BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS TO PROTECT CHILDREN

A collaboration between Hawaii's Family Court and Child Protective Services resulted in statewide adoption of a form of family group conferencing–called 'Ohana Conferencing–which involves immediate and extended family, child welfare professionals, and others in a process of planning for the safety of children. The authors describe this model, its principles, origins, and format, emphasizing the importance within the conference of private family time apart from professionals. They discuss similarities and differences between 'Ohana Conferencing and mediation, case conferences, and therapy, 'Ohana Conferencing changes the relations among court (by diverting cases), family, and professionals; the authors address issues and challenges arising from this shift, such as the role of professionals, confidentiality, and decisions about whether to hold a conference and who may invite or veto attendees.     

Computerized Dental Comparison: A Critical Review of Dental Coding and Ranking Algorithms Used in Victim Identification

Comparison of antemortem and postmortem dental records is a leading method of victim identification, especially for incidents involving a large number of decedents. This process may be expedited with computer software that provides a ranked list of best possible matches. This study provides a comparison of the most commonly used conventional coding and sorting algorithms used in the United States (WinID3) with a simplified coding format that utilizes an optimized sorting algorithm. The simplified system consists of seven basic codes and utilizes an optimized algorithm based largely on the percentage of matches. To perform this research, a large reference database of approximately 50,000 antemortem and postmortem records was created. For most disaster scenarios, the proposed simplified codes, paired with the optimized algorithm, performed better than WinID3 which uses more complex codes. The detailed coding system does show better performance with extremely large numbers of records and/or significant body fragmentation.     

Relatively Permanent Pigmented or Vascular Skin Marks for Identification: A Pilot Reliability Study

In child sexual exploitation offenses, the collected evidence images often show the skin of nonfacial body parts of the criminals and victims. For identification in this scenario, “relatively permanent pigmented or vascular skin marks,” abbreviated as RPPVSM, were recently introduced as the basis for a novel biometric trait. This pilot study evaluated the interexaminer variability of RPPVSM identification. Four dermatology physicians were recruited to examine RPPVSM from 75 skin images collected from a total of 51 Caucasian and Asian subjects. The images were separated into 50 reference (“suspect”) images and 25 evaluation (“evidence”) images. The examiners were asked to perform identification by annotating RPPVSM in each of the 25 evaluation images and matching them with the reference images. The rate of misidentification was 0% while the mean rate at which examiners failed to find a match was 6%, indicating the potential of dermatology physicians performing the role of RPPVSM examiners.     

Candidates’ policy strategies in primary elections: does strategic voting by the primary electorate matter?

Empirical research reports conflicting conclusions about whether primary election voters strategically account for candidates’ general election prospects when casting their votes. We model the strategic calculations of office-seeking candidates facing two-stage elections beginning with a primary, and we compare candidates’ policy strategies in situations where primary voters strategically support the most viable general election candidate against candidate strategies when voters expressively support their preferred primary candidate regardless of electability. Our analyses—in which the candidates’ appeal is based on their policy positions and their campaigning skills—suggest a surprising conclusion: namely, that strategic and expressive primary voting typically support identical equilibrium configurations in candidate strategies. Our conclusions are relevant to candidates facing contested primaries, and also to political parties facing the strategic decision about whether or not to use primary elections to select their candidates—a common dilemma for Latin American (and some European) parties.     

Do Voters Respond to Party Manifestos or to a Wider Information Environment? An Analysis of Mass‐Elite Linkages on European Integration

Recent studies analyze how citizens update their perceptions of parties’ left‐right positions in response to new political information. We extend this research to consider the issue of European integration, and we report theoretical and empirical analyses that citizens do not update their perceptions of parties’ positions in response to election manifestos, but that citizens’ perceptions of parties’ positions do track political experts’ perceptions of these positions, and, moreover, that it is party supporters who disproportionately perceive their preferred party's policy shifts. Given that experts plausibly consider a wide range of information, these findings imply that citizens weigh the wider informational environment when assessing parties’ positions. We also present evidence that citizens’ perceptions of party position shifts matter, in that they drive partisan sorting in the mass public.     

Book reviews: The Islamic World

The Palestine Problem in International Law and World Order. W Thomas Mallison and Sally V Mallison London: Longman. 1986. 564pp. £36.00hb

Prisoners of God: The Modern‐Day Conflict of Arab and Jew. David Smith. London: Quartet. 1987. 243pp. £12.95hb

Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. David K Shipler. London: Bloomsbury. 1987. 562pp. £17.95hb

Tunisia: Crossroads of the Islamic and European Worlds. Kenneth J Perkins. Boulder, Colorado: Westview/London: Croom Helm. 1986. 192pp. n/p.

Habib Bourguiba, Islam and the Creation of Tunisia. Norma Salem. London: Croom Helm. 1986. 270pp. £19.95hb

Iraqi Politics 1921–41: The Interaction between Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy. Ahmad Abdul Razzaq Shikara London: LAAM. 1987. 227pp. £11.95pb

Iraq since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship. Marion Farouk‐Sluglett and Peter Sluglett. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1987. 332pp. £29.95hb

Iraq, the Gulf States and the War: A Changing Relationship 1980–1986 and Beyond. Gerd Nonneman. London: Ithaca Press. 1986. 224pp. £17.00hb/£9.00pb

Western Strategic Interests in Saudi Arabia. Anthony H Cordesman. London: Croom Helm. 1987. 308pp. n/p

Saudi Arabia, the West and the Security of the Gulf. Mazher A Hameed. London: Croom Helm. 1986. 189pp. £19.95hb

The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. Roy Mottahedeh. London: Chatto and Windus. 1986. 416pp. £12.95hb

Egypt: The Stalled Society. Hamied Ansari. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 1986. 308pp. S44.50hb/$16.95pb

Islam and the Third Universal Theory. Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub. London: Kegan Paul International. 1987. 175pp. n/p

Qaddafi's World Design: Libyan Foreign Policy, 1969–1987. Ronald Bruce St John. London: Al Saqi. 1987. 184pp. £14.95hb

Class and Client in Beirut: The Sunni Muslim Community and the Lebanese State 1840–1985. Michael Johnson. London: Ithaca Press. 1986. 243pp. £18.00hb

Israel into Palestine. Gwyn Rowley. London: Mansell. 1983. 208pp. £18.50hb

Classand Power in the Sudan: The Dynamics of Sudanese Politics, 1898–1985. Tim Niblock. London: Macmillan. 1987. 370pp. £35.00hb

Sudan: State, Capital and Transformation. Edited by Tony Barnett and Abbas Abdelkarim London: Croom Helm. 1987. 224pp. £25.00hb

The Sudan: Unity and Diversity in a Multicultural State John Obert Voll and Sarah Potts Voll London: Croom Helm. 1985. 178pp. £18.95hb

The Sudan: Ethnicity and National Cohesion. Mohamed Omer Beshir, Mohamed A R Mohammed‐Salih and Musa Adam Abdul‐Jalil Bayreuth, West Germany: Bayreuth University (African Studies Season). 1984. 85pp. n/p

The Return to Democracy in Sudan. Adib Halasa, John D Cooke and Ustinia Dolgopol. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists. 1986. 103pp. n/p

Sudan Since Independence. Edited by Muddathir Abd al‐Rahim, Raphael Badal, Adlan Hardallo and Peter. Woodward. Aldershot, England: Gower. 1987. 181pp. £19.50hb

Fueling the Fire: US Policy and The Western Sahara. Leo Kamil. Trenton, New Jersey: Red Sea Press. 1987. 104pp. $12.95hb/$4.95pb

The Arab Radicals. Edited by Adeed Dawisha. New York: Council on Foreign Relations. 1986. 171pp. $17.50hb/$8.95pb

Social Legislation in the Contemporary Middle East. Edited by Jeswald W Salacuse and Laurence O Michalak. Berkeley, California: Institute of International Studies, University of California. 1986. 376pp. $14.95hb

The Dilemma of Development in the Arabian Peninsula. Abdul Rahman Osama. London: Croom Helm. 1987. 203pp. £25.00hb

The Economic Development of the Yemen Arab Republic. Ragaei el Mallakh. London: Croom Helm. 1986. 196pp. £22.50hb

Arabia and the Gulf: From Traditional Society to Modern States. Edited by Ian Richard Netton. London: Croom Helm. 1986. 259pp. £29.95hb

Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History.. Ahmad Y al‐Hassan and Donald R Hill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/Paris: Unesco. 1986. 304pp. £25.00hb     

A Retrospective Study of Intentional Body Dismemberment in New York City: 1996–2017

A review of New York City dismemberment cases occurring between 1996 and 2017 was conducted, which resulted in a total of 55 dismembered decedents in a 22‐year period. Annual trends indicate an average of 2.5 dismembered decedents. Additional results show that 53% of cases involved transection only, 35% involved disarticulation only, and 13% involved a combination of both. When the entire body could be accounted for, the average number of body portions per case was 5.5. Frequent locations for dismemberment were the neck, shoulders, hips, and knees. Dismemberment locations showed a general trend of anatomical symmetry. Seventy‐eight percent of the dismemberments involve disposal of body parts in an outside location. Eighty‐four percent were concealed from view with some type of covering. The findings from New York City are compared with other studies.