Decision games applied to police decision making -an exploratory study of information usage-

An analysis of police decision making is presented using the decision board technique developed by Leslie Wilkins. This method assumes that decision making can be measured by observing a subject's response to stimuli presented in the form of pieces of information. A board was created and employed with fifty municipal police officers. Findings suggest that police demonstrate individualized preferences for varying amounts and kinds of information. The nature of the offense was considered most frequently. The attitude of the offender was also an important determinant of the decision outcome; and the offender's attitude then influenced the amount and type of information subsequently used.     

Implementation evaluation: A future direction in project evaluation

The problem of implementation failure is an important component in the evaluation of criminal justice projects. In general, the issue of project implementation has been neglected by organizational researchers and evaluation specialists as well as by policymakers and program developers. In direct contrast to the existing pattern, we stress the importance of organizational factors and the relationships between individuals and organizations for the successful implementation and institutionalization of criminal justice projects.     

中新关系中的佛教——宏船法师及其访华(1982—1990)

宏船法师(1907-1990)于1982至1990年间八次访问中国。在这期间,宏船法师会见了中国国家领导人和宗教界领袖,参访佛教圣地,帮助重建与他师父会泉法师有关的佛寺,并主持宗教仪式。本文主要考察宏船法师访问中国的外交意义,将这些宗教交流置于20世纪70年代末中国对外开放之后更广阔的中新关系历史背景之中,以论证佛教在两国建立官方外交关系之前所发挥的促进两国关系的作用。在中新两国尚不存在正式外交渠道的情况下,宏船法师的宗教之旅作为非正式外交渠道,帮助两国互建信心。     

The myth of my widow: A dramatistic analysis of news portrayals of a terrorist victim

Mythic aspects of news portrayals of a terrorist victim are the focus of this study. Using the dramatistic approach of Kenneth Burke, the study reviews New York Times coverage of Leon Klinghoffer, who was killed by terrorists aboard the Achille Lauro cruise ship in October 1985.

Myth is defined not as a false or incredible tale, but as a symbolic narrative that attempts to explain and give meaning to practice and belief. The study shows that news reports used dramatic details of the suffering and grief of the widow to develop around her husband a compelling myth—the sacrifice of the innocent, heroic victim.

In dramatic and psychological terms, the victim is a symbol of the self. Through this myth, then, the news reports appear to invite intense identification of the reader with the terrorist victim.

Although the study is exploratory, implications can be considered. Mythic portrayals suggest that the power of terrorism may stem from its ability to forge symbolic links between victims and individual members of an audience. Mythic images in the news may help terrorists communicate with their audience. Too, public policy makers may attempt to arouse support for measures of prevention and reprisal by drawing from the mythic power of the victim.     

Population data for a novel, highly discriminating tetra-local Y-chromosome short tandem repeat: DYS503

Population: Population samples for gene diversity studies were obtained from the Virginia Division of Forensic Science (bloodstains), Richmond, VA. Ninety-eight Caucasian and 100 African American samples were included in this study.     

Performance evaluation and optimization of multiplex PCRs for the highly discriminating OSU 10-locus set Y-STRs

In a previous study, a new set of Y-chromosome short tandem repeats, the OSU 10-locus set (MPM1 and MPM2), was shown to have a higher discrimination power when evaluated against the 10 SWGDAM loci on a common population panel. Here, we describe the optimization of the multiplex reactions using dye-labeled primers followed by performance evaluations. The loci exhibited high precision, human male specificity, reliability in different body fluids, high sensitivity, stability, and the ability to amplify nonprobative casework and mixture samples. Stutter for the all of the loci, with the exception of the highly polymorphic locus DYS688, was similar to that observed for autosomal loci. The results of the performance evaluations reinforced the utility of these loci.     

Intergroup Bias and Inequity: Legitimizing Beliefs and Policy Attitudes

Policy attitudes relating to group-based inequities are in many cases founded on tenuous legitimizing beliefs which are contradicted by empirical evidence. Policy issues, and their attendant legitimizing beliefs, are considered, including affirmative action, colorblindness/“racial privacy,” hate crime legislation, same-sex marriage, and, in greater depth, capital punishment and racial profiling. Primary themes underlying the legitimizing beliefs include denials that group-based biases and inequities exist, overestimations of the societal costs of inequity-reducing policies, valuing public safety above civil liberties, and discounting the adverse effects of inequity-reducing policies.     

NIST bullet signature measurement system for RM (Reference Material) 8240 standard bullets

A bullet signature measurement system based on a stylus instrument was developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for the signature measurements of NIST RM (Reference Material) 8240 standard bullets. The standard bullets are developed as a reference standard for bullet signature measurements and are aimed to support the recently established National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The RM bullets are designed as both a virtual and a physical bullet signature standard. The virtual standard is a set of six digitized bullet signatures originally profiled from six master bullets fired at ATF and FBI using six different guns. By using the virtual signature standard to control the tool path on a numerically controlled diamond turning machine at NIST, 40 RM bullets were produced. In this paper, a comparison parameter and an algorithm using auto-and cross-correlation functions are described for qualifying the bullet signature differences between the RM bullets and the virtual bullet signature standard. When two compared signatures are exactly the same (point by point), their cross-correlation function (CCF) value will be equal to 100%. The measurement system setup, measurement program, and initial measurement results are discussed. Initial measurement results for the 40 standard bullets, each measured at six land impressions, show that the CCF values for the 240 signature measurements are higher than 95%, with most of them even higher than 99%. These results demonstrate the high reproducibility for both the manufacturing process and the measurement system for the NIST RM 8240 standard bullets.