WHAT DO YOU TEACH POLICY STUDIES EDUCATORS ABOUT COMPUTERS?

Computers are no longer an idea of the future. They are, rather, a common and even expected tool of the public administrator. The authors assert that students of the discipline must have a practical knowledge of computer applications. While it is not necessary that advanced computer engineering be studied, students should nevertheless be made familiar with the uses of the computer in administration. Beyond learning how to operate a computer, the article states that students, especially adult learners, first have to be made not to fear this instrument of the age of information so that they will be comfortable when learning its applications.     

A conceptual framework for police functions and services

Police functions and services are currently based on three implicit basic conceptual units: the person, the process, and the product. Each one of these was the fundamental assumption for one of the three historical models of police science: the Personal Qualities Model, the Community Relations Model, and the Scientific Management Model. Although none of these models has ever been implemented in a pure form, modern police science is implicitly based on their three basic conceptual units which are applied to different but specific areas of police functions and services. However, these conceptual units have never been explicitly reconciled with each other, thus at times resulting in contradictory proposals. A comprehensive theory of police functions and services requires a conceptual framework for explicitly relating the person, the process, and the product. A two-dimensional framework is proposed based on a psychological and a sociological level of analysis.     

Case involving differentiation of deer and human bone fragments

In a recent Louisiana forensic anthropology case, it was necessary to attempt species identification of six small bone fragments. The primary concern was whether or not they matched the fractured humerus of a woman killed by two shotgun blasts and then disposed of in the Mississippi River. These tiny fragments were recovered by law enforcement officers inside a jeep pickup and at the gas station where the vehicle had been cleaned. The police suspect claimed that these fragments were from a deer that he had recently killed. The small size of the pieces precluded positive recognition of human versus nonhuman origin based upon gross morphology and cortical thickness. Microscopic examination was possible. This analysis involved comparison of the unknown specimens to reference deer and human thin sections including bone recovered from the woman during autopsy. Examination of the jeep and gas station fragments revealed no plexiform bone, secondary (not primary) osteons, and variability in size and shape of the osteons and Haversian canals. These and other variables identified the bone fragments as human.     

THE EFFECTS OF SELECTION SYSTEM ON JURY COMPOSITION

The Supreme Court and judicial scholars have argued that the demographic composition of grand and petit juries is important. To the extent that composition is a function of the selection system used, this suggests that the method of selecting grand and petit jurors is important. This article tests the link between selection system and composition by comparing the representation of blacks, Mexican-Americans, and women on grand juries selected by commissioners with the same three classes' representation on grand juries selected at random from the voter registration lists. For these jurisdictions, only female representation is consistently higher under random selection procedures.