigeants d'organismes aux travails de l'Assemblée. Ces contraintes sont assurément sérieuses car elles remettent en cause des éléments majeurs du système politique. Reste à savoir si, comme cela se produit souvent, les hommes politiques réussiront encore une fois à concilier ce qui paraît incompatible. Abstract: Several members of Parliament, various analysts and two recent commissions of inquiry, one federal (Lambert Commission) and the other from Quebec (Bisaillon), have studied the possibility of implementing an accountability system for public administrators, particularly deputy ministers and chief executive officers of agencies. Amendments brought forth earlier this year to the procedures of the National Assembly of Quebec will allow for experimentation in that area. Such a reform leads the author to examine various constraints in its implementation; in particular, the principles of ministerial responsibility and soolidarity; the evolution of relationships between government and administration; the status differences between deputy ministers and chief executive officers of agencies; the precedents concerning the participation of deputy ministers and chief executive officers in the work of the Assembly. Those constraints are of great importance since they challenge some major elements of the political system. It remains to be seen whether politicians will succeed once again in reconciling what appears to be incompatible.     

Distribution of Y chromosome lineages in Jerba island population

We have analysed Y chromosome polymorphism on six STR markers (DYS19, DYS389I, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, and DYS393) and eight classical UEP markers (SRY10831a, YAP, SRY4064, M2, 92R7, M9, SRY2627 and 12f2) in three distinct ethnical, linguistic and cultural groups of Jerba island (Berbers, Arabs and a Jerban group of Sub-Saharan origin). Fst genetic distance and principal co-ordinate analysis based on STR haplotype frequencies, showed a genetic differentiation between the three Jerban groups and a genetic relationship between Jerban Berbers and Mozabites (a well defined Berber group in Algeria). Compound use of UEP and STR markers have increased discriminatory capacity. The detection of the most common haplotype (H9) in both Berbers and Mozabites may be useful in forensic special cases.     

Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA quantification of various forensic materials

Due to the different types and quality of forensic evidence materials, their DNA content can vary substantially, and particularly low quantities can impact the results in an identification analysis. In this study, the quantity of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA was determined in a variety of materials using a previously described real-time PCR method. DNA quantification in the roots and distal sections of plucked and shed head hairs revealed large variations in DNA content particularly between the root and the shaft of plucked hairs. Also large intra- and inter-individual variations were found among hairs. In addition, DNA content was estimated in samples collected from fingerprints and accessories. The quantification of DNA on various items also displayed large variations, with some materials containing large amounts of nuclear DNA while no detectable nuclear DNA and only limited amounts of mitochondrial DNA were seen in others. Using this sensitive real-time PCR quantification assay, a better understanding was obtained regarding DNA content and variation in commonly analysed forensic evidence materials and this may guide the forensic scientist as to the best molecular biology approach for analysing various forensic evidence materials.     

The state and the stray dogs in late Ottoman Istanbul: from unruly subjects to servile friends

The present article situates the systemic efforts to annihilate stray dogs within the wider picture of Ottoman modernizing reforms in the nineteenth century. The period under investigation witnessed an increasing desire on the part of the modern Ottoman state to control and reform disenfranchised human and animal groups, which were believed to jeopardize public order, security and hygiene. These groups – beggars, orphans and the unemployed – were identified as actors irreconcilable with the modern image that the reforming bureaucracy and modernizing elites sought to project. In the face of increasing challenges from European powers, they were the epitome of underdevelopment and backwardness. Ottoman elites and official authorities therefore proposed and implemented institutional measures in the form of forced labor, reformatories or deportation to reform the conditions of these groups, segregate them from the greater public and discipline them. In the modern period, along with the proposals that called for the removal of dogs, modernizing intellectuals and professionals proposed alternative plans to render non-human animals beneficial to human needs and the modern state's expectations.     

Militancy and parliamentary representation in Chile, 1849–79. Notes for a prosopographical study of the chamber of deputies

SUMMARY

This article provides a political and social characterization of Chilean deputies in the second half of the nineteenth century. It covers 11 parliamentary elections ranging from 1849, the first election under a relatively recognizable party system to 1879, the last election before the consequences of the War of the Pacific (1879–84) altered the local political landscape. The study of parliamentarians is based on a prosopography derived from the analysis of 405 deputies, and in this case is limited to three criteria: place of birth, profession or occupation, and age of entry into parliament. The latter criterion is a key one, because the authors focus only on members who joined congress for the first time over a period of 30 years. One of the main hypotheses of this article suggests that from the 1861 election congress experienced changes in its composition, allowing the entrance of actors who had hitherto not been part of congress.