Provider medicaid fraud: A note on white-coat crime

To date, relatively few empirical studies have been conducted of provider medicaid fraud or, more generally, of “white-coat crime”--offenses by health professionals. Based on data accumulated by a quality control unit on the duplicate billings for a single service by New York State providers, the present research attempts to help fill this void by assessing the prevalence of medicaid fraud. Two conclusions are suggested by the data. First, unlike other realms of upperworld criminality, provider fraud does not appear to be pervasive. Second, provider occupations with more of a business orientation appear to have a greater involvement in fraudulent activities than groups that are more fully professionalized.     

Racial attitudes and belief in redeemability: Most Whites believe justice-involved Black people can change

Public belief in redeemability reduces punitiveness and increases support for policy measures such as rehabilitation, expungement, and housing and employment opportunities. Although racial attitudes are known to influence a wide range of criminal justice policy opinions, their effects on beliefs about redeemability and condemnation have not been fully explored. Using data from a 2019 YouGov survey of a national sample of White U.S. adults (N = 766), the current study estimates the effects of three distinct racial attitudes—racial resentment, racial sympathy, and White nationalism—on three measures of belief in redeemability: 1) a race-neutral measure, 2) a measure of belief in redeemability of Black offenders, and 3) a measure of condemnation of Black offenders. The results indicate that belief in redeemability is high—for offenders in general and for Black offenders. These findings are supported by a second 2022 YouGov survey of White U.S. adults (N = 1,505). Racial sympathy and White nationalism have significant effects across all three outcomes, with the positive effect of White nationalism on condemnation of Black offenders being the largest across the three models. These findings suggest that although most Whites agree that formerly incarcerated people are redeemable, racial attitudes influence these beliefs, especially for Black offenders.     

Can General Strain Theory Help Us Understand Violent Behaviors Among People with Mental Illnesses?

Recent work suggests that violence among people with mental illnesses is not simply due to the symptoms and comorbidities that define mental illness. We further this work by examining the extent to which strains or stressors explain the link between mental illness and violence. Specifically, we apply general strain theory (GST) to a longitudinal sample of adults with mental illnesses to investigate the lagged effects on violence of several strain measures, while controlling for mental illness symptoms, substance abuse, past violence, and other key variables. Parental drug abuse from childhood and stressful life events across the life course predict violence in adulthood. In a prospective model, relationship strain from an earlier time period significantly predicts changes in later self-reported violence. The results shed light on the ability of criminological frameworks to explain violence among people with mental illnesses.     

Virtual anthropology and forensic identification: report of one case

A charred body was found after a fire in a house in a mountainous region of France. The body was severely burned and was not formally identified as the owner of the house. Autopsy was carried out to seek vital reactions and/or traumatic lesions and to identify the corpse. Before bone preparation and after autopsy, multislice computed tomography (MSCT) was performed in order to assess the potential of the technique for radiological anthropological bone identification. The challenge was to determine as accurately as possible the sex, age, ante-mortem stature and ethnic of the victim using both MSCT and conventional bone study. The results of the two techniques were compared. MSCT provided an answer to all the questions, whereas bone study did not. To the best of our knowledge, this case is the first to use MSCT for forensic anthropological study and illustrates the potential contribution of this technique in this field.     

The Battlefield Behind Bars: How Mental Disorder and Suicidal Behavior Impacts the Prison Experience for Veterans

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Military veteran status has been associated with a variety of criminal justice outcomes as well as higher rates of mental illness and suicide when compared to...     

A reflection on the priorities of a data protection authority

Eric Howe, the first Data Protection Registrar, was setting up his Office about the same time as the first appearance in 1985 of this journal, whose distinguished editor Professor Saxby is now retiring. That is this author's excuse for looking back to the early years of United Kingdom data protection and reflecting on what a data protection authority is actually for. As this article hopes to make clear, using the early United Kingdom experience as an example, Data Protection Authorities are faced with an unclear role running the risk of creating false expectations among the general public. The author concludes that representations to government are often minimally effective and that with the limited resources available a DPA should give priority to encouraging compliance by data controllers and assisting individuals with a complaints resolution service.