The impact of sentencing options on recidivism among domestic violence offenders: A case study

Past domestic violence research has tended to focus on issues related to law enforcement responses. More recently, the focus has shifted to other components of the criminal justice system, such as prosecution and correctional responses, to determine the best way to reduce domestic violence. This project is a case study of 177 male convicted domestic violence offenders who were sentenced to one of five options: community corrections; jail; a suspended sentence; private counseling, a fine, or restitution; and advisement. The focus of this inquiry is on the likelihood of each sanction reducing future arrests and convictions for domestic violence. The results reveal that no one sanction is more effective than the other options. A draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Criminal Justice Association, Chattanooga, TN, 1999. The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. This work stems from a project started by Chesterfield County and Melissa Gross to complete her Master of Social Work degree requirements. The primary authors of this piece are Jill A. Gordon and Laura J. Moriarty. The ordering of names are alphabetical after Melissa Gross.     

Paying Workers or Paying Lawyers: Employee Termination Practices in the United States and Canada

This article explores one multinational corporation's employee termination practices in the United States and Canada. There are fairly insignificant differences in employees' legal protections in the two countries and the company claims a uniform corporate employee termination process cross‐nationally. However, there are major structural and procedural differences in the employee termination process. The differences, including the way attorneys are utilized, the use of quasi‐legal personnel to comply with regulatory requirements, and the substance of the severance package are explored. In the United States money is directed toward legal professionals –"paying lawyers" while in Canada expenses associated with employee termination go to severance packages –"paying workers."     

Drug intelligence based on MDMA tablets data: 2. Physical characteristics profiling

One of the tasks of the European project entitled “Collaborative Harmonisation of Methods for Profiling of Amphetamine Type Stimulants” (CHAMP) funded by the sixth framework programme of the European Commission was to develop a harmonised methodology for MDMA profiling and the creation of a common database in a drug intelligence perspective. Part I was dedicated to the analysis of organic impurities formed during synthesis in order to investigate traffic tendencies and highlight potential links between samples, whereas this part focuses on physical characteristics of the MDMA tablets. Diameter, thickness, weight and score were demonstrated to be reliable and relevant features in this drug intelligence perspective. Distributions of samples coming from the same post-tabletting batch (post-TB) and samples coming from different post-TB were very well discriminated by using the squared Euclidean or the Manhattan distance on standardised data. Our findings demonstrated the possibility to discriminate between MDMA samples issued from different post-TB and to find out links between samples coming from a same post-TB. Furthermore, the hypothesis that most of the MDMA samples found on the international market come from the same countries was supported.     

Variability of the Entire Mitochondrial DNA Control Region in a Human Isolate from the Pas Valley (Northern Spain)

Abstract: In this study, we analyzed the entire mtDNA control region in 61 unrelated individuals from the Pas Valley (Cantabria), a human isolate from northern Spain, to evaluate the suitability of this analysis to increase the power of discrimination of this locus for forensic purposes in human isolates. Low values obtained for the diversity parameters confirmed the relative isolation of this human group. The main findings of this study indicated that even the analysis of the entire mtDNA control region may have important limitations for use in forensic casework when dealing with human isolates: none of the 44 individuals who exhibited identical HVI‐HVII haplotypes could be further differentiated by analysis of segment HVIII. Nevertheless, analysis of the entire mtDNA control region proved to be useful to determine the ancestry of the samples examined, by contributing to the confirmation, and, on occasion, even to the refinement of the haplogroup assignment.     

Beyond the dichotomy: Incarceration dosage and mental health*

The findings from a growing body of research reveal that incarceration is detrimental for both physical and mental health. Incarceration, however, is typically conceptualized and operationalized as a dichotomy; individuals either have, or have not, been incarcerated. Considering that incarceration can range from one day to several years, a dichotomous measure may be overlooking important variations across lengths of exposure. In addition, most inmates are incarcerated more than once. In this study, we help to fill this gap by examining the relationship between incarceration dosage, measured as time served and number of spells, and mental health among a sample of young adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997. By using fixed‐effects modeling, we find that the number of spells and the months incarcerated are positively related to mental health symptoms and the likelihood of depression. The association, however, is contingent on whether a respondent is currently or formerly incarcerated. Among current inmates, more time served is expected to improve mental health and the number of spells is unrelated to either outcome.     

Persistence of Polydimethylsiloxane Condom Lubricants

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is commonly used to lubricate condoms. The detection of PDMS on swabs from complainants can be used to support an allegation of sexual assault. Previous research has focused on establishing analytical techniques for detecting PDMS. This research examined the persistence of PDMS on the penis, in the vagina, in the mouth, and on skin. The longest PDMS detection times were 20 h on the penis, 35 h in the vagina, and 52 h on skin. PDMS was detected up to 4 h in the mouth if the participant did not eat or drink and up to 9 h if the participant slept. PDMS was not detected in the mouth after eating or drinking. The presence of biological fluids had no detrimental effect on the analysis. Aqueous extraction of swabs for DNA did not remove any significant amount of PDMS; hence, swab remains could be subsequently analyzed for PDMS.