The difference between drug money and a "lifetime's savings"

In many countries, monies suspected of being associated with drug trafficking can be seized by the authorities. One of the ways of investigating this association is through the analysis of seized banknotes for traces of controlled drugs. We report three studies which may assist the expert in assessing whether banknotes contaminated with diamorphine are part of the general population of notes in circulation or whether they show unusual contamination patterns which require explanation. Study 1 is based on three plausible contamination scenarios as they may occur during the various stages of an illicit drug transaction and seizure. It shows that notes which have been in direct contact with visible traces of diamorphine show significantly higher contamination to those in more indirect contact with the drug. Study 2 investigates the transfer of diamorphine from one highly contaminated note to other notes in a bundle over a period of 10 weeks with and without agitation. It was found that the total amount of drug transferred was smaller than 6% and no more than 4 out of a bundle of 10 previously clean notes became lightly contaminated. Based on extensive background data, study 3 proposes a probabilistic model to assess whether an observed proportion of diamorphine bearing banknotes is likely to have been contaminated by chance. The model predicts that there is only a 0.3% chance that a bundle of 100 notes from the general banknote population contains more than six contaminated specimens. Jointly, the three studies give useful indications for the spread of contamination throughout a sample and the amounts of heroin which may be expected given plausible contamination scenarios.     

Using indirect questions to detect intimate partner violence: the SAFE-T questionnaire

A screening instrument for detecting intimate partner violence (IPV) was developed using indirect questions. The authors identified 5 of 18 items studied that clearly distinguished victims of IPV from a random group of health conference attendees with a sensitivity of 85% and a specificity of 87%. This 5-item instrument (SAFE-T) was then tested on 435 women presenting to three emergency departments and the results compared to a direct question regarding current abuse. The SAFE-T questions detected only 54% of the women who admitted being abused and correctly classified 81% of the women who said they were not victims. The 1-year prevalence of IPV in this sample of women presenting to an emergency department was 11.6%. The authors conclude that indirect questioning of women appears to be more effective at ruling out IPV in an emergency department population and may be less useful for women "early" in an abusive relationship.     

Desistance and Attitudes Towards Sex Offenders: Facilitation or Hindrance?

In an ideal world, there would be a seamless relationship between interventions that focus on risk factors causally associated with sexual reoffending and the subsequent release of, and ongoing support for, offenders into the community. However, emotionally fueled and uninformed public responses to news of released sex offenders, and the legislation such responses have inspired, severely hinder this process. Our aims in this paper are to review findings of research on community attitudes about sex offenders within a desistance framework. More specifically, we provide a synthesis of the current research literature on attitudes towards sex offenders. Second, we consider in more detail those studies that include community member samples. Third, we review interventions aimed at promoting attitude change amongst professionals working with sex offenders and finally formulate some recommendations for promoting positive attitude change amongst the general public.     

Development and Initial Validation of the Miranda Vocabulary Scale

Miranda vocabulary forms the essential foundation for Miranda comprehension and subsequent decisions to exercise or waive Miranda rights. The purpose of the current study is the development of the Miranda Vocabulary Scale (MVS), designed to evaluate key vocabulary words found in Miranda warnings and waivers across American jurisdictions. A preliminary list of MVS words was refined by expert ratings and by each word’s discriminability between failed and good Miranda comprehension. Miranda and other measures were collected at multiple sites on 376 pretrial defendants. With further refinements, the MVS is composed of 36 words with excellent scale homogeneity and interrater reliability (r = .99). It also demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity for cognitive abilities and psychological impairment.     

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Subsequent Substance Abuse in a Sample of Sexual Offenders: Implications for Treatment and Prevention

The purpose of this study was to explore the prevalence of substance abuse indicators in a sample of male sexual offenders (N = 679) and to examine the influence of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) on the likelihood of substance abuse outcomes. Half of these sex offenders reported a history of drug or alcohol abuse, and nearly one in five reported a substance-related arrest. Higher ACE scores were associated with endorsement of a greater number of substance-abuse-related problems, suggesting that accumulation of early trauma may increase the likelihood for substance misuse. By enhancing our understanding of the frequency and antecedents of dynamic risk factors such as substance abuse, we can better devise clinical interventions that respond to the comprehensive needs of sexually abusive individuals and reduce risk for sexual reoffense. As well, early interventions for at-risk families and maltreated youth may interrupt their trajectory toward adulthood substance abuse and criminal behavior, including sex offending.     

Negotiating the politics of gender and rights: Some reflections on the status of women's human rights at ‘Beijing Plus Ten’

This article undertakes a review of the development of the women's human rights project, focusing particularly on violence against women and issues of sexuality and reproductive rights. It notes gains by activists in promoting the women's human rights agenda and highlights the continuing impediments to the project from increasingly influential groups and some United Nations member states opposed to women's human rights. A more general problem is a lack of political will from those member states ostensibly committed to the cause who have often failed to translate this ‘commitment’ into effective action. It concludes that, as we approach the tenth anniversary of the ‘Conference of Commitments’, the implementation of initiatives has often been slow and somewhat ineffective. Governments have mastered the rhetoric of respect for women's human rights, yet the full realisation of women's human rights across the world remains elusive.     

The problem of indeterminacy in approval,multiple, and truncated voting systems

It is well known that a plurality election need not reflect the true sentiments of the electorate. Some of the proposed reform procedures, such as approval and cumulative voting, share the characteristics that there are several ways to tally each voter's preferences. Voting systems that permit truncated ballots share this feature. It is shown that the election results for any such procedure can be highly indeterminate; all possible election results can occur with the same choice of sincere voters. This conclusion of indeterminacy holds even when measures of voters' sentiments, such as the existence of a Condorcet winner or even much stronger measures, indicate there is considerable agreement among the voters. Then, multiple systems are compared with all standard tallying procedures. For instance, a corollary asserts it is probable for the plurality voting method to elect the Condorcet winner while approval voting has an indeterminate outcome.The work of both authors was supported, in part, by NSF Grant IST 8415348. This work was partially stimulated by comments concerning the assertions about approval voting and other systems that are discussed in (Saari, 1987). In particular, we are pleased to thank S. Brams, Carl Simon, and the other participants for their questions after one of us presented (Saari, 1987) at the July, 1984, Workshop on Mathematical Models in Political Science held at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.