Identification based on medical findings

1. The indications such as the place of finding, the identification of clothes or other personal items, represent only the first step towards the identification of a corpse. 2. An identification based on medical data, other than dental, is often possible, more often than it is believed. 3. The forensic pathologist plays a double role in the case of such an identification: a) in the phase of the inquiry, he must contact the investigators and the families to explain his wishes and the different possibilities of identification. b) he must use the gathered information in the appropriate way. 4. It would be desirable to compose some statistical tables of the various medical elements useful for the identification (mutilations, surgical operations, etc...). We present six cases of identification in our practice.     

Inmates: Who occupies our jails?

The purpose of this investigation was to identify inmate personal and demographic data that may be used to further define or profile persons with a greater likelihood of being at risk for serving a jail sentence. This study was explorative. The survey administration was similar in format to that conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Chaplains were used as survey proctors. Pilot studies were conducted to determine the suitability of survey content. Surveys consisted of 172 items. Subjects included four hundred inmates: males comprised 88.75 percent of the sample, Caucasians 58.25 percent, Blacks 37 percent, Hispanics 3.25 percent and other 1.5 percent of the sample. Respondents ranged in age from 15 to 64 years with an average age of 30.3 years. Less than two percent of the contacted inmates refused participation in the survey. Results are presented for demographic data, select legal/criminal data, select drug and alcohol use data, employment data, health, parent/family data, education data, social data, and “other”.     

Authoritarianism,creativity, and other aspects of a prison organization

Conclusion This analysis shows that no simple explanation will do when trying to understand a prison. The authoritarian aspects were very negative to me as a professional working there. I did not like being blamed for things I did not do, or being sent to numerous required training programs, almost all of which were worthless for me, telling me thing 1 already knew or could not use. However, there were positive sides to the prison, especially in the treatment aspect. In 1972 Messinger wrote “I must take the position that prisons and custodial mental hospitals should be abolished” (Messinger, 1972, P. 6). His position was that these institutions are so inhumane that society would be better served by their abolition. We probably need more analyses like the present one, and other studies which rely more heavily on more gathering of quantitative data in order to understand what prisons are really like. Only then can we make informed choices, without depending on stereotypes.     

COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY,MINORITY THREAT,AND POLICE BRUTALITY: AN EXAMINATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS*

A growing body of evidence shows that minorities are disproportionately the targets of police brutality, but important theoretical questions about the causes of that inequity remain unanswered. One promising line of research involves structural‐level analyses of the incidence of police brutality complaints; however, existing studies do not incorporate variables from alternative theoretical explanations. Drawing on the community accountability hypothesis and the threat hypothesis, we tested the predictions of two prominent structural‐level explanations of police brutality in a study of civil rights criminal complaints. The study included cities of 150,000+ population (n = 114). The findings reveal that two community accountability variables—ratio percent Hispanic citizens to percent Hispanic police officers and the presence of citizen review—were related positively to police brutality complaints, partially supporting that perspective. Two threat hypothesis measures of threatening people—percent black and percent Hispanic (in the Southwest)—were related positively to complaints, as predicted. The relative degree of support for the two hypotheses is assessed.     

Children in the environment: Forest day-care centers: Modern day care with historical antecedents

Some features of early child care are more prominent in Norway than in other countries, such as emphasis on the outdoor environment. Of general relevance and interest is the form of day care provided by forest day-care centers. Three ideas form the development of these centers placed in wild areas. First, throughout history, Norwegians have had a close attachment to nature and some parents want to provide their children with outdoor experiences at an early age. Second, urging children to play outdoors characterizes the image many parents have of a happy, healthy childhood. Third, provision of day care for children has always been restricted in western countries, forcing parents to invent types of service that can become part of an ecological system that promotes healthy development.The forest day-care centers developed recently represent a supplement to the wide typology of child care in the 21st century. The article outlines the connections between these ideas in general European and western history and Norwegian history and presents debate and decisions about a question dating from the last half of the 1980s. It concludes that the forest day-care centers are perhaps only a modern form of the original kindergarten concept, which started in Europe and America as gardens for children not gardens of children.     

The distribution of ethanol in postmortem blood specimens.

Ethanol was determined by gas chromatography in a variety of tissues and body fluids secured at autopsy in 61 cases. The specimens tested included right and left heart blood, femoral blood, pericardial fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, vitreous humor, urine, stomach contents, and brain. Statistical analysis of the cases revealed no significant differences among the various blood sites tested. However, the variations in blood ethanol concentrations among the various sampling sites within each case were as follows: 40 cases showed differences of less than 25%; 16 cases revealed variability between 25% and 50%, 4 cases had differences exceeding 50%. In one case, satisfactory blood analyses could not be accomplished. The larger variances occurred especially in those instances in which stomach alcohol concentration was 0.50% or greater. In one case, the variability amongst the different blood sites exceeded 400% (femoral blood--0.043%, right atrium--0.070%, root of aorta--0.156%); the brain was 0.050%, and the stomach contents was 1.2%. For all 61 cases, variances in blood alcohol content among the different sampling sites in a single cadaver ranged from 1.8 to 428%.     

Battered women and the state: From the failure of theory to a theory of failure

Within the context of legal reform, the Battered Wife Movement has divided feminists on the question of criminal justice as a desirable component of a feminist agenda. Thus it provides a good example of the dilemmas of developing a feminist theory about the state as the basis for informed practice. In this paper, Currie overviews the way in which the BWM has been transformed from a radical demand for the redistribution of social power into an expansion of current patriarchal institutions. As an example of the institutionalization of feminist issues, however, she rejects explanations of this transformation as simply ideological revision by the state. Rather, Currie notes that it occurs through and not against feminist discourse, meaning that we must acknowledge theory as practice if we are to develop a truly subversive and liberatory discourse within feminist scholarship.