Self-report rates of physical and sexual violence among Spanish inmates by mental illness and gender

High rates of mental illnesses and victimization have been reported for prison populations. This study estimates physical and sexual victimization rates (inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate) for people with and without mental illnesses residing in Spanish prisons. A random sample of 2484 male and 225 female inmates was drawn from eight prisons in Spain. Self-report data were collected on victimization, mental illness and sociodemographic characteristics. Prevalence rates of physical and sexual victimization during the past six months in prison among men with mental illnesses were higher than for men without reported mental illnesses (39.1% vs. 16.4% and 8.6% vs. 3.3%, respectively). Similar comparative results were found for women with and without mental illnesses (29.7% vs. 17.5% and 13.3% vs. 10.3%, respectively). A positive association was found between mental illnesses and victimization. This evidence suggests the need for integrated trauma treatment and proactive steps to protect incarcerated persons from violence during incarceration.     

Hanging in,stepping up and stepping out: livelihood aspirations and strategies of the poor

In recent years understanding of poverty and of ways in which people escape from or fall into poverty has become more holistic. This should improve the capabilities of policy analysts and others working to reduce poverty, but it also makes analysis more complex. This article describes a simple schema which integrates multi-dimensional, multi-level, and dynamic understandings of poverty, of poor people's livelihoods, and of changing roles of agricultural systems. The article suggests three broad types of strategy pursued by poor people: ‘hanging in’, ‘stepping up’, and ‘stepping out’. This simple schema explicitly recognises the dynamic aspirations of poor people, diversity among them, and livelihood diversification. It also brings together aspirations of poor people with wider sectoral, inter-sectoral, and macro-economic questions about policies necessary for the realisation of those aspirations.     

Three Modes of Thinking and Policy Orientation of Cultural Security

Three types of relations are entangled nowadays in dealing with issues concerning national cultural security on both the theoretical and practical levels: (1) the relation between one’s own culture and that of other ethnic groups; (2) the relation between advanced and underdeveloped parts of culture; (3) the relation between one’s ethnic culture and so-called foreign advanced culture as related to the previous two. Accordingly, three modes of thinking are likely adopted in handling issues concerning national cultural security: to antagonize one’s own culture with that of other ethnic groups, that is, taking the “me or you” attitude; to dualize cultures as the “advanced” and the “underdeveloped”, that is, believing things to be good if not bad, or vice versa; and to assert that the ethnic are the advanced, that is, taking the “only-megood” stance. It is a very demanding job to maintain national culture and to pursue cultural development at the same time. Only when cultures are grouped into those without distinction between the advanced and the underdeveloped and those with such distinction can the relation between the ethnic and the advanced be properly handled. With the former, it is essential to maintain the ethnicity of one’s own culture before the cultural security is safeguarded. With the latter, however, the pursuit of advanced cultures and the advocacy of the advanced part of a particular culture is a key to ensuring and safeguarding the national cultural security. Hence, it is important to enhance the public awareness of cultural security, and more essentially for the government to offer scientifi cally appropriate orientation towards cultural security and to frame related policies.     

Explicit Evidence on the Import of Implicit Attitudes: The IAT and Immigration Policy Judgments

The implicit association test (IAT) is increasingly used to detect automatic attitudes. Yet a fundamental question remains about this measure: How well can it predict individual judgments? Though studies find that IAT scores shape individual evaluations, these inquiries do not account for an array of well-validated, theoretically relevant variables, thus raising the challenge of omitted variable bias. For scholars using the IAT, the risk here is one of misattributing to implicit attitudes what can be better explained by alternate and rigorous self-reports of explicit constructs. This paper examines the IAT’s performance in the context of U.S. immigration politics. Using a representative web survey of adults, I demonstrate the IAT effectively captures implicit attitude toward Latino immigrants. Critically, I then show these attitudes substantively mold individual preferences for illegal and legal immigration policy, net of political ideology, socio-economic concerns, and well-established measures of intolerance toward immigrants, such as authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. Combined, these results suggest the IAT measures attitudes that are non-redundant and potent predictors of individual political judgments.     

The experience of the Forensic Anthropology Service of the Medical Examiner's Office in Porto Alegre, Brazil

The Forensic Anthropology Service of the Medical Examiner's Office of Porto Alegre was created in September 1997 to examine human skeletons, establish identification and identify lesions that may explain death. From September 1997 to December 2006, 344 skeletons were examined (mean: 37 examinations/year), and 322 were human remains. Most skeletal remains belonged to men (61%) whose age was estimated at 21-50 years (61%). The most frequent bone lesions were caused by fractures (71%), firearm projectiles (11%) and the effects of weather (10%). Antemortem bone changes due to consolidated fractures, degenerative bone processes, congenital bone diseases, and medical procedures were found in 38 skeletal remains (14%). Identification was possible in 83 cases (26%); of these, 78% were identified by DNA analysis, 16% by dental examination, and 6% by anatomic changes associated with healed fractures.     

Neighborhood disorganization, substance use, and violence among adolescents in Puerto Rico

This study investigates the role of neighborhoods in adolescent violence in poor neighborhoods in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The study is part of a larger longitudinal project examining risk and resilience in adolescents' ages 12 to 15 years old and their caregivers. Using a cross-sectional design, a self-completion questionnaire, and an interviewer questionnaire, the authors assessed violent behaviors among participants across demographics, characteristics, and neighborhood social disorganization using the concepts of physical disorders and social disorder. Adolescent violence was positively associated with social disorder. The finding that adults in these neighborhoods walk around with visible firearms and engage in fighting, may have led adolescents to perceive that violence is an accepted behavior. Furthermore, socially disorganized neighborhoods might be less likely to organize on their own behalf because the occurrence of negative experience limits the amount of social support and resources that are available in the neighborhood.     

Characterization of lesions in hanging deaths

Hanging is a common method of committing suicide and a routine task in medico-legal autopsies. The hanging mark is the most relevant external sign and its characteristics are well known, but, for unknown reasons, there are major differences in reports on internal findings. We retrospectively studied 228 consecutive cases of hanging deaths. A complete standard autopsy was performed for every case. We investigated the association between the characteristics of the hanging mark and the frequency of bone, cartilage, soft tissue, and vascular injuries with the mode of suspension. Most cases (75.3%) presented some kind of bone or cartilage fracture, but these were unrelated to any of the variables studied. Vascular lesions are clearly more infrequent: intimal injuries were found in the carotid artery (9.1%), the jugular vein (2.2%), and ruptures of the carotid adventitial layer (21.7%). These could be partially associated with the use of a hard fixed noose and body weight.     

Y-chromosome STR haplotypes in three different population groups from Ecuador (South America)

POPULATIONS: Over 102 unrelated Mestizos, 102 Native Amerindian (Kichwas), and 102 African Americans who represent the three largest communities of the country Ecuador (South America).     

Government strategies to attract R&D-intensive FDI

Competition among countries to attract the research and development (R&D) activities of multinational enterprises has increased substantially during the last years, but the strategies used by governments in this competition still remain largely unexplored. This paper addresses that gap by proposing a taxonomy of the policy instruments available to stimulate inward R&D-intensive foreign direct investment (FDI) and presenting the results of a comparative case study of two EU countries: Spain and Ireland. The main conclusion is that an efficient promotion of R&D-intensive FDI calls for a closer connection between innovation policy and inward investment promotion, which are two policy areas that have traditionally operated rather separately. In addition, investment promotion agencies targeting R&D-intensive FDI are advised to reconfigure the scope of services they provide by placing more emphasis on after-care, since R&D-intensive FDI tends to be evolutionary rather than purely greenfield.

Particle Analysis for the Detection of Gunshot Residue (GSR) in Nasal Samples Using Scanning Laser Ablation and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (SLA-ICPMS)

Currently, aluminum stub with carbon adhesive devices are used to collect inorganic gunshot residues (GSR) from the hands of a shooter. In an ideal shooting case, the gunshot particles do not persist for more than 2 h in the hands of the shooter, provided that the hands have not been washed. However, for forensic analysis and inference, the extended persistence of GSR would be desirable. This study investigates a novel GSR sampling and detection protocol. Sampling was performed in the nostrils using swab devices impregnated in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). The GSRs persisted for longer periods in nasal mucus than on the hands, and particles were detected 6 h after shooting occurred. The analytical determination was conducted by scanning laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (SLA-ICPMS) which enable the identification of the number of particles and their elemental composition. Seventeen isotope signals corresponding to ¹³C, ²⁰⁵Tl and 15 analytes that are usually associated with the composition of GSR residues were monitored: ²⁷Al, ²⁹Si, ³¹P, ³³S, ³⁵Cl, ³⁹K, ⁴⁴Ca, ⁵⁷Fe, ⁶⁰Ni, ⁶³Cu, ⁶⁶Zn, ¹¹⁸Sn, ¹²¹Sb, ¹³⁷Ba, and ²⁰⁸Pb. The SLA technique enabled the reduction of the swab analysis time to 40 min. The effectiveness of this methodology was evaluated with two types of firearms: a pistol and a shotgun. The results indicated that the methodology proposed for the analysis of the nasal GSR was effective and that it can improve or complement the forensic analyses and inferences presented in a court.