The Infant Injury Database: A Tool for the Study of Injury Patterns in Medicolegal Investigations of Child Abuse

In 2012, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences began prospectively collecting injury data from pediatric autopsies. These data and associated case information from 635 pediatric cases are archived in the Infant Injury Database (IID). This paper introduces the IID to the forensic community and demonstrates its potential utility for child abuse and infant fatality investigations. The database is intended to be a source of evidence‐based research for coroners/medical examiners and clinicians in the recognition and diagnosis of child abuse. RR estimates were employed to quantify the relationship between individual autopsy findings to trauma‐related and nontrauma‐related causes of death. For example, unsurprisingly, the RR of trauma cases with multiple injury types is significantly greater than other causes of death, but the RR results provide a quantitative representation of the relationship. ROC curve modeling of the presence/absence of various injury types performed well at discriminating trauma from other causes of death (AUC = 0.96).     

Aggression and rule-breaking: Heritability and stability of antisocial behavior problems in childhood and adolescence

Purpose

This twin study examined the structure of genetic and environmental influences on aggression and rule-breaking in order to examine change and stability across the span of childhood to mid-adolescence.

Methods

Behavioral assessments were conducted at two time points: age 9–10 years and 14–15 years. Using behavioral genetics biometric modeling, the longitudinal structure of influences was investigated.

Results

Aggression and rule-breaking were found to be influenced by a latent common factor of antisocial behavior (ASB) within each wave of data collection. The variance in the childhood-age common factor of ASB was influenced by 41% genetics, 40% shared environment and 19% nonshared environment. In adolescence, 41% of variance in the common factor were novel and entirely genetic, while the remainder of variance was stable across time. Additionally, both aggression and rule-breaking within each wave were found to have unique influences not common across subscales or across waves, highlighting specificity of genetic and environmental effects on different problem behaviors at both ages.

Conclusions

This research sheds light on the commonality of influences on different forms of antisocial behavior. Future research into interventions for antisocial behavior problems in youth could focus on adolescence-specific environmental influences.     

Novel Classification System of Rib Fractures Observed in Infants

Rib fractures are considered highly suspicious for nonaccidental injury in the pediatric clinical literature; however, a rib fracture classification system has not been developed. As an aid and impetus for rib fracture research, we developed a concise schema for classifying rib fracture types and fracture location that is applicable to infants. The system defined four fracture types (sternal end, buckle, transverse, and oblique) and four regions of the rib (posterior, posterolateral, anterolateral, and anterior). It was applied to all rib fractures observed during 85 consecutive infant autopsies. Rib fractures were found in 24 (28%) of the cases. A total of 158 rib fractures were identified. The proposed schema was adequate to classify 153 (97%) of the observed fractures. The results indicate that the classification system is sufficiently robust to classify rib fractures typically observed in infants and should be used by researchers investigating infant rib fractures.     

Sex Trafficking and Moral Harm: Politicised Understandings and Depictions of the Trafficked Experience

This paper explores notions of harm in sex work discourse, highlighting the extent to which essentialist ideas of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ sex have pervaded trafficking policy. In a comparative examination of Australian Parliamentary Inquiries and United States congressional hearings leading to the establishment of anti-trafficking policy, we identify the stories that have influenced legislators, and established a narrative of trafficking heavily dependent upon assumptions of the inherent harm of sex work. This narrative constructs a hierarchy of victimisation, which denies alternative discourses of why women migrate for sex work. We argue that it is not sexual commerce that is harmful, but pathological, systemic inequalities and entrenched disadvantage that are harmful. A narrow narrative of trafficking fails to adequately depict this complexity of the trafficked experience.     

Men’s Avoidance Coping and Female Partner’s Drinking Behavior: A High-Risk Context for Partner Violence?

The current study explored whether men's avoidance coping in response to the drinking behavior of their female partner with an alcohol use disorder (AUD) would be associated with higher levels of men's perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV). Women with an AUD (n = 109) and their male partners in a U.S. urban area were assessed on men's perpetration of minor and severe violence using the Conflict Tactics Scale, men's avoidance coping using the Spouse Behavior Questionnaire, and men's and women's drinking behavior using the Time Line Follow Back Interview. Using multiple regression analysis, results showed that men's use of avoidance coping significantly predicted male IPV perpetration over and above the women's perpetration of violence toward him, while women's alcohol use did not significantly predict male-to-female IPV perpetration. Implications for teaching emotion-regulation strategies to male partners of women with an AUD to cope with partner drinking are discussed.     

Toward an Analytical Framework for the Study of Race and Police Violence

Treatments of race and police violence in the fields of public administration and policy have drawn eclectically from many disciplinary sources in historical, political, and managerial analysis. From an institutional perspective, emphasis has been on how organizational practices, rules, norms, and values, along with role socialization, shape germane behavior. Of particular interest to the authors is the phenomenon of race‐related police violence in its systemic but also attitudinal and behavioral manifestations in the policing role. How does an academic or practitioner researcher specify evaluative perspectives applicable to this policy and administrative challenge? There is a prior need for defined analytical and ethical positions drawing closely from public administration and policy sources. This article suggests ways to develop such grounded frameworks, built on these distinctive traditions but also going beyond them, so as to allow for an integrative approach to evaluative analysis and action on this grave and contentious issue.