Juvenile Justice and the 'Shift to the Left'

The notion of 'shift' is used as a symbol for procedure in criminal cases, understood as a sequence of legal interferences by the police, the prosecution and by proceedings in court. If this sequence is symbolised by a horizontal line, the procedural stages move from left to right. But the distribution of competences has recently lost its prior balance, due to 'modern' crime and society: The functions of the judge appear reduced, whereas the range of action of the prosecution has widened; also the police has gained more influence. On the symbolic line of procedural stages this all makes for a 'shift to the left'. This paper deals with the question as to whether juvenile justice is undergoing the same changes. The first answer is 'yes', based on the enlarged diversionary competence of prosecutors and the police. From a different perspective, however, juvenile offending is a 'natural' phenomenon connected with young age, which a priori places juvenile justice on a 'left' position of the imagined line. A plea is made for this juvenile justice to stick to its inherent concern for young offenders individually and not to sacrifice this to collective interests in public order and safety.     

Data on the PCR Turkish population based loci: LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, and Gc

Allele and genotype frequencies for the five PCR-based loci were analyzed in 157 unrelated Turkish individuals. The five PCR-based loci included LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, and Gc. The results of the chi-square and exact tests showed that the genotype distribution at the LDLR, GYPA, D7S8, and Gc loci did not significantly differ from the Hardy-Weinberg Expectation (HWE). However, the genotype distribution at the HBGG locus did not conform to HWE. Moreover, the genotype frequencies calculated in this study were compared with the published genotype frequencies of US African American and US Caucasian populations. The Turkish population was significantly different at the HBGG locus from the US Caucasian population. However, there were highly significant differences at the LDLR, HBGG, and Gc loci between the Turkish and African American populations.     

Unusual injury pattern in a case of postmortem animal depredation by a domestic German shepherd.

A case is presented of a 38-year-old woman with skeletization of the head, neck, and collar region and a circumscribed 26-cm x 19-cm defect on the left chest with sole removal of the heart through the opened pericardium but undamaged mediastinum and lungs. The injuries showed V-shaped puncture wounds and superficial claw-induced scratches adjacent to the wound margins that have been described as typical for postmortem animal depredation of carnivore origin and derived from postmortem animal damage by the woman's domestic German shepherd. The circumscribed destruction of the left chest with unusual opening of the pericardium is explained by the physiognomy of the muzzle of the German shepherd and differs from previous reports. Any case presented as postmortem animal mutilation should be viewed with skepticism and undergo a full autopsy.     

Is local politics local? French evidence

Abstract. In advanced democracies, are local political decisions determined by local events? Or are they really shaped by national forces? For the United States case, the evidence on this question is mixed. For the French case, the focus here, the evidence is also mixed, but less hard. In fact, for cantonal elections, in many ways archtypical local affairs, relevant systematic findings are virtually absent. We ask whether the cantonal elections of the Fifth Republic can be better understood as national, rather than local, contests. Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that the basic answer is, ‘yes’. There appear several theoretical reasons for this, which we give an account of. Further, we go on to show that cantonal races can actually serve as barometers to forecast upcoming national races.     

Sudden cardiac death following psychoemotional stress

Sudden death from cardiac arrest is described, which occurred after a minor accident. Morphologically, a coronary change was found in the sense of "juvenile coronary atherosclerosis" in connection with intramural bleeding postmortem. As there were no injuries in connection with the accident but psychoemotional stress had occurred, it is concluded that affective resonance resulting from the accident initiated the death. The pathological and pathophysiological relationships are discussed.     

Increased responsiveness of electric precipitation (electrosynerese) by means of a chemical method.

Electric precipitation is a method in serological diagnostics (determination of species-specificity). Since serum protein fractions (especially immunoglobulins) and extracts from blood stains migrate in agar-gel at pH 8.2--8.6 towards the cathode they cannot be used for the determination of the species specificity. By a chemical method using glutaraldehyde authors have produced an albumin-immunoglobulin complex, altering in this way the direction of electrophoretic mobility. Treatment of the blood samples with glutaraldehyde increases the sensitivity and realiability of the method.     

Male MPs,electoral vulnerability and the substantive representation of women's interests

What are the political conditions affecting male MPs’ willingness to represent women's interests in parliament? This paper explores the role of electoral vulnerability in this regard and analyzes whether male MPs’ re-election prospects affect their likelihood of paying attention to women's concerns. Theoretically, we expect that male MPs are not blamed if they do not represent women's interests but can gain additional credit for doing so. Thus, male MPs should be more likely to speak on behalf of women if their electoral vulnerability is high and if they need to win additional votes to be re-elected. Empirically, the paper analyzes the representation of women's issues in the British House of Commons, by using Early Day Motions tabled preceding the General Elections in 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015. The results show that male MPs are more likely to represent women's interests when their re-election is at risk.