From papyrus to cyber: how technology has directed law enforcement policy and practice

Abstract

Cyber technology, both explicitly and implicitly, impacts every facet of local, state, national and international criminal justice operations. Unfortunately, technological changes, including cyber technologies, are rarely well thought out and may have unintended negative consequences. Additionally technology, and particularly cyber technology, evolves at a much faster pace than our understanding of the ethics, laws and policies involved. Consequently, citizens, criminals and justice professionals often rely on technology without the benefit of legal protections or explicit agency policy. This paper will examine how technology, both historically (non cyber) and contemporarily (cyber), has positively and negatively affected one aspect of the Criminal Justice enterprise – law enforcement.     

Results of a collaborative study of the EDNAP group regarding the reproducibility and robustness of the Y-chromosome STRs DYS19, DYS389 I and II, DYS390 and DYS393 in a PCR pentaplex format

A collaborative exercise was carried out by the European DNA Profiling Group (EDNAP) in the frame work of the STADNAP program, i.e. standardization of DNA profiling in Europe, in order to evaluate the performance of a Y-chromosome STR pentaplex, which includes the loci DYS19, DYS389 I and II, DYS390 and DYS393 and to determine whether uniformity of results could be achieved among different European laboratories.Laboratories were asked to analyze the five Y-STRs using singleplex and multiplex conditions in three bloodstains and one mixed stain (95% female and 5% male).All the laboratories reported the same results even for the mixed stain included in the exercise. This demonstrates the reproducibility and robustness of Y-chromosome STR typing even with multiplex formats and proves the usefulness of Y-STR systems for analyzing mixed stains with a male component.A total of 930 male samples from 10 different populations from Europe were also analysed for all the loci included in the pentaplex. Eight of these ten populations also included haplotype data.As for single gene analysis, haplotype diversity was higher in Germany and Italy and lower in Western European countries and Finland.Pairwise haplotype analysis shows the Finnish departure from the rest of the populations and a relatively homogeneity in the other European populations with F(ST) estimates lower than 0.05.UPGMA analysis shows an association of Western European population (Ireland, UK, Portugal and Galicia) on the one hand and central European populations on the other.     

Sincere Cooperation,Respect for Democracy and EU Citizenship: Sufficient to Guarantee Scotland's Future in the European Union?

The position of an independent Scotland within the European Union (EU) has recently been a subject of considerable debate. The European Commission has argued that any newly independent state formed from the territory of an existing Member State would require an Accession Treaty. This article critiques that official position and distinguishes between a set of claims that could be made on behalf of an independent Scottish state, and a set of claims that could be made on behalf of the citizens of an independent Scottish state vis‐à‐vis the EU. It argues that the general principles of the EU Treaties ought to govern how Scotland is treated, and that a new Accession Treaty is not necessary. Furthermore, notwithstanding the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the area of EU citizenship, we conclude that EU citizenship itself is not sufficient to guarantee or generate membership of the EU.     

New Jersey's Mount Laurel Doctrine and Its Implementation: Under Attack,But Safe (for Now)

Abstract

In the year 2013, it seemed like all New Jersey was marching against the Mount Laurel anti‐exclusionary zoning doctrine and how it was to be put into effect—the governor, the legislature, many developing suburban municipalities, and even the independent agency established to oversee its implementation, the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). Indeed, COAH itself, ignoring minimal procedural due process, would attempt to seize the monies municipalities had set aside in municipal affordable trust funds collected from development fees on residential construction to help the production of low‐and moderate‐income housing.     

From public action to public administration: where does it lead?

Minnowbrook I and Minnowbrook II differ in one important way. Minnowbrook I involved mostly scholars who came to the field primarily through formal academic training. Several of those who participated in Minnowbrook II are products of comrnunity-based applied revisions of so-called new public administration in the 1960s. Radin served as a union employee and then a staff member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Cooper worked as a minister at several inner-city churches. Both Radin and Cooper took their doctorates later in their careers, after extensive street level experience. From this perspective they focus on the unique political setting of public administration, on the field's publicness, on the salience of theories of change, on a process perspective, and on “soft” research methodologies.

Through much of its history, the field of public administration in the United States has been punctuated by figures who moved from the arena of action to opportunities for reflection, either through writing or teaching or both. A review of the literature of the field up to the 1960s provides strong evidence of this pattern and is particularly illustrated by two important eras of public administration—the municipal reform period and the post-New Deal period.⁽¹⁾ The decade of he 1960s was one of the few periods of the twentieth century in which action was not the predominant pathway to concern about administrative issues. In contrast to this earlier pattern, the generation of public administration academics in the 1960s focused on writing and teaching as a goal unto itself, rather than as a way of searching for the meaning of action in which one was previously engaged.

Indeed, the original group of participants in the Minnowbrook conference came to the field of public administration through formal academic training; their quest for values, relevancy, and meaning developed as they looked out of the windows of the academy to the turbulent society of which they were a part.⁽²⁾

While some were on the inside looking out during the 1960s, others were attempting to define meaning and relevancy within the world of action rather than the world of the academy. This paper is an attempt to explore the influence of that action experience on the public administration field. The authors of this paper spent the 1960s engaged in a part of the social action that spawned the “new” public administration movement.

We believe that our involvements in the 1960s led to the development of perspectives on public administration which are somewhat different from those of individuals who were primarily involved in academe during those turbulent times. This paper begins with a short autobiographical account which provides the personal context for our perspectives. It then contrasts our views with those of the Minnowbrook group and focuses on those elements that make up our perspective on the field.     

The common European security and defence policy and the ‘third‐country’ issue

The Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) of the European Union (EU) was launched in 1999 and has been perceived as a landmark step toward European security cooperation, particularly in the field of crisis management. Still in its early stages, some difficult issues have become apparent. Of these, the so‐called ‘third‐country’ issue may prove to be among the most significant. This problem refers to the necessity of associating states outside the EU with CESDP. In this regard, three states stand out — the United States, Turkey and Russia — and this article considers their concerns and the European response in detail. This is prefaced by a general overview of how the third‐country problem emerged and what the EU has done to address it. It concludes by suggesting that third‐country considerations could well determine where and how EU‐led missions operating under the auspices of CESDP are deployed.     

Family history in canada

Life-cycle service was an essential institution in early-modern England that slowly died during the transition from a pre-industrial to a fully industrial economy. A socially pervasive and culturally broad movement of young people from their parental homes to live and serve in the homes of others, life-cycle service was integral to the demographic, economic, and social framework of the era and could not survive when that framework changed. This article examines the institution of life-cycle service, some of the underlying demographic, economic, and social structure that supported it, the changes in that structure that led to its demise, and the ramifications for young people of that demise. Although inevitable, the loss of life-cycle service with its broad social base denigrated service as an institution and was not without other costs especially for young women.     

Recovery of human DNA profiles from poached deer remains part 2: Improved recovery protocol without the need for LCN analysis

Although poaching is a common wildlife crime, the high and prohibitive cost of specialised animal testing means that many cases are left un-investigated. We previously described a novel approach to wildlife crime investigation that looked at the identification of human DNA on poached animal remains (Tobe, Govan and Welch, 2011). Human DNA was successfully isolated and amplified from simulated poaching incidents, however a low template protocol was required which made this method unsuitable for use in many laboratories. We now report on an optimised recovery and amplification protocol which removes the need for low template analysis.Samples from 10 deer (40 samples total — one from each leg) analysed in the original study were re-analysed in the current study with an additional 11 deer samples. Four samples analysed using Chelex did not show any results and a new method was devised whereby the available DNA was concentrated. By combining the DNA extracts from all tapings of the same deer remains followed by concentration, the recovered quantity of human DNA was found to be 29.5 pg ± 43.2 pg, 31 × greater than the previous study. The use of the Investigator Decaplex SE (QIAGEN) STR kit provided better results in the form of more complete profiles than did the AmpF?STR® SGM Plus® kit at 30 cycles (Applied Biosystems). Re-analysis of the samples from the initial study using the new, optimised protocol resulted in an average increase of 18% of recovered alleles. Over 17 samples, 71% of the samples analysed using the optimised protocol showed sufficient amplification for comparison to a reference profile and gave match probabilities ranging from 7.7690 × 10^? 05 to 2.2706 × 10^? 14.The removal of low template analysis means this optimised method provides evidence of high probative value and is suitable for immediate use in forensic laboratories. All methods and techniques used are standard and are compatible with current SOPs. As no high cost non-human DNA analysis is required the overall process is no more expensive than the investigation of other volume crime samples. The technique is suitable for immediate use in poaching incidents.