Victim-related aspects of homicide of elderly persons in the catchment area of the Bonn Forensic Medicine Institute]

The present study examines the circumstances of 19 homicides involving 10 males and 9 females 60 years of age or older, which were submitted to the Bonn Institute of Forensic Medicine for autopsy. The incidence of these homicides sharply decreased by age. The causes of death were blunt force injuries alone or in combination in 8 cases and strangulation in 5 cases, thus reflecting the importance of the direct physical assault. Defense wounds were found in only 6 cases. The deceased unexceptionally suffered from diseases of the cardiovascular or respiratory system. Robbery or family/partner conflicts accounted for the vast majority of motives. Both, the most common location for homicide being in the victim's own residence and the high proportion of neighbours, acquaintances and relatives among the assailants underline that violence in the close social context endanger the elderly more than conventional violent street crimes. In the victims of homicide the elderly were represented in a smaller proportion than their percentage in the population at large. Over the 8 years of the present study there was no increasing tendency in the homicide rate in the elderly population.     

Dimensions of democracies

Nomination: Arguments in favour of 'Democracies_—' by Manfred G. Schmidt, p.193
Reflections: Dimensions of democracy by Arend Lijphart, p.195     

Christian Müller: Das vertragstheoretische Argument in der Ökonomik

Politische Vierteljahresschrift -     

Political performance and types of democracy: Findings from comparative studies

Abstract. This essay explores the relationships between political performance profiles and major types of democracy from a comparative perspective. The article focuses attention mainly on the political performance of majoritarian and non-majoritarian government, democracies with small and large numbers of veto players, hybrid regimes, presidentialism and parliamentary government, referendum democracy and representative government, and established as apposed to partial democracies. The findings point to relatively robust and significant patterns of relationships between performance and type of democracy. Types of democracy are important constraints and represent at the same time enabling conditions of policy choices. However, a caveat must be added: types of democracy do not determine policy choices and they also do not determine the outcome of these choices.     

The intergenerational transmission of running away: Childhood experiences of the parents of runaways

Research into the etiology of running away has long provided evidence for the influence of family factors such as abuse, parent-child conflict, and child stress on an adolescent's decision to leave home. This paper offers evidence for the possibility that running away may be deeply entrenched in patterns of family interaction that extend across generations. Using data from the National Incidence Study of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Throwaway Children (NISMART), the influence of parents' own childhood experiences with running away on the behaviors of their children is illustrated. The importance of examining the influence of such intergenerational transmission factors, separate and in addition to more traditional predictors of running away, is demonstrated.This research was supported in part by funds from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention under Contract No. 91-JN-CX-0005. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meetings of the American Society of Criminology in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 1992.Received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Hampshire. Present research interests are in the area of criminal victimization of children.Received a doctoral degree in sociology from the University of New Hampshire. Current research interests focus on missing and abducted children.     

Abusive Pediatric Thoracolumbar Fracture Due to Forced Hyperextension: Case Report,Biomechanical Considerations,and Review of the Literature

Pediatric thoracolumbar fractures are rare due to the physiological differences which afford greater resilience to the immature spine. Most pediatric thoracolumbar fractures occur as the result of high energy trauma, such as motor vehicle accidents, and modes of reasonable accidental injuries are limited by age and developmental capabilities of the child. These fractures can occur as the result of inflicted blunt force trauma and child abuse, and in most cases, the mechanism of injury to the spine is not known. We report the death of a 29-month-old man due to blunt force trauma to the back and forced hyperextension of the thoracolumbar spine causing fracture of the fourth lumbar (L4) vertebral body. A complete forensic examination revealed a previous healing fracture of the anterior aspect of the L4 vertebral body, with acute disruption of the anterior longitudinal ligament overlying the fracture site, complete fracture of the vertebral body, and fatal retroperitoneal hemorrhage. We present a review of the biomechanical considerations of the pediatric spine, a survey of pediatric spinal fractures, and a review of the literature on pediatric abusive thoracolumbar fractures. In this case, there was never a provided explanation for how the injury occurred; however, understanding the biomechanics of the pediatric spine allowed for the determination of the mechanism, force required to produce this specific pattern of abusive spinal injury, and the manner of death.     

Tenderness,for Lynda Hart

Pedro Almodóvar and Judith Butler's respective projects have long shared an interest in the performativity of gender. More recently, Butler has turned her attention to thinking of rupture as constitutive of identity. Talk to Her reveals a similar turn in the director's work. This essay argues that Talk to Her employs the figure of a comatose woman who awakens in order to investigate the condition of wakefulness as a newly achieved consciousness. In doing so, the director also investigates the parameters of his own authorial condition: alternately embodied and disembodied, he reveals it to be effectively dispossessed. This essay rotates around the opening five minutes of the film, which introduce, in parallel, the space of the theater and that of the hospital–one a space of silence and the other a space for ‘talk,’ a place where the impetus of narrative cures. I argue that these two spaces underscore our condition of existing as bodies. I furthermore consider the role that melodrama–a genre described by its inclination toward embodiment, muteness, and excess–plays in articulating these themes.     

The Influence of Religious–Political Sophistication on U.S. Public Opinion

Scholarly accounts of elite–mass communication often suggest that political sophistication is a necessary condition for adopting the attitudes of partisan elites. Some have also suggested that political knowledge promotes religious–political issue constraint among religious identifiers. This paper contributes to the political sophistication literature by piloting and testing a new measure, religious–political sophistication (RPS), assessing knowledge of church teaching on particular political issues. Using original measures launched on the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, I show that for evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics, RPS (in conjunction with frequent church attendance) depresses support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Moreover, I argue that assessing RPS this way is not fatally contaminated by unsophisticated respondents interpolating that their clergy must share their political positions. Results suggest religion-and-politics scholars should adopt RPS measures to gain a greater understanding of the unique sources of political communication upon which religious identifiers draw.     

A Broad Alliance of Civil Society Organizations on Climate Change Mitigation: Political Strength or Legitimizing Support?

One hundred and one very different organizations joined together prior to the election for the Norwegian parliament in 2013 in order to make climate change mitigation the most important issue in the election campaign. The alliance (CE2013) agreed on six political demands relating to mitigation. In this article, we categorize the 101 organizations and discuss their identity and objectives according to these demands. The analysis demonstrates that even though a broad variety of organizations joined the campaign, their commitment was rather weak. Few of the organizations justify their involvement in CE2013 by all six political demands, hence demonstrating that climate change mitigation is a valence issue.