Population data from sub-populations of the Northern Territory of Australia for 15 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 the evidence 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. It is also important to assess relevant population genetic features of the available data. This report provides allele frequencies and estimates of common population genetic parameters for the major sub-populations of the Northern Territory of Australia genotyped at 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci.     

The Indiana Toll Road Lease as an Intergenerational Cash Transfer

In a recent incarnation of the public–private partnership, state or city governments agree to lease revenue‐producing assets to a private operator for a lengthy period, up to 99 years. The government receives an up‐front payment, allowing it to collect many years of future revenue at once. This article evaluates the distributional consequences across time of one asset lease, the Indiana Toll Road. The analysis finds that the majority of benefits, in the form of road construction, are enjoyed in the early part of the lease, while the bulk of the costs fall late in the lease, raising important questions about intergenerational fairness.     

Economic voting in Britain, 1857–1914

Despite limited government control over the pre-1914 economy, opposition politicians were enthusiastic in blaming bad economic news on the incumbent. In a study of 458 by-elections between 1857 and 1914, we find that voters typically gave new governments a 'honeymoon' but thereafter held them responsible for high unemployment and high prices. Each 1% rise in the price level, on average, brought about a 0.21% swing against the government of the day, while each one-point rise in the percentage unemployed had double this effect. However, when we split the electorate into borough and county constituencies, economic voting appears to be confined to the former.     

Testing the power of arguments in referendums: A Bradley–Terry approach

How can we determine which arguments in a referendum are most persuasive? We show that the Bradley–Terry model has several features that make it well-suited to this task, and thus preferable to other, more conventional approaches. Using a survey experiment conducted during an electoral reform referendum in Ontario, Canada in October 2007, we demonstrate how unstructured and structured Bradley–Terry models can be straightforwardly fitted and interpreted. In doing so, we gain insight into the factors which determine support for electoral reform. We identify a status quo bias and find that power varies with mention of fairness, local control over candidate selection, and the role of political parties. We conclude by discussing the limits, extensions and further applications of such models in electoral studies and political science more broadly.     

Automated Texture Recognition of Quartz Sand Grains for Forensic Applications*

Quartz sand surface texture analysis has been automated for the first time for forensic application. The derived Basic Image Features (BIFs) provide computer-generated texture recognition from preexisting data sets. The technique was applied to two distinct classification problems; first, the ability of the system to discriminate between (quartz) sand grains with upturned plate features (indicative of eolian, global sand sea environments) and grains that do not exhibit these features. A success rate of grain classification of 98.8% was achieved. Second, to test the ability of the computer recognition system to identify specific energy levels of formation of the upturned plate surface texture features. Such recognition ability has to date been beyond manual geological interpretation. The discrimination performance was enhanced to an exact classification success rate of 81%. The enhanced potential for routine forensic investigation of the provenance of common quartz sand is indicated.     

An investigation into the differentiating characteristics between car key burglars and regular burglars

Car key burglary has recently become the focus of empirical investigation as offenders, no longer able to steal vehicles without first obtaining their keys, resort to "burgling" target properties. Research surrounding the modus operandi of these offenses is beginning to emerge; however, little attention has been paid to investigating the characteristics of car key burglary offenders. Challenging the assumption that car key burglary offenses are perpetrated by regular burglars, this study aims to differentiate between offenders. Logistic regression analysis of 110 car key and 110 regular burglary offenders revealed that car key burglars are more likely to have previous vehicle theft convictions and are also more likely to be detected on information supplied to the police than regular burglars. Regular burglars are more likely to have previous shoplifting convictions. It was concluded that car key burglars are a distinct sample of offenders and the implications of these findings are discussed.     

Race group differences in prison victimization experiences

Purpose

To assess differences in victimization risk between African American and white, non-Latino inmates, and to estimate race group differences in the correlates of victimization.

Methods

Random samples totaling 2,403 African Americans and 3,150 whites were drawn from all state prisons in Ohio and Kentucky and all private prisons in Ohio (n = 46). Race-specific bi-level models of physical assaults and property thefts were estimated. Differences between race-specific models in the magnitude of regression coefficients for the same predictors and outcomes were compared.

Results

The odds of victimization by physical assault and by theft were significantly higher among whites compared to African Americans. Race group differences in the magnitude of several inmate level effects (e.g., age, sex, education, family status, officer “legitimacy”, custody score, visitation) were also significant, yet facility effects were similar for both groups.

Conclusions

Assessing differences in the victimization experiences of African American and white inmates is important for developing effective crime prevention strategies in prison. We examined the most comprehensive models of inmate victimization (including inmate socio-demographics, activities during confinement, perceptions of officers, facility characteristics, and officer perceptions of rule enforcement) for one of the largest samples of prisons to date.     

Not by accident: An analytical approach to traffic crash harm reduction

Purpose

This study examines whether a problem-oriented approach used by police in Cincinnati, Ohio called the Crash Analysis Reduction Strategy (CARS) corresponded with a change in the number of traffic crashes that resulted in injuries after implementation onset. Under the CARS model, police developed tactics that focused on targeting high-risk driving behaviors, impaired drivers, and crash hotspot locations within the city.

Methods

Using a two-phase strategy we first assess local impact by examining injury-related traffic crash patterns at targeted locations. Second, we examine whether traffic crashes that resulted in injuries in Cincinnati significantly diverged relative to similar outcomes across a number of comparison sites.

Results

Difference-in-difference negative binomial regression analyses indicates that traffic crashes were significantly lower in Cincinnati - down roughly 5.7% to 10.3% in the post-intervention period - when contrasted with comparison sites.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that comprehensive problem solving approaches can significantly reduce the risk of life changing events such as automobile crashes that result in injuries beyond traditional policing efforts that explicitly focus on crime and violence.     

Children of the American Prison Generation: Student and School Spillover Effects of Incarcerating Mothers

Formal equality and judicial neutrality can lead to substantive inequality for women and children, with social costs that extend beyond individuals and families and spill over into the larger social settings in which they are located. We consider the uniquely damaging effects of an “equality with a vengeance” (Chesney‐Lind & Pollack 1995) that resulted from “tough on crime” policies and the 1980s federal and state sentencing guidelines that led to the incarceration of more women and mothers. We argue that legal equality norms of the kind embedded in the enforcement of sentencing guidelines can mask and punish differences in gendered role expectations. Paradoxically, although fathers are incarcerated in much greater numbers than are mothers, the effect threshold is lower and the scale of effect on educational outcomes tends to be greater for maternal incarceration. We demonstrate both student‐ and school‐level effects of maternal incarceration: the damaging effects not only affect the children of imprisoned mothers but also spill over to children of nonincarcerated mothers in schools with elevated levels of maternal incarceration. We find a 15 percent reduction in college graduation rates in schools where as few as 10 percent of other students' mothers are incarcerated. The effects for imprisoned fathers are also notable, especially at the school level. Schools with higher father incarceration rates (25 percent) have college graduation rates as much as 50 percent lower than those of other schools. The effects of imprisoned mothers are particularly notable at the student level (i.e., with few children of imprisoned mothers graduating from college), while maternal imprisonment effects are found at both student and school levels across the three measured outcomes. We demonstrate these effects in a large, nationally representative longitudinal study of American children from the 1990s prison generation who were tracked into early adulthood.     

Expert Evidence,Judicial Reasoning,and the Family Courts Information Pilot

The Family Courts Information Pilot took a modest step towards open justice in Children Act cases by publishing 161 judgments of the County Courts and Family Proceedings Courts. Combining socio‐legal and philosophical analysis on lines inspired by the work of Habermas, this article examines the epistemology of expert testimony implicit in the judgments. What emerges is a form of reasoning based on ‘inference to the best explanation’: judges seek to show that the best explanation for experts saying what they do is that they have good reasons for their opinions. While this approach is not blindly deferential, it has serious limitations in cases where the only experts are local authority social workers and the guardian, and an awareness of these limitations is one reason for the courts' willingness to allow other experts to be instructed. The article also criticizes the analysis of the courts’ use of experts by the recent Family Justice Review.