Cleaning up your act: Forensic awareness as a detection avoidance strategy

Purpose

Although rational choice researchers has investigated how offenders successfully commit certain crimes, there is a lack of research looking at the factors explaining the use - or not - of certain detection avoidance strategies. This study introduces the concept of “forensic awareness” as a detection avoidance strategy, and proposes to examine the effect of disinhibitors, target selection behaviors, and acts that may potentially leave evidence at the crime scene on its use.

Methods

Factors influencing forensic awareness are tested using logistic regression models on a sample of 222 rape events collected from offenders incarcerated in Canada.

Results

Offenders exhibit less forensic awareness when under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. However, offenders who show some form of target selection are more likely to take forensic precautions. Finally, offenders who break and enter in the victim's residence, and undertake specific sexual acts during the crime are also more likely to exhibit forensic awareness.

Conclusion

Despite the increasing use and knowledge of forensic evidence by law enforcement, offenders are inconsistent in their forensic awareness and they direct most of their efforts toward protecting their identity, neglecting to either destroy or clean up DNA that could be recovered at the crime scene.     

Kein Aussonderungsrecht am Kaufpreis im Konkurs des Verkäufers aufgrund der Nebenabrede, den Kaufpreis für den Fall der Ausübung eines Rückverkaufsrechts "treuhändig" zu halten

Eine Vereinbarung, derzufolge die Verk?ufer nach wirksamer übertragung des verkauften Gesch?ftsanteils an einer GmbH den dafür gezahlten Kaufpreis für den Fall der Ausübung eines Rückverkaufsrechts des K?ufers "treuh?ndig" für den K?ufer halten und dabei das wirtschaftliche Risiko (etwa einer verlustbringenden Veranlagung) tragen sollen, gew?hrt dem K?ufer im Konkurs der Verk?ufer kein Aussonderungsrecht. Durch die Geltendmachung des Rückverkaufsrechts im Sinn des § 1071 ABGB entsteht lediglich ein schuldrechtlicher Anspruch auf übertragung des (im Voraus festgelegten) Rückkaufpreises gegen Rückübertragung der Gesellschaftsanteile. Die dargestellte Nebenabrede der Parteien rechtfertigt es nicht, die Forderungen gegen die Bank als den Verk?ufern wirtschaftlich fremdes Verm?gen anzusehen; sie kann daher keinen Aussonderungsgrund bilden.     

Gentechnik im Saatgut – ein wiederkehrendes Problem

Die Europ?ische Union und die Bundesrepublik Deutschland sind hinsichtlich des Anbaus gentechnisch ver?nderter Organismen (GVO) sehr zurückhaltend, w?hrend au?erhalb Europas die Zahl der angebauten gentechnisch ver?nderten Kulturpflanzen stetig zunimmt. Die Anwesenheit von GVO, die nicht zum Anbau zugelassen sind, in Saatgut ist deshalb ein wiederkehrendes Problem mit wachsender Bedeutung. Der Beitrag analysiert die dazu vorliegende Rechtsprechung der Verwaltungsgerichte und demonstriert am jüngsten Fall der Saatgutkontamination (NK603-Spuren in Maissaatgut) die Anwendung des differenzierten Regelungssystems des GenTG, das den Vollzugsbeh?rden anspruchsvolle Ermittlungsund Abw?gungspflichten auferlegt.     

Analoge Anwendung der Anzeigepflicht und Präklusivfrist auf die Fünfzehntel-Anhebung

Wer ein Unternehmen im Weg des Konkurses erwirbt, haftet mangels ausdrücklicher übernahme von Mietzinsschulden des Ver?u?erers gem § 1409a ABGB für diese auch dann nicht, wenn er als Bestandnehmer in das Bestandverh?ltnis des Ver?u?erers eintritt.     

The prevalence of mixed DNA profiles on fingernail swabs

There is a general acceptance that cellular material will transfer from one person to another person's fingernails through everyday contact. However, the level or degree of contact required to transfer sufficient cellular material in order to obtain a DNA profile is not known. This study examined swabs from the fingernails of 40 volunteers and compared the DNA profiles obtained to the daily activities of that individual. The majority (78%) of high level profiles obtained were associated with recent intimate contact. However, high level profiles were also obtained from the fingernails of individuals who shared accommodation with their partner, flatmates and/or children. Low level profiles and single profiles were associated with all levels of contact.     

Major depression – a study on the validity of clinicians’ diagnoses in medicolegal assessment

Major depression ranges among the most frequently diagnosed psychiatric disorders. Accordingly, diagnoses of depression are often underlying insurance, compensation or disability claims. This report evaluates the validity of clinicians’ diagnoses of major depression in a sample of claimants. In 2015, n = 127 consecutive cases were examined for medicolegal assessment. For all of them, a diagnosis of major depression had been established by clinicians. All testees underwent a psychiatric interview, a physical examination, they answered questionnaires for depressive symptoms according to DSM-5, embitterment disorder, post concussion syndrome (PCS) and unspecific somatic complaints. Performance and symptom validity tests were administered. Only 31% fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for DSM-5 major depression according to self-report, while none did so according to psychiatric assessment. Negative response bias was found in 64% of cases, feigned neurologic symptoms in 22%. Symptom exaggeration was indiscriminate rather than depression-specific. By self-report, 64% of the participants qualified for embitterment disorder and 93% for PCS. In conclusion, clinicians’ diagnoses of depression seem often confounded by improper assessment of the diagnostic criteria, confusion of depression with bereavement or embitterment and also by response bias.     

Total War and Entitlement: Towards a Global History of Veteran Privilege

By comparing Australia with the USSR (and not with the UK or other British dominions as is most often done) we advance two principal arguments. Firstly, despite the claims of some historians, veterans as a social entity are not the exclusive product of postwar discourse and the postwar political, cultural and social milieux in the countries for which soldiers fought. Rather, their emergence as a social group reflects the experience of mass soldiering in an age of total war. Secondly, it is possible to identify the factors which influenced the extent to which veterans’ claims to special entitlements were translated into special status. We identify eight structural factors which, if they did not determine, at least heavily influenced, the policy outcomes of veterans’ activism.     

From the Claw to the Lion: A Critical Look at Capitalist Globalization

ABSTRACT

This article argues that capitalist globalization is largely responsible for creating or intensifying many of our most serious economic and social problems. It first describes the forces that drove core country transnational corporations to create a complex system of cross-border production networks. It then maps the resulting new international division of labor, in which Asian countries, especially China, import primary commodities from Latin American and sub-Saharan African countries to produce exports for core countries, especially the United States. In core countries, globalization has led to the destruction of higher paying jobs, financialization of economic activity, and stagnation. While the new international division of labor has boosted third world rates of growth, especially in Asia, it has also left the third world with unbalanced and inequitable economies. Moreover, contradictions in the globalization process point to the spread of core country stagnation to the third world. Capitalist globalization has increased third world dependence on core country consumption while simultaneously undermining core country purchasing power. The article ends by discussing a process and program of transformation that highlights the feasibility of an alternative to global capitalism as well as the organizational capacities and institutional arrangements that must be developed if we are to realize it.