Dealing with the Unthinkable: a Study of the Cognitive and Emotional Stress of Adult and Child Homicide Investigations on Police Investigators

Although the death of a child is without doubt one of the most distressing events imaginable, when it occurs in suspicious circumstances, such as at the hand of a parent or close family member, its effects are often more acute and incomprehensible. This paper presents an exploratory study comparing the cognitive and emotional stressors experienced by police when investigating child and adult homicides. The results of an online survey questionnaire with 99 experienced UK police investigators are presented, with key differences found in the cognitive and emotional stress experienced depending on whether the victim is a child or an adult, key differences and similarities identified in the ways investigators deal and cope with adult and child homicide cases, with a tentative discussion of the implications for the well-being and training of police investigators provided.     

Why moral commitments matter: mapping the ethics and politics of responsible and accountable global governance

Much of the scholarly attention on commitments in international relations (IR) has remained narrowly framed, focusing on how states and other actors make strictly strategic calculations to comply with international norms and/or treaties. The trouble with this rationalist approach is that it oversimplifies the moral basis of commitments. This article offers a deeper analysis of this moral basis as well as the positive ethical values that help to direct and shape the content of the moral commitments of agents in IR. The article argues that the ethical values of sincerity, empathy and sacrifice play a dynamic yet under-studied meta-level role in helping one to interpret and explain the transformative dimensions of moral commitments in IR. The article first develops a meta-level theoretical approach to commitment in international theory and then applies this approach to two particular emergent discourses in international politics: the responsibility to protect and moral criminal accountability.     

The Gendered Face of Partisan Politics: Consequences of Facial Sex Typicality for Vote Choice

Facial cues are consequential for voters’ behavior at the polls. Yet the facial cues that are associated with vote choice remain under-examined. We predicted that vote choice judgments rely, in part, on the sex typicality of facial cues (i.e., the degree of facial masculinity and femininity) that vary as a function of candidate gender and partisan identification. Stimuli included image pairs of winners and runners-up in the elections for the 111th U.S. House of Representatives. In Study 1, we found that female Republican candidates who appeared relatively more feminine and male Republican candidates who looked relatively less masculine in their appearance were more likely to win their election. Democratic candidates’ electoral success was not related to their sex typicality. In Study 2, we found that relatively masculine-appearing Democrats and feminine-appearing Republicans were more likely to be selected in a hypothetical vote choice task. Implications for U.S. partisan politics are discussed.     

Home is where the heart lies? A study of false address giving to police

Purpose. The purpose of the present paper is to identify the cognitive processes associated with the construction of a false address, and explore how this can be used to identify and trace those who give a false address to police. It is hypothesized that most people find it difficult to spontaneously fabricate an entire false address. As a consequence they provide identifiable clues as to the real address being concealed. Methods. A quasi‐experimental research design was employed where 142 students were first asked to generate a false address and second to analyse it to ascertain how random they considered it to be. Results. Participants, overwhelmingly, stated that the false addresses generated contained elements of truth which could be used to identify their real place of residence. Although most participants appeared capable of generating bona fide false postcodes, comparison with an official UK postcode list identified over 60% did not actually exist. Conclusion. People generally rely on pre‐existing address knowledge as opposed to random generation, with the latter appearing more cognitively effortful. As such, they often unwittingly provide clues to the real address being concealed, therefore, affording increased possibilities in identifying them as liars at point of contact and in tracing them after the fact.     

The 2018 California Wildfires: Integration of Rapid DNA to Dramatically Accelerate Victim Identification

In November 2018, Butte County, California, was decimated by the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in state history. Over 150,000 acres were destroyed, and at its peak, the fire consumed eighty acres per minute. The speed and intensity of the oncoming flames killed scores of people, and weeks before the fire was contained, first responders began searching through the rubble of 18,804 residences and commercial buildings. As with most mass disasters, conventional identification modalities (e.g., fingerprints, odontology, hardware) were utilized to identify victims. The intensity and duration of the fire severely degraded most of the remains, and these approaches were useful in only 22 of 84 cases. In the past, the remaining cases would have been subjected to conventional DNA analysis, which may have required months to years. Instead, Rapid DNA technology was utilized (in a rented recreational vehicle outside the Sacramento morgue) in the victim identification effort. Sixty-nine sets of remains were subjected to Rapid DNA Identification and, of these, 62 (89.9%) generated short tandem repeat profiles that were subjected to familial searching; essentially all these profiles were produced within hours of sample receipt. Samples successfully utilized for DNA identification included blood, bone, liver, muscle, soft tissue of unknown origin, and brain. In tandem with processing of 255 family reference samples, 58 victims were identified. This work represents the first use of Rapid DNA Identification in a mass casualty event, and the results support the use of Rapid DNA as an integrated tool with conventional disaster victim identification modalities.