My life as a community activist

The author recounts his life and how it led to a career as an activist community psychology practitioner with a focus on issues of social justice. He tells of his upbringing, family and education as the background to a series of positions in various systems. The story shows an evolution from working with individuals to working with whole communities; and from working on issues of remediation and treatment to working on prevention and finally empowerment, social change, and social justice. The story of his life parallels the social issues of the time. Throughout the accounting of his life the author raises the questions that he was struggling with. The sequence of those questions is as follows: Can I emerge as a community leader? What do I do with that leadership? Can my work in psychology have any relationship to the larger social issues? Can my politics, social action and beliefs in social justice, be integrated with my mental health job? Can I find a setting that will tolerate and permit me to do work to create social change and reduce oppression? Can we build competent helping systems with partners from many sectors? Can we mobilize whole communities around community crises? Can we use coalition building to make a difference in quality of life? And finally: How can our spirituality inform our work for social change and how can our social change work to inform our spirituality?     

Forensic Evidence in Homicide Investigations and Prosecutions

Even though forensic evidence is collected at virtually every homicide scene, only a few studies have examined its role in investigation and prosecution. This article adds to the literature by providing the results of a study of 294 homicide cases (315 victims) occurring in Cleveland, Ohio, between 2008 and 2011. Through a logistic regression on open versus closed cases, the collection of knives, administration of gunshot residue (GSR) kits, and clothing at the scene were positively and significantly related to case closures, while collection of ballistics evidence and DNA evidence were statistically significant in the opposite direction. With regard to analysis, the clearance rate for cases with probative results (i.e., matches or exclusions) was 63.1% compared to a closure rate of 56.3% for cases without probative results. However, only 23 cases had probative results prior to arrest compared to 128 cases with probative results after arrest.     

Assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of a police service: the analytics of operational reviews

Concerns over rising costs have forced police services to balance increasing fiscal and operational pressures. Discussions of the resources and requirements of police, however, are generally only informed by political expediency and traditional practice. Operational reviews (ORs) can be used to document the demands on police, their capacity to respond, and ways in which they can become more efficient and effective. Drawing on an OR of a major urban Canadian police service, this article provides a broad outline of the components of an OR and the analytics that can be used to answer these key questions.