Patient characteristics related to length of stay in Dutch forensic psychiatric care

Create an overview of characteristics of patients in long-term forensic psychiatric care (LFPC) with a higher length of stay (LOS) care compared to patients in regular forensic psychiatric care (RFPC) with a shorter LOS. Data were collected from 139 patient records. This study examined whether patients in LFPC differ from patients in RFPC on sociodemographic data, legal data and clinical data and whether those characteristics are able to predict LOS. Patients in LFPC were more often born in a Dutch Caribbean country, less often had a substance abuse disorder, were more often emotionally neglected during childhood, had a higher HCR-20 risk item score, a higher security needs score, a higher (less successful) recovery score, were more often recidivist and had absconded more often than RFPC patients. Certain characteristics were able to distinguish the longer LOS group which might be useful to establish sequel services and enhance treatment efficiency.     

15 years later: Post 9/11 support for increased security and criminalizing muslims

Islamophobia appears to be growing, becoming a mainstream ideology in the United States. Despite the current spike in anti-Islamic sentiment and fear of the Islamic “other,” these ideas are not new and can be traced back to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Using survey data collected only months after the attacks (N = 422), this study uses an integrated threat framework to examine predictors of public support for increased security in the United States. The results show that perceived personal threat and support for policies that criminalize Muslims predict support for security policies that compromise civil liberties. This is especially true among older individuals, conservatives, individuals less inclined towards individual freedom, and those living in the Northeast or in the South.     

Force,Stress, and Decision-Making Within the Belgian Police: the Impact of Stressful Situations on Police Decision-Making

Stress and fear are inevitable aspects of the police job and may have a large impact on police officers’ decision-making process. Many studies have explored how stress and fear may influence assessments of police officers, especially with regard to the use of force. This article aims to contribute to this research domain by reporting the findings from two empirical studies among Belgian police officers: a quantitative study of police officers’ attitudes towards and experiences with the use of force and a qualitative study on the influence of stress and emotions on officers’ decision-making and assessment abilities and accuracy of shooting. Both studies confirmed that stress and fear are often present in Belgian police practice. One of the main findings is that Belgian police officers are anxious about the consequences of their actions because they know they will be held accountable for them. The pressure that results from this accountability can make it even more difficult for police officers to react to stressful situations. Therefore, we need to look for the right balance in this difficult position, by providing tools that support police officers in making daily decisions, and help them do their job as effectively as possible.     

Combination of DNA-based and conventional methods to detect human leukocyte antigen polymorphism and its use for paternity testing

In cases of disputed paternity, the scientific goal is to promote either the exclusion of a falsely accused man or the affiliation of the alleged father. Until now, in addition to anthropologic characteristics, the determination of genetic markers included human leukocyte antigen gene variants; erythrocyte antigens and serum proteins were used for that reason. Recombinant DNA techniques provided a new set of highly variable genetic markers based on DNA nucleotide sequence polymorphism. From the practical standpoint, the application of these techniques to paternity testing provides greater versatility than do conventional genetic marker systems. The use of methods to detect the polymorphism of human leukocyte antigen loci significantly increases the chance of validation of ambiguous results in paternity testing. The outcome of 2384 paternity cases investigated by serologic and/or DNA-based human leukocyte antigen typing was statistically analyzed. Different cases solved by DNA typing are presented involving cases with one or two accused men, exclusions and nonexclusions, and tests of the paternity of a deceased man. The results provide evidence for the advantage of the combined application of various techniques in forensic diagnostics and emphasizes the outstanding possibilities of DNA-based assays. Representative examples demonstrate the strength of combined techniques in paternity testing.     

Second-order elections

Abstract The composition of the directly elected European Parliament does not precisely reflect the 'real' balance of political forces in the European Community. As long as the national political systems decide most of what there is to be decided politically, and everything really important, European elections are additional national second-order elections. They are determined more by the domestic political cleavages than by alternatives originating in the EC, but in a different way than if nine first-order national elections took place simultaneously. This is the case because European elections occur at different stages of the national political systems' respective 'electoral cycles'. Such a relationship between a second-order arena and the chief arena of a political system is not at all unusual. What is new here, is that one second-order political arena is related to nine different first-order arenas. A first analysis of European election results satisfactorily justifies the assumption mat European Parliament direct elections should be treated as nine simultaneous national second-order elections.     

A new method for the evaluation of matches in non-recombining genomes: application to Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (STR) haplotypes in European males

A 9-locus microsatellite framework (minimal haplotype), previously developed for forensic purposes so as to facilitate stain analysis, personal identification and kinship testing, has been adopted for the establishment of a large reference database of male European Y-chromosomal haplotypes. The extent of population stratification pertaining to this database, an issue crucial for its practical forensic application, was assessed through analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) of the 20 regional samples included. Despite the notion of some significant haplotype frequency differences, which were found to correlate with known demographic and historic features of Europeans, AMOVA generally revealed a high level of genetic homogeneity among the populations analyzed. Owing to their high diversity, however, accurate frequency estimation is difficult for Y-STR haplotypes when realistic (i.e. moderately sized) datasets are being used. As expected, strong pair-wise and higher order allelic associations were found to exist between all markers studied, implying that haplotype frequencies cannot be estimated as products of allele frequencies. A new extrapolation method was therefore developed which treats haplotype frequencies as random variables and generates estimates of the underlying distribution functions on the basis of closely related haplotypes. This approach, termed frequency 'surveying', is based upon standard population genetics theory and can in principle be applied to any combination of markers located on the Y-chromosome or in the mitochondrial genome. Application of the method to the quality assured reference Y-STR haplotype database described herein will prove very useful for the evaluation of positive trace-donor matches in forensic casework.