Ancestry Assessment Using Random Forest Modeling, ,

A skeletal assessment of ancestry relies on morphoscopic traits and skeletal measurements. Using a sample of American Black (n = 38), American White (n = 39), and Southwest Hispanics (n = 72), the present study investigates whether these data provide similar biological information and combines both data types into a single classification using a random forest model (RFM). Our results indicate that both data types provide similar information concerning the relationships among population groups. Also, by combining both in an RFM, the correct allocation of ancestry for an unknown cranium increases. The distribution of cross‐validated grouped cases correctly classified using discriminant analyses and RFMs ranges between 75.4% (discriminant function analysis, morphoscopic data only) and 89.6% (RFM). Unlike the traditional, experience‐based approach using morphoscopic traits, the inclusion of both data types in a single analysis is a quantifiable approach accounting for more variation within and between groups, reducing misclassification rates, and capturing aspects of cranial shape, size, and morphology.     

British colonialism and the criminalization of homosexuality

What explains the global variation in laws criminalizing homosexual conduct? Recent research has claimed that British colonialism is largely responsible for the criminalization of homosexuality around the world. This article utilizes a newly constructed dataset that includes up-to-date data on 185 countries to assess this claim. We find that British colonies are much more likely to have criminalization of homosexual conduct laws than other colonies or other states in general. This result holds after controlling for other variables that might be expected to influence the likelihood of repressive lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights legislation. However, we also find that the evidence in favour of the claim that British imperialism ‘poisoned’ societies against homosexuality is weak. British colonies do not systematically take longer to decriminalize homosexual conduct than other European colonies.     

Assessing Police Attitudes Toward Drugs and Drug Enforcement

The American War on Drugs has been a long and protracted battle. On the front lines are local, state and federal drug enforcement officers who are tasked with pursuing drug users and dealers. Empirically, officers’ attitudes about the laws they uphold have been shown to impact how aggressively they enforce those laws and the discretion they employ. Although there is a well established body of literature which documents the importance of discretionary dynamics in many areas of law enforcement, we know almost nothing about narcotics officers’ attitudes toward drugs and drug enforcement. Hence, we are unaware of extremely important variables that almost certainly impact and influence front line drug officers. This study fills that gap by examining the survey responses of over 1,000 drug interdiction officers at all levels of law enforcement, measuring their attitudes toward various drugs and the relative harm they incur, along with existing and proposed policies and strategies. The results are discussed in terms of their enforcement and policy implications.     

Intersectionality,Rural Criminology,and Re-imaging the Boundaries of Critical Criminology

One of the significant shortcomings of the criminological canon, including its critical strands—feminist, cultural and green—has been its urbancentric bias. In this theoretical model, rural communities are idealised as conforming to the typical small-scale traditional societies based on cohesive organic forms of solidarity and close density acquaintance networks. This article challenges the myth that rural communities are relatively crime free places of ‘moral virtue’ with no need for a closer scrutiny of rural context, rural places, and rural peoples about crime and other social problems. This challenge is likewise woven into the conceptual and empirical narratives of the other articles in this Special Edition, which we argue constitute an important body of innovative work, not just for reinvigorating debates in rural criminology, but also critical criminology. For without a critical perspective of place, the realities of context are too easily overlooked. A new criminology of crime and place will help keep both critical criminology and rural criminology firmly anchored in both the sociological and the criminological imagination. We argue that intersectionality, a framework that resists privileging any particular social structural category of analysis, but is cognisant of the power effects of colonialism, class, race and gender, can provide the theoretical scaffolding to further develop such a project.     

Static screening instruments for risk of minor and major violence

Background: Screens for violent convictions that are simple, accessible and parsimonious are needed, as a first stage in identifying those at high risk for further assessment. Aims: To construct and validate screening tools for minor and major violence convictions for released prisoners. Methods: Internal validation sample of 1647 serious offenders and an external validation of 46,704 general prisoners. The outcomes were binary indicators for having at least one conviction for minor and major violence. Risk factors were convictions for violence and age. Results: In the external validation sample, the instrument for risk of minor violence (PMIV) identified correctly 60.8% of male and 66.2% of female general prisoners. For risk of major violence, the instrument (PMAV) identified correctly 68.0% of male and 79.3% of female prisoners. Conclusions: The PMIV and PMAV will efficiently assist practitioners in a first stage of screening before in-depth clinical assessment of risk for future violent convictions.