Impairment of performance by alcohol and diazepam (author's transl)]

An investigation was carried out on the effect of the intake of diazepam and alcohol on simple performance tests. The combined administration of diazepam and alcohol led to an increase of the plasma diazepam concentration as compared to that obtained after diazepam without alcohol. Furthermore, after combined intake of diazepam and alcohol a decrease of performance was observed, that was significantly higher, than the effects obtained after either alcohol or diazepam alone. This impairment was especially noticeable duirng the first hour of the experiment, i.e. until the plateau of the diazepam plasma concentration was reached, while afterwards a correlation between diazepam plasma concentration and impairment of performance could not be established. The relevance of these findings for the interpretation of diazepam plasma concentrations in relation to the impairment of performance are discussed.     

On the Robustness and Validity of Groups

In response to Nagin's comment on our paper, Methodological Sensitivities to Latent Class Analysis of Long-Term Criminal Trajectories, we reconsider the robustness and validity of group-based approaches to criminal trajectories and introduce additional issues for future research. We emphasize the limitations of typological approaches and the dangers of reifying the idea of distinct offender groupings for research and policy. We also clarify misunderstandings about the use of hierarchical linear models for studying trajectories of crime. Our basic conclusion is that methods in criminology need to be more tightly linked with theory.     

Persecution of Jewish forensic pathologists

Not even forensic pathologists were spared by the anti-Jewish laws of the Third Reich. Fritz Strassmann and Paul Fraenckel were among more than 140 faculty of the Berlin Department of Medicine persecuted by the national socialist dictatorship. It was because of their Jewish background that Georg Strassmann was expelled from university in Breslau, and Leone Lattes was forced to leave in Pavia. Miklós Nyiszli was deported from Oradea to Auschwitz and forced to perform forensic autopsies. Stefan Jellinek in Vienna, Ludwik Hirszfeld in Warsaw and Friedrich Schiff in Berlin were other medical professionals whose achievements had enriched legal medicine before they became victims of anti-Jewish persecution.     

Research in forensic neurotraumatology

Over the past 100 years forensic research in neurotraumatology was focusing on the genesis, e.g. biomechanis, and the origin of epidural, subdural, subarachnoidal, intracerebral and brain stem haemorrhage, particularly under aspects to enable the differential diagnosis of bleeding due to non-traumatic diseases. Moreover the estimation of the age of brain injuries has important criminological implications (survival time following traumatic forces to the head, alibi etc.). Beside these main fields of research, aspects of expertise in special areas such as head trauma due to child abuse, capability to act despite severe brain injuries and research on cervical trauma are reviewed.     

Sexual and nonsexual offenders with intellectual and learning disabilities: a comparison of characteristics, referral patterns, and outcome

This article reports an evaluation of a community intellectual disability offender service over the period from 1990 to 2001. Men who committed sex offenses or sexually abusive incidents (n = 106) and men who committed other types of offenses and serious incidents (n = 78) are compared on personal characteristics, referral sources, forensic details, and outcome up to 7 years after referral. The cohorts are older than one would expect from the criminology literature, and, at about 33%, the incidence of mental illness is consistent with some previous studies. A greater proportion of sex offenders had criminal justice involvement and a formal disposal from court. Fire raising was not overly represented as an offense. There was a higher rate of reoffending in the nonsexual cohort, which persisted up to 7 years. Investigating only reoffenders, there was a considerable amount of harm reduction recorded up to 7 years, statistically significant up to 5 years following initial referral.