A Statewide Study of the Public's Knowledge of Child Abuse Reporting Laws

This study conducted telephone interviews with a random sample of adults (N = 509) in a state with a universal child abuse reporting law. A substantial proportion of the interviewees (39%) were not aware of this law. Findings indicated that the public's understanding was mixed. Most respondents knew that reports could be made anonymously and that their identity could be kept private. However, most believed that children are automatically removed from the home if there is maltreatment and more than 50% were not aware they could be charged with a misdemeanor for failing to report a suspicion of child abuse. The respondents who had ever made a report (19%), had a greater knowledge of the laws than those who had not made a report. Older adults and those with less education had the least accurate perception of child abuse reporting policies. When asked about barriers to reporting, respondents cited worries that reporting would not help the child. Findings suggest that efforts to increase the public's comfort with reporting may require strategies to increase their confidence that the benefits will outweigh the risks for the child.     

谁是叙述者？

“谁是叙述者”这个问题,对叙述者概念是虚构叙事的区别性内在代理者,提出质疑。这个概念曾经误导性地包含了虚构性。本文探讨了热奈特对叙述者类型的划分。在比较故事外的同质叙述者与故事的叙述者之后,认为所有叙述者和人物都在叙事中得到同等程度的再现。文章接着考量了故事外异质叙述者的情况,不仅研究了全知叙述和外聚焦的含义,而且也反驳了如下观点,即在这类叙事中,需要区别性叙述者,以便展示虚构的信息是已知的而不是想象的。在讨论作者对虚构话语的责任时,文章参照了言语行为理论,表明传统的虚构作品“假装”模式并不完善,一个可接受言语行为阐释不会假定有一个叙述者的存在,因此叙述者要么以角色身份,要么以作者身份出现。文章还讨论了针对本论点几种可能的反对意见：不可靠性的含义,关于局部叙述者和隐性叙述者的观点,以及隐含作者问题等。最后,本文简要阐明了该观点之于从修辞性角度而非从再现性角度来理解虚构作品的意义。     

Planning Ahead? An Exploratory Study of South Korean Investigators’ Beliefs About Their Planning for Investigative Interviews of Suspects

Preparation and planning has been argued to be vitally important as to how effectively investigators undertake their interviews with suspects. Yet, it has also been found in previous research that investigators admit that they plan only occasionally, often attributing insufficient time as a reason for not undertaking the task. Employing a novel research paradigm that utilised theoretical foundations concerning planning, the present study explored empirically 95 South Korean financial crime investigators’ views, using a self-administered questionnaire. With the use of second-generation statistical modelling, an understanding was developed of the relative relationships between various concepts (which had themselves emerged from an established theoretical framework of planning that had been further extended to accommodate the context of the present study). The study found that perceived time pressures actually showed a very low association with interview planning. Rather, investigators’ self-belief as to their own capability alongside workplace culture was each found to have stronger associations with investigators’ intentions to plan for their interviews. As such, we argue that there should be more focus on improving occupational culture relating to interview planning, while developing training programs that identify, evaluate, and enhance investigators’ planning skills. Implications for practice are therefore discussed.     

Massively parallel sequencing and the emergence of forensic genomics: Defining the policy and legal issues for law enforcement

Use of DNA in forensic science will be significantly influenced by new technology in coming years. Massively parallel sequencing and forensic genomics will hasten the broadening of forensic DNA analysis beyond short tandem repeats for identity towards a wider array of genetic markers, in applications as diverse as predictive phenotyping, ancestry assignment, and full mitochondrial genome analysis. With these new applications come a range of legal and policy implications, as forensic science touches on areas as diverse as ‘big data’, privacy and protected health information. Although these applications have the potential to make a more immediate and decisive forensic intelligence contribution to criminal investigations, they raise policy issues that will require detailed consideration if this potential is to be realised. The purpose of this paper is to identify the scope of the issues that will confront forensic and user communities.     

A decade of child-initiated family violence: comparative analysis of child--parent violence and parricide examining offender, victim, and event characteristics in a national sample of reported incidents, 1995-2005

This article examines 11 years (1995-2005) of National Incident Based Reporting System data comparing victim, offender, and incident characteristics for two types of child-initiated family violence: child-parent violence (CPV) and parricide. The objective is to better understand the victim-offender relationship for CPV and parricide and to highlight distinguishing features between the two offenses. This work extends the research and addresses shortcomings in the extant literature. Data analysis consists of chi-square tests and logistic regression. Findings suggest that CPV and parricide are distinct and unique crimes. In short, parricide offenders and victims are both older than CPV offenders and victims, with CPV offenders more likely to be female, more likely to be African American, and less likely to use a weapon than parricide offenders. The study calls for future research and exploration of preliminary support for a family violence escalation hypothesis.     

Preventing youth suicide: issues for law enforcement personnel

Suicide is a leading cause of death for adolescents. A number of problem behaviors associated with youth suicide fall into the purview of law enforcement personnel, and they are therefore in a position to detect risk and prevent suicidal behaviors. Eight hundred one youth identified as having school difficulty, a group at increased risk for both suicide and legal problems, participated in a paper and pencil survey followed by an interview focusing on suicide risk and protective factors. Linear regression was used to examine the ability of factors within each risk and protective factor dimension to predict current suicide risk. The study goal was to determine the most relevant factors influencing suicide risk in each domain examined. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for assessment and policy for law enforcement personnel.     

Population data from the New South Wales Aboriginal Australian sub-population for the profiler plus autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci

It is a requirement that forensic DNA profiling evidence be accompanied by an estimation of its weight, in order that the court can assign an appropriate probative value to it during legal proceedings. There are various models by which this estimation can be made, but each relies on approximations of the allele frequencies in the relevant population. This report provides the results of population genetic analyses at nine autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci for the Aboriginal Australian sub-population of New South Wales, Australia.     

Reintegration and localised conflict: security impacts beyond influencing spoilers

This article investigates the effectiveness of combatant reintegration through a case study of two security-oriented programmes held in Poso, Indonesia from 2007 to 2008. Each programme aimed to prevent further attacks by addressing perceived economic difficulties experienced by youths whose main skill was perpetrating violence. The effect of such reintegration programmes on potential spoilers has typically been conceptualised in terms of programme influences on former combatants themselves. But in a localised conflict context where many combatants may have held jobs while perpetrating violence, the paper finds that the clearest contribution to sustaining peace of reintegration programming was its effect on police capacity to manage security. Police increased their levels of contact with combatants through reintegration and other informal incentives, then leveraged this contact to gather information after security incidents and to detect potential security disturbances. This pattern of achieving security outcomes through police contact with perpetrators of violence owes its conceptual lineage to the counter-terrorism strategy of the Indonesian police. The case highlights the potential for greater exchange between the fields of combatant reintegration and counter-terrorism disengagement.