An unusual case of corpse dismemberment

A case of corpse dismemberment into 850 fragments was investigated at the Cracow Department of Forensic Medicine. The perpetrator employed various tools to divide the body into fragments and subsequently boiled the pieces to reduce their volume. The thus-prepared body decreased its volume to 30 kg. Subsequently, the perpetrator placed the body fragments in 2 large pots, which were then positioned in the space under the stairs and walled in.     

Alcohol involvement in violence. A study from a Danish community

All cases of assaults with violence (n = 1639) from a well defined area were registered for 1 year. A positive alcolmeter test (% greater than 0.2) was registered in 488 cases (29%). A further 216 patients (13%) were found under the influence of alcohol according to a simple clinical judgement. In nine of ten manslaughter and murder cases alcohol was involved. Young men, 19-29 years of age, comprised the majority of victims. Of the episodes of violence 66% took place during the weekend. In 250 cases the alcohol concentration surpassed 1.5%. Almost 50% of the violence episoded took place in or around restaurants. Blunt violence was concerned in 73% of the episodes. Gunshot was registered in five cases, stabbings in two cases.     

Property rights vs. redistribution: Which path to national wealth?

Recent empirical and theoretical research suggests that egalitarian income distribution may spur economic growth. Another different strand of research suggests that property rights are important. These two results are not at odds. A model of switching between a career of rent-seeking and wealth producing shows that for redistribution to boost national income, property rights need to be secure. A more equal distribution of earned income can induce rent-seekers to switch to wealth making, but only if they can be assured that their earned income will be protected from other rent-seekers. The model suggests new directions for empirical testing.     

Marktvermittelte Massenkunst

Zusammenfassung Der Artikel zeigt, dass Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno in ihrer Kulturindustriethese die empirischen Befunde von Alexis de Tocquevilles Kunstdiagnose demokratischer Gesellschaften ihrer eigenen Manipulationsperspektive subsumiert haben. Ihre Theorie der Kulturindustrie nahm in Tocquevilles Kunstsoziologie des zweiten Amerikabandes ihren Anfang. Mittelma?, Publikumsorientierung, unterhaltender Charakter und soziale Indifferenz sind sowohl den marktvermittelten künstlerischen Produkten der Demokratie Tocquevilles als auch den kulturindustriellen Produkten Horkheimers und Adornos gemein. Fordert der demokratische Mensch Tocquevilles inhaltliche Selbstbezüglichkeit seines Alltags in künstlerischen Produkten und verliert das Kunstwerk somit seinen sublimierenden Charakter, sind die kulturindustriellen Produkte bei den Frankfurtern analog durch eine Verdoppelung der Realit?t und den damit einhergehenden Verlust ihres gesellschaftstranszendierenden Gehalts gekennzeichnet. Da bei Tocqueville die Demokratie als Lebensform zutiefst mit individuellem Wirtschaftsstreben verknüpft ist, k?nnen die Sp?tkapitalisten Horkheimer und Adorno die empirischen Befunde seiner Analyse marktvermittelter Massenkunst zu ihrer Manipulationshypothese kapitalistischer Herrschaft ausbauen. Es ist von einer „integrativen Adaption“ von Tocquevilles Kunstdiagnose durch die Frankfurter die Rede, da das Identische der Kulturindustrie Horkheimers und Adornos der Integriertheit der demokratischen „h?fischen Gesellschaft“ Tocquevilles, das Nicht-Identische der Kunst in der bürgerlichen Sozialphilosophie der pers?nlichen Freiheit des franz?sischen Aristokraten entspricht.

---

Summary Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s theory of culture-industry is based on the sociology of art in Alexis de Tocqueville’s second volume of Democracy in America. The article shows how Horkheimer and Adorno subsumed the empirical findings of Tocqueville’s art-diagnosis of democratic societies under their own culture-industrial manipulation perspective. Aiming at the average audience, mediocrity, public taste, entertaining interest and social indifference are characteristics of the market-mediated artistic products of Tocqueville’s democracy as well as of the products of Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s culture-industry. Tocqueville’s democratic person demands self-reference regarding the content of her or his everyday life in art and, as a result, the work of art loses its sublime character. Analogue to this, the culture-industrial products analyzed by the Frankfurt School theorists duplicate the reality and therefore lose their society transcending content. Since Tocqueville’s democracy is fundamentally connected to the economic effort of the individual, Horkheimer and Adorno can extend his empirical findings of commercial popular art within their own late-capitalistic manipulation hypothesis of capitalist power. The concept of the identical („Das Identische“) in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s culture-industry corresponds to Tocqueville’s tyranny of unanimity in democratic societies; the concept of the non-identical of art in the bourgeois social philosophy to the personal freedom of the French aristocrat.

---

Résumé L’article montre que dans leur thèse de l’industrie de la culture, Max Horkheimer et Theodor W. Adorno ont repris les résultats empiriques du diagnostic de l’art des sociétés démocratiques mené par Alexis de Tocqueville. Leur théorie de l’industrie de la culture a pris son origine dans la sociologie de l’art du deuxième tome de la Démocratie en Amérique de Tocqueville. Le juste milieu, l’orientation vers le public, le caractère divertissant et l’indifférence sociale se retrouvent aussi bien dans les produits de l’art dans la démocratie chez Tocqueville, que dans les produits de l’industrie de la culture chez Horkheimer et Adorno. L’homme démocratique de Tocqueville exige des produits artistiques une référence intrinsèque à son quotidien, ce qui fait perdre à l’œuvre d’art son caractère sublimatoire. Les produits de l’industriede la culture se caractérisent de manière analogue chez les Francfortois par un dédoublement de la réalité et par la perte concomitante de leur contenu par lequel la société se trouve transcendée. Comme la démocratieest chez Tocqueville intimement liée à une aspiration individuelle vers l’échange économique, les capitalistes tardifs Horkheimer et Adorno peuvent utiliser ces résultats empiriques pour l’esquisse de leur propre thèse de la manipulation capitaliste. Le caractère intégré de la „société courtoise“ démocratique chez Tocqueville (à savoir le caractère non identique de l’art dans la philosophie sociale bourgeoise) correspond alors au caractère identique de l’industrie de la culture chez Horkheimer et Adorno.

     

Problems in the measurement of dynamic risk factors in sexual offenders

ABSTRACT

Having valid and reliable tools to measure ‘dynamic’ risk factors and minimising assessor bias is said to be critical in helping to make decisions regarding how individuals convicted of committing crime should be managed and treated, and how resources within the Justice System should be prioritised. This article outlines the problems and issues associated with the measurement of such putative dynamic risk factors (see Ward, 2015 Ward, T. (2015). Dynamic risk factors: Scientific kinds or predictive constructs. Psychology, Crime and Law, 22(01-02), 2–16. [Google Scholar] [Dynamic risk factors: Scientific kinds or predictive constructs. Psychology, Crime and Law.], 22(1–2), 2–16], this volume for a critique of current conceptions of these), and suggests ways of ensuring that measurement is conducted in the most appropriate way for the population being dealt with. Specifically, we would note that the evidence suggests that psychometric analysis, and structured professional judgment can be used to measure dynamic psychological problems using some tools within some samples. However, their use can be hindered by a number of conceptual factors including how the tests are designed and used, their reliability and validity, the context in which they are used, and the samples used. Finally, we would note that interviews are also an important part in the process of dynamic assessment.     

A Dyadic Analysis of Partner Violence and Adult Attachment

Studies of individual attachment features have linked insecure attachment to intimate partner violence (IPV), but these studies have neither taken into account couple-level factors nor evidence of high rates of dual-partner perpetration. The current study examined three forms of IPV as a function of both partners’ adult attachment characteristics in order to better understand the maintenance of relationship violence by using a dyadic statistical design. Heterosexual couples (n = 163) were recruited from the community. Results suggest that one’s own attachment avoidance and a partner’s attachment avoidance and anxiety was associated with perpetration of physical assault. Similarly, one’s own attachment avoidance and a partner’s attachment avoidance and anxiety was associated with perpetration of psychological aggression. Attachment anxiety influenced one’s own perpetration of sexual coercion and their partner’s perpetration. Thus, functional analysis of violence in terms of attachment and risk regulation may afford targeted interventions to certain types of couples.     

Forensic science standards in fast-changing environments

Regulatory trends in forensic science point strongly to the need for exhaustive testing of all findings and tools. At the same time a number of jurisdictions suggest a judicial test for the admissibility of novel scientific evidence. But in fields such as computers and cellphones, the rate of change is faster than the normal times required for peer-reviewed publication. One route to admitting less-than-perfect findings from forensic science is via a re-evaluation of the role of expert evidence and in particular pre-trial meetings between experts.     

Explaining the birthright citizenship lottery: Longitudinal and cross‐national evidence for key determinants

In the modern nation‐state, birthright citizenship laws – jus soli and jus sanguinis – are the two main gateways to sociopolitical membership. The vast majority of the world's population (97 percent) obtains their citizenship as a matter of birthright. Yet because comparative research has focused on measuring and explaining the multiple components of citizenship and immigration policies, a systematic analysis of birthright citizenship is lacking. We bridge this gap by analyzing the birthright component in prominent databases on citizenship policies and complementing them with original data and measures. This allows us to systematically test institutional and electoral explanations for contemporary and over‐time variation in birthright citizenship. Institutional explanations – legal codes and colonial history – are consistently associated with limitations on birthright law. As for electoral explanations, specific electoral powers – Nationalist, Socialist and Social‐Democratic parties – rather than the traditional left/right‐wing divide, are linked with reforms in birthright regimes.     

Mental disorder is a cause of crime: The cornerstone of forensic psychiatry

The assumption that mental disorder is a cause of crime is the foundation of forensic psychiatry, but conceptual, epistemological, and empirical analyses show that neither mental nor crime, or the causation implied, are clear-cut concepts. “Mental” denotes heterogeneous aspects of a person such as inner experiences, cognitive abilities, and behaviour patterns described in a non-physical vocabulary. In psychology and psychiatry, mental describes law-bound, caused aspects of human functioning that are predictable and generalizable. Problems defined as mental disorders are end-points of dimensional inter-individual differences rather than natural categories. Deficits in cognitive faculties, such as attention, verbal understanding, impulse control, and reality assessment, may be susceptibility factors that relate to behaviours (such as crimes) by increasing the probability (risk) for a negative behaviour or constitute causes in the sense of INUS conditions (Insufficient but Non-redundant parts of Unnecessary but Sufficient conditions). Attributing causes to complex behaviours such as crimes is not an unbiased process, and mental disorders will attract disproportionate attention when it comes to explanations of behaviours that we wish to distance ourselves from. Only by rigorous interpretation of what psychiatry actually can inform us about, using empirical analyses of quantified aggressive antisocial behaviours and their possible explanatory factors, can we gain a clearer notion of the relationship between mental disorder and crime.