Assessment of post-mortem submersion interval using total aquatic decomposition scores of drowned human cadavers

Investigating drowning-related deaths remains a significant problem for forensic personnel all over the world. The previously published decomposition scoring method like the total aquatic decomposition (TAD) score promises to estimate the correct post-mortem submersion interval (PMSI) in aquatic habitats through the assessment and calculation of the decomposition rate and accumulated degree days (ADD). The current study comprised of 53 drowned death cases belonging to various districts of Haryana from May 2016 to August 2017. The regression and Pearson's correlation indicated a significant correlation between the TAD scores and the actual ADD (calculated through water temperatures) (r² = 0.917) and between the actual and the estimated ADDs (calculated through TAD scores used by Heaton et al. [21]) (r = 0.9585). The results indicated that the estimated ADD tends to over predict the PMSI compared to the actual ADD. It is further confirmed by paired t-test, which showed the mean of actual ADD (mean = 349) to be significantly lower than the mean of estimated ADD (mean = 663). Moreover, these methods will help forensic investigators and researchers formulate region-specific regression equations for PMSI estimation.     

Painful Pleasure: The Politics and Aesthetics of Psychosocial Trauma in Impunity

Abstract

Continuous trauma syndrome (CTS) is the foundation for the characters in the film Impunity. The aesthetic choices in the narrative structure are an exploration of the discursive nature of violence and trauma in contemporary South African society. The theorising of continuous stress trauma provides the necessary challenge to the more conventional understanding of post-traumatic stress syndrome and informs the underlying analysis of the film. This analysis is offered in an interlocutory manner with psychology theorist Garth Stevens who provides a hermeneutic reading of Impunity that draws directly from his own research and others in the field of psychology. The paper is offered as an examination of an artistic research, film practice. The practice itself constitutes a theoretical expression which connects the aesthetic and structural choices of the film with the disciplinary observations made by Stevens. It suggests two theoretical approaches from different disciplines brought in conversation with each other to inform the reading of Impunity as artistic expression. The paper puts at its centre the discursive approach to the study of violence and trauma to suggest how the film’s structure and its aesthetics may be connected to research in the field of psychology.     

Evaluation of operation swordfish: a near-repeat target-hardening strategy

Objectives

This paper reports an evaluation of a police-led target-hardening crime prevention strategy inspired by research concerned with space–time patterns of burglary.

Methods

A total of 46 neighbourhoods in the West Midlands (UK) were randomly allocated to treatment and control conditions. Within treatment areas, resources were delivered to recent burglary victims and their close neighbours. Resources included inexpensive target-hardening measures as well as the delivery of dedicated police advice. The evaluation consisted of both a resident survey and a statistical outcome analysis.

Results

Results suggested that residents in treatment groups were slightly more satisfied with the police and more likely to have been contacted by the police concerning burglaries. Although they had more awareness of burglary, their fear of crime was not heightened. Statistical analysis suggested a very modest positive effect of intervention on crime and rates of re-victimisation. In particular, a survival analysis revealed that homes in low-crime treatment areas were less likely to be re-victimised than were those in similar control areas. Effects were more evident in low- than high-crime areas.

Conclusions

Results suggest that a low-intensity target-hardening intervention which adopted a near-repeat victimisation targeting strategy had a modest positive effect on residential burglary without increasing residents’ fear of crime.

     

Organizational Resistance to Participatory Approaches in Public Agencies: An Analysis of Forest Department's Resistance to Community-Based Forest Management

The organizational resistance of public agencies to participatory approaches is analyzed by means of a case study involving the implementation of community-based forest management (CBFM) in India. Both exogenous and endogenous causes of resistance are identified, and a theoretical model proposed. The model consists of two dimensions of resistance to change (structural resistance and cultural resistance) and three categories of causal factors (organizational, personal, and environmental factors). The model is empirically tested using the perceptions of senior and middle management level members of the state Forest Departments (FDs) of four states in India, collected through a questionnaire survey. The empirical findings are used to suggest strengthening of public management theories on four aspects: the distinction between structural and cultural resistance; inclusion of extra-organizational processes; the distinction between individual and organizational learning; and the need to differentiate between the impacts of the legislative and executive wings on public agencies' organizational resistance. The results are used to suggest some specific measures to deal with the organizational inertia in public agencies.     

Information retrieval in systematic reviews: a case study of the crime prevention literature

Objectives

A defining feature of a systematic review is the data collection; the assembling of a meticulous, unbiased, and reproducible set of primary studies. This requires specialist skills to execute. The aim of this paper is to marshal tacit knowledge, gained through a systematic search of the crime prevention literature, to develop a ‘how-to guide’ for future evidence synthesists in allied fields.

Methods

Empirical results from a recent systematic search for evidence in crime prevention are supplied to illustrate key principles of information retrieval.

Results

Difficulties in operationalizing a systematic search are expounded and possible solutions discussed. Empirical results from optimizing the balance between sensitivity and precision with the criminological literature are presented. An estimation of database overlap for crime prevention studies is provided to guide other evidence synthesists in streamlining the search process.

Conclusions

A high-quality search will involve a substantial time investment in honing the research question, specifying the precise scope of the work, and trialing and testing of search tactics. Electronic databases are a lucrative source of eligible studies, but they have important limitations. The diversity of expression across the criminological literature needs to be captured by the use of many search terms—both natural language and controlled vocabulary—in database searches. Complementary search tactics should be employed to locate eligible studies without common vocabulary. Grey literature should be ardently pursued, for it has a central role in the crime prevention evidence base.

     

The Indian it Industry and Neoliberalism: the irony of a mythology

Over the past decade, literature on the development of the Indian it industry has proliferated. Yet, paradoxically, an understanding of the dynamics behind this process of ‘industrial catch-up’ has remained limited. This can in part be attributed to the ideological flavour of the majority of studies, supported by a conventional wisdom that has attempted to draw links between the 1991 liberalisation of the Indian economy and the emergence and growth of the sector. Such works have both misrepresented the state as an obstacle to growth and overlooked its interventionist, facilitating role which, contrary to neoliberal postures, has increased substantially from the 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this literature, taking as point of departure a more rounded empirical account, bringing out the integral role of the state in promoting and determining the character of the Indian it industry's development.