Dr. Death? Professionalism,Virtue, and U.S. Physician Participation in the Death Penalty

In the United States at present, the death penalty is a possible sentence in 31 out of 50 states, as well as within the military and for federal cases. In the U.S., numbers of executions are declining, in part due to moratoriums in place and challenges to execution by lethal injection. Participation by physicians in lethal injection executions has been steadfastly viewed by professional medical organizations as contrary to their ethical standards. However, physicians have participated in lethal injection executions, and the morality of the death penalty itself is a matter of intense social and political debate. Medical ethics commentators and professional organizations have typically held that the prohibition on physician participation in the death penalty is independent of the ethical status of the death penalty itself. This article argues that this view is untenable, and that it is tied to a view of professional role virtue that is similarly untenable. At the same time, it argues that, given the morally uncertain status of the death penalty, it is plausible that virtuous physicians may either refuse or choose to participate in some aspects of the death penalty.     

Stability of life-time psychiatric diagnoses among offenders in community and prison settings

The dearth of studies investigating diagnostic stability among offenders, and diagnostic stability being important from the patient’s mental health perspective, as well as from a public health, training and research standpoint, highlights the need to evaluate lifetime stability of ICD-10 psychiatric diagnoses for offenders in community and prison settings. A case-linkage design linked a two-year population-based cohort of male-sentenced prisoners with a state-wide psychiatric register (23,742 psychiatric consultations). Four measures of diagnostic stability were calculated for each setting as well as across settings, for all offenders who received at least two psychiatric diagnoses. Temporal consistency was moderate for schizophrenia spectrum disorders and low for affective, anxiety and personality disorders, and was higher in prison setting than community settings. Diagnostic instability highlights that the course of mental illness and clinical features among offenders may genuinely vary over time, across community and prison settings and may lead to complexities regarding psychiatric care for this population     

Rapid screening for the detection and differentiation of γ-hydroxybutyrate using ion chromatography

The analysis of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) is problematic because it is hygroscopic, it lacks a good UV chromophore, and it undergoes heat-induced cyclization. This paper presents a new method utilizing ion-exchange chromatography (IC) with conductivity detection. The simple sample preparation, rapid analysis time, and inorganic anion detection capabilities are all advantages over the current methods. The detection of inorganic salts (formed during GHB synthesis) gives insight into the synthetic route utilized and can aid in drug seizure comparison. The developed method has a detection limit for GHB anions of 0.57 mg/L and chloride of 0.22 mg/L. A comparison of this technique with a current gas chromatography-mass spectrometry technique is presented, and a t-test found that the two methods' results are not statistically different at the 99.9% confidence level demonstrating the merits of this fast, simple, and informative IC method as a routine screening tool.     

Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs

Scholars of mass incarceration point to the 1970s as a pivotal turning point in U.S. penal history, marked by a shift toward more punitive policies and a consensus that “nothing works” in rehabilitating inmates. However, while there has been extensive research on changes in policy makers' rhetoric, sentencing policy, and incarceration rates, scholars know very little about changes in the actual practices of punishment and prisoner rehabilitation. Using nationally representative data for U.S. state prisons, this article demonstrates that there were no major changes in investments in specialized facilities, funding for inmate services–related staff, or program participation rates throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s. Not until the 1990s, more than a decade after the start of the punitive era, did patterns of inmate services change, as investments in programming switched from academic to reentry‐related programs. These findings suggest that there is a large gap between rhetoric and reality in the case of inmate services and that since the 1990s, inmate “rehabilitation” has increasingly become equated with reentry‐related life skills programs.     

Substance use among African American adolescents in the Midwest

The purpose of this article is to examine the attitudes and substance use behaviors of African American adolescents living in the Midwest. A baseline survey was administered to 463 African American teens between the ages of 11-19. The article examines the relationship between attitudes toward drugs and drug-using behavior in this African American sample. Drug use will be compared to national drug use norms established by the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey. Overall participants had fairly negative attitudes toward drugs. Sixty percent of the sample reported that they were committed to a drug-free life, 74% had made a decision to stay away from marijuana, 79% reported making a decision not to smoke cigarettes, and 71% reported they would not get drunk in the next year. Females were more likely to stay away from marijuana than males. In this current study there is cause for alarm; participants reported higher percentages of ever smoking cigarettes and marijuana than the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey. This study shows there is a need to provide substance abuse prevention programs for African American adolescents. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.     

A look from the inside: balancing custody and treatment in a juvenile maximum-security facility

This article is based on an ethnographic study of a cottage for violent offenders in one state's maximum-security training school. Staff members working in the cottage were the institution's front line in its attempts to hold the youth accountable for their crimes while also trying to resocialize and rehabilitate young men who were growing up with few conforming role models. As such, cottage staff members were put in the difficult position of juggling their roles as corrections officers, counselors, and surrogate parents. To effectively do their job, they had to find ways to balance the rhetoric of rehabilitation with the punitive reality of daily life in the institution. This article details the juvenile justice career paths of the staff members in the cottage and provides a sociological analysis of the roles, responsibilities, and interactions of the staff members with each other and with the young men in their care.     

'When We Wanted to Talk About Rape': Silencing Sexual Violence at the Special Court for Sierra Leone

This article explores the legal and psychological ramificationsarising from the exclusion of evidence of sexual violence duringthe Civil Defence Forces (CDF) case at the Special Court forSierra Leone. Using empirical findings from post-trial interviewsconducted with the ten victim-witnesses who were originallyto testify, we juxtapose what the Special Court allowed thewomen to say, and what the women themselves wanted to say. Froma legal perspective, we then critique the Trial Chamber's reasonsfor excluding the evidence and question the legal bases uponwhich the women were silenced, arguing that wider and widercircles of the women's experience were removed from the Court'srecords despite there being ample authority at an internationallevel to support inclusion. We further look at the genderedbiases in international criminal law and how expedience andefficiency usurped the significance of prosecuting crimes ofsexual violence in this instance. From a psychological perspective,we discuss the consequences that the act of silencing had forthe witnesses, and argue that a more emotionally sensitive understandingof the Court's notion of ‘protection’ is required.     

Comparison of motor oils using high-temperature gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

The analysis of motor oils has wide applications in the forensic science field from comparing lubricants transferred between an automobile and a victim or crime scene to differentiating the compositions of plastic explosives. In this study, 40 unused motor oils were analyzed and compared by high-temperature gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to determine the potential for oil individualization. Oil samples were also collected from the crankcase dipsticks of 30 cars. Twenty-six of these oils could be differentiated from each other based on visual comparisons of the unresolved envelope (baseline rise due to incomplete separation) and the resolved hydrocarbons in the raw total ion chromatograms (TICs) and smoothed TIC data. Four of these oils were analyzed as unknowns and were correctly related to the corresponding vehicle. The use of extracted ion profiles (EIPs) was explored as a means to further discriminate between the indistinct samples based on the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) content. The research discussed in this paper demonstrated that differentiation of motor oils was possible by examining the TIC, smoothed TIC, and EIP data.     

The Effect of Vertebral Numerical Variation on Anatomical Stature Estimates

Abstract: Most humans possess 24 presacral vertebrae composed of seven cervicals, 12 thoracics, and five lumbars. However, variation from this standard pattern exists. The purpose of this study was to test the effect of congenital vertebral numerical variation on anatomical stature estimates and to recommend appropriate procedures when such variation occurs. Our sample consists of 41 individuals with unusual vertebral count patterns and known cadaveric statures from the Smithsonian’s Terry Collection. Raxter et al. published a revised Fully anatomical technique in 2006 and we used this to estimate living stature. Based on our results, we recommend using the standard anatomical technique to reconstruct stature, regardless of vertebral pattern. However, when an individual possesses six sacral segments together with a normal number of presacral vertebrae, we recommend the addition of a slight correction factor of 1.3 cm or 0.8% of estimated stature.