Laboratories of Statehood: Legal Intervention in Colonial Africa and Today

The immense body of contemporary work aimed at ‘promoting the rule of law’ is often accused of ‘neo‐imperialism’. Yet, despite many points of contiguity between past and present legal interventions, the charge is overbroad and rarely illuminating. This article attempts to move beyond polemic to track concrete historical and structural forerunners of today's rule of law work. Focusing mainly (though not exclusively) on late imperial British endeavours, it traces colonial legal interventions over time, the techniques adopted (and rejected), the shifting normative bases of legitimacy, and moments of strategic recalibration in the face of resistance. Three broad attitudes towards law across the period are (provisionally) characterised as ‘regulative’, ‘constitutive’ and ‘institutive’ moments. In each phase, the Powers treat colonial territories as laboratories of statehood, within which experiments are conducted to locate the optimal configuration of law. In conclusion some counterparts to these moments in today's ‘rule of law’ activities are identified.     

Numerical classification of curvilinear structures for the identification of pistol barrels

This paper demonstrates a numerical pattern recognition method applied to curvilinear image structures. These structures are extracted from physical cross-sections of cast internal pistol barrel surfaces. Variations in structure arise from gun design and manufacturing method providing a basis for discrimination and identification. Binarised curvilinear land transition images are processed with fast Fourier transform on which principal component analysis is performed. One-way analysis of variance (95% confidence interval) concludes significant differentiation between 11 barrel manufacturers when calculating weighted Euclidean distance between any trio of land transitions and an average land transition for each barrel in the database. The proposed methodology is therefore a promising novel approach for the classification and identification of firearms.     

Psychopathic traits and change on indicators of dynamic risk factors during inpatient forensic psychiatric treatment

The main objective of the present study was to investigate the impact of treatment on forensic psychiatric inpatients, examining changes on 22 indicators of five dynamic risk factors for violence (i.e., egocentrism, hostility, impulsivity, lack of insight, and negative distrustful attitudes), and to relate these potential changes to level of psychopathy assessed with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R). Also, we studied the relationship between psychopathy and treatment compliance, as indicated by the attendance rate of therapeutic activities. Eighty-seven male patients (due to missing data on at least one measure, sample size varies from 58 to 87; 42 patients have complete datasets) were administered a standardized psychological assessment battery (self-report inventories, performance-based personality test, observer ratings) upon admission (T1) and after on average 20 months of treatment (T2). Upon admission, psychopathy (median split, PCL-R score≥22) was significantly related to a higher score on five of the 22 indicators of dynamic risk. The analyses showed no significant differences between psychopathic and non-psychopathic patients on the indicators of dynamic risk factors during 20 months of inpatient forensic psychiatric treatment. However, psychopaths showed the expected pattern of treatment noncompliance, compared to non-psychopaths. The clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.     

Circumflex artery from the right coronary sinus: a not-so-benign anomaly

The origin of the circumflex coronary artery from the right sinus of Valsalva is generally considered a benign anomaly. Herein we report the sudden unexpected death of a 6-year-old boy who died after jumping into a swimming pool and whose only pathologic finding was this usually inconsequential coronary artery anomaly. A discussion of the pathophysiology of the disorder and a literature review are included. This is the youngest patient to die with this entity.     

Co-offending and the diversification of crime types

There is theoretical and empirical support for co-offending being important not only for understanding current offending but also subsequent offending. The fundamental question is--why? In this article, an aggregate analysis is performed that begins to answer this question. Disaggregating solo- and co-offending by single year of age (12-29 years) and crime type in a largely metropolitan data set from British Columbia, Canada, 2002 to 2006, it is shown that the distribution of co-offences is significantly more varied than the distribution of solo offences. This more varied distribution of co-offences favors property crimes during youth but fades as offenders age.     

Hospitals, finance, and health system reform in Britain and the United States, c. 1910-1950: historical revisionism and cross-national comparison

Comparative histories of health system development have been variously influenced by the theoretical approaches of historical institutionalism, political pluralism, and labor mobilization. Britain and the United States have figured significantly in this literature because of their very different trajectories. This article explores the implications of recent research on hospital history in the two countries for existing historiographies, particularly the coming of the National Health Service in Britain. It argues that the two hospital systems initially developed in broadly similar ways, despite the very different outcomes in the 1940s. Thus, applying the conceptual tools used to explain the U.S. trajectory can deepen appreciation of events in Britain. Attention focuses particularly on working-class hospital contributory schemes and their implications for finance, governance, and participation; these are then compared with Blue Cross and U.S. hospital prepayment. While acknowledging the importance of path dependence in shaping attitudes of British bureaucrats toward these schemes, analysis emphasizes their failure in pressure group politics, in contrast to the United States. In both countries labor was also crucial, in the United States sustaining employment-based prepayment and in Britain broadly supporting system reform.     

The incidence of drugs of impairment in oral fluid from random roadside testing

Oral fluid (OF) has become a popular specimen to test for presence of drugs, particularly in regards to road safety. In Victoria, OF specimens from drivers have been used to test for the presence of methylamphetamine (MA) and Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) since 2003 and 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) since 2006. LC-MS/MS has been used to test the most recent 853 submitted OF specimens from Victoria Police for 31 drugs of abuse including those listed in the Australian Standard AS4760-2006. At least one proscribed drug was detected in 96% of drivers, of which MA was the most common (77%), followed by THC (42%), MDMA (17%) and the combination of all three (3.9%). Opioids were detected in 14% of drivers of which 4.8% were positive for 6-acetylmorphine and 3.3% for methadone. The incidence of the opioids tramadol (1.2%) and oxycodone (1.1%) were relatively low. Cocaine (8.0%) was as commonly detected as benzodiazepines (8.0%), and was almost always found in combination with MA (7.9%). Samples positive to benzodiazepines were largely due to diazepam (3.5%) and alprazolam (3.4%), with only 0.2% of drivers combining the two. Ketamine was also detected in 1.5% of cases. While the incidences of the proscribed drugs itself are concerning, it is clear that many drivers are also using other drugs capable of causing impairment.     

The prevalence of drugs in injured drivers

In mid 2009 Victoria introduced compulsory drug testing of blood taken from all injured drivers taken to hospital. Δ(9)-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), methylamphetamine (MA) and 3,4-methylenedioxy-methylamphetamine (MDMA) are prohibited and if drivers are positive to any amount an automatic penalty is enforced. Laboratory screens were conducted on preserved blood using ELISA testing for cannabis metabolite and methylamphetamines and a fully validated LC-MS/MS method for 105 drugs including THC, amphetamines, opioids, benzodiazepines, antidepressants and antipsychotics and a number of other psychoactive substances using a minimum of two transitions per drug. Conventional GC-testing for ethanol was used to screen and quantify the presence of alcohol. 1714 drivers were tested and showed alcohol in 29% (≥ 0.01 g/100mL) and drugs in 35%. The positive rate for the three drugs prohibited by legislation was 12.5%. The prevalence of THC, MA and MDMA was 9.8%, 3.1%, and 0.8%, respectively. The range of THC concentrations in blood was 2-42 ng/mL (median 7) of which 70% had a concentration of 10 ng/mL or higher. The range of concentrations for MA and MDMA was 0.02-0.4 and 0.03-0.3mg/L (median for both drugs was 0.05 mg/L). Drugs of any type were detected in 35% of cases. The other drugs were largely prescribed drugs such as the antidepressants (9.3%) and benzodiazepines (8.9%). Neither 6-acetylmorphine nor cocaine (or benzoylecgonine) was detected in these cases.     

Correctional Officers and Domestic Violence: Experiences and Attitudes

This article presents the first statewide data regarding correctional officers’ attitudes about and personal experiences with domestic violence. Online surveys were administered to Florida correctional officers asking a series of questions, including their beliefs and attitudes about the prevalence of domestic violence among colleagues, and their childhood and adult experiences with domestic violence. Results from 710 officers revealed that 33?% of respondents knew about correctional officers who had committed unreported domestic violence; 30?% reported that they had directly experienced domestic violence as children; and over 11?% reported that they had been physically violent with an intimate partner. Multivariate statistics showed that age, race, and childhood experiences with domestic violence were significantly related to correctional officers reporting being physically abusive to an intimate partner or family member. These and other findings highlight the need for increased agency prevention efforts and research on the phenomenon of correctional officer-involved domestic violence.