Journey history reconstruction from the soils and sediments on footwear: An empirical approach

The value of environmental evidence for reconstructing journey histories has significant potential given the high transferability of sediments and the interaction of footwear with the ground. The importance of empirical evidence bases to underpin the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of forensic trace materials is increasingly acknowledged. This paper presents two experimental studies designed to address the transfer and persistence of sediments on the soles of footwear in forensically relevant scenarios, by means of quartz grain surface texture analysis, a technique which has been demonstrated to be able to distinguish between samples of mixed provenance.It was identified that there is a consistent trend of transfer and persistence of sediments from hypothetical pre-, syn- and post-crime event locations across the sole of the shoe, with sediments from ‘older’ locations likely to be retained in small proportions. Furthermore, the arch of the shoe (the area of lowest foot pressure distribution) typically (but not exclusively) retained the highest proportion of grain types from previous locations including the crime scene. A lack of chronological layering of the retained sediments was observed indicating that techniques that can identify the components of mixed provenance samples are important for analysing footwear sediment samples. It was also identified that the type of footwear appeared to have an influence on what particles were retained, with high relief soles that incorporate recessed areas being more likely to retain sediments transferred from ‘older’ locations from the journey history. In addition, the inners of footwear were found to retain sediments from multiple locations from the journey history that are less susceptible to differential loss in comparison to the outer sole. These findings provide important data that can form the basis for the effective collection, analysis and interpretation of sediments recovered from both the outer soles and inners of footwear, building on the findings of previously published studies. These data offer insights that enable inferences to be made about mixed source sediments that are identified on footwear in casework, and provide the beginnings of an empirical basis for assessing the significance of such sediment particles for a specific forensic reconstruction.     

Understanding men who access sexualised images of children: exploratory interviews with offenders

ABSTRACT

The number of online users of child sexual abuse imagery is increasing but factors associated with internet offending and effective treatment remain unclear. This qualitative study aimed to understand what leads individuals to access sexually abusive images of children and to assist with treatment development. In-depth interviews with 12 adult men from prison or community offender treatment programmes were conducted and thematically analysed. Findings were that the men's development was characterised by difficulties in early family life, negative school experiences, difficult sexual development, and difficult intimate relationships. Precipitants to offending included stress, progression from legal material, loneliness and isolation. Maintaining factors included trying to cope with negative emotions through accessing abusive images, seeing it as an “addiction”, and denial (a “victimless” offence). Useful treatment included understanding their offending, working in a group, a safe therapeutic environment, and knowledgeable, non-judgemental therapists. Continued psychological support post-treatment was requested, and deterrent software monitoring.     

Regulating CCTV?: We Can’t Solve Problems by Using the Same Kind of Thinking We Used When We Created Them

This paper considers the lack of a universal CCTV policy across the United Kingdom and Europe and how this apparent omission is being addressed in the context of increased surveillance, and the omnipresence of CCTV in particular. Special attention is paid to the role of academics within the apparently long, drawn-out process of a current move from fragmented to collective regulation. What it seems exists is individual, independent policy that implicates wider legislation. What it seems is desired is a more comprehensive and codified decree. Starting with the issues that underpin CCTV and surveillance in general, this paper acknowledges the opposing arguments that CCTV can be helpful to policing as those that demonstrate how well it can facilitate a means of social control. The paper moves to consider the possibility of a ‘surveillance policy’ applicable and effective for CCTV’s balanced regulation, and discusses the means by which this might be realised, paying special attention to who is involved and to what extent, especially where this involves academic input. Academic input to date is problematized on one hand on account of its arguably narrow scope (source/personnel) and the trends yet ostensible wavering it entails on the other. Therefore, the author’s reservations around the place of academics in the process, especially because they appear to be key to developments, whilst variously demonstrating both influential flippancy and seriousness, lead to the conclusion that there is difficulty with trying to solve the ‘problem’ with the same thinking that created it.     

No humanitarian intervention in Asian genocides: how possible and legitimate?

Abstract

This article addresses an important empirical puzzle: why has the United States, without exception, chosen not to intervene in the six humanitarian catastrophes in post-war Asia, namely in Indonesia, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, Sri Lanka and Myanmar? We use an eclectic approach that blends arguments about the international normative structure and geostrategic interests to examine what has made the absence of humanitarian intervention in Asia by the US possible and legitimate. Specifically, we focus on the paradox between calls for humanitarian intervention and the historically and geographically contingent social construction of the norms of humanity, national sovereignty and United Nations-backed multilateralism in conjunction with US and Chinese concerns over their regional geostrategic interests. The normative narratives about race, ‘communists’, ‘terrorists’, international order and inclusive multilateral processes, and the geostrategic interests of the US and China, combine to make non-intervention possible and legitimate.     

Does the police code of silence vary with police assignment? An empirical exploration of the relation between the code and assignment

ABSTRACT

This paper contains an in-depth exploration of the relation between police code of silence and police assignment. A police integrity survey was used to measure the contours of the code among Croatian patrol officers, detectives, and community-policing officers. Samples of police officers evaluated fourteen hypothetical scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct. Whereas the type of assignment was a weak predictor of the respondents’ adherence to the code of silence, the respondents’ assessments of misconduct seriousness and expected discipline, as well as perceptions whether other officers would report misconduct, were strong predictors of the respondents’ own expressed adherence to the code.     

Dilemmas and Disappointments: Progressive Politics 1896–2016

Attempts at a Labour–Liberal Democrat Progressive Alliance came to nothing prior to the 1997 general election. The original idea of progressivism, first mooted in Britain in 1896, was an American one. Suggestions for a progressive alliance in the UK came from Lloyd George in 1914, and then again in 1931, each time with little effect. Nothing emerged after 1945 until the Lib–Lab pact negotiated by Callaghan and Steel in 1977, which led to electoral misfortune for both and the rise and fall of the SDP. In 2010 a coalition between the Lib Dems (under Clegg) and the Conservatives was always much the more likely option. Most Labour people no longer saw the Lib Dems as a party of the left. The Coalition Agreement in 2010 showed the idea of an alliance to be a centrist, elitist one with little grass‐roots support. Such an alliance would flourish through abstract pressure groups rather than popular democracy, especially with a Labour party led by Corbyn. In the US and the UK, progressivism went badly wrong in its politics: Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalist campaign of 1912 divided American reformers fatally, as did Lloyd George's postwar Coalition in Britain after 1918. Now, even after Brexit, a progressive alliance seems further away than ever. The story of the ‘Progressive Dilemma’ remains one of unrealistic projects, invariably disappointed.     

Explaining Bullying Victimization: Assessing the Generality of the Low Self-Control/Risky Lifestyle Model

ABSTRACT

The integrated low self-control/risky lifestyle theoretical framework has proven useful for explaining various types of victimization. Bullying victimization (i.e., verbal, social, or physical attacks), however, may not fit this explanation very well if youths who are bullied do not have to engage in risky behaviors to be singled out by their peers, but could instead be targeted for other reasons (e.g., physical vulnerabilities). In this context, the current paper examines the generality of the low self-control/risky lifestyle model by assessing whether it can effectively explain which youngsters are more likely to be bullied. Using a sample of 1,901 middle school students, the results indicate that, although low self-control significantly predicts whether youths will engage in risky lifestyles (e.g., displaying aggressive attitudes, committing delinquent acts, using illicit substances), participating in such behaviors does not elevate the likelihood of bullying victimization. Instead, the authors’ findings reveal that low self-control directly influences victimization. Further, physical vulnerability is significantly related to being bullied. These findings suggest that the low self-control/risky lifestyle model needs to be revised to accommodate potential age-graded consequences of self-control, and that physical limitations—not “traditional” risky lifestyles—are persistent sources of bullying victimization that should be further evaluated.     

Does supported employment work?

Providing employment‐related services, including supported employment through job coaches, has been a priority in federal policy since the enactment of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act in 1984. We take advantage of a unique panel data set of all clients served by the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs between 1999 and 2005 to investigate whether job coaching leads to stable employment in community settings. The data contain information on individual characteristics, such as IQ and the presence of emotional and behavioral problems, that are likely to affect both employment propensity and likelihood of receiving job coaching. Our results show that unobserved individual characteristics and endogeneity strongly bias naive estimates of the effects of job coaching. However, even after correcting for these biases, an economically and statistically significant treatment effect remains. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Humanitarian symbolic exchange: extending Responsibility to Protect through individual and local engagement

Moral common sense frames the relationship between privileged and at-risk populations underpinning contemporary Responsibility to Protect (R2P) discourse. This article develops an alternative by considering the relationship between archetypes of would-be rescuers and victims through Jean Baudrillard’s theorisation of symbolic exchange. Baudrillardian analysis connects personal morality and affective intersubjective symbolic exchange with the politics of international order. This leads, first, to an argument that current foundations for advocating R2P risk participating in a problematic moral economy of symbolic exchange between would-be rescuers and victims. Nonetheless, and secondly, the article deploys symbolic exchange to develop suggestions for partially re-figuring R2P’s humanitarian impulse by engaging ‘locally’ – both through one’s self (in the ethical relation suggested by Emmanuel Levinas) and with diverse forms of political order (following Jacques Rancière’s conception of politics). Doing so supports moves to engage a wide array of individual actors in a more interactive and less hierarchical form of R2P, to drive deeper consideration of local complexities of R2P through engagement with diverse local forms of political order, and to develop a more inclusive understanding of ‘humanity’ in order to bolster R2P’s normative foundations.