Turf wars: authority and responsibility for the investigation of mass graves

Mass graves are complex products of large-scale crimes. Such scenes pose four conceptual challenges to investigators and forensic experts: the individual victim, the crime, the setting, and the statistical. Exhumation and post-mortem examination of mortal remains with associated personal and forensic evidence require integrated management of core forensic personnel including investigators, archaeologists, anthropologists, odontologists and pathologists, among whom there is overlapping expertise. The key to avoiding competition and ill-will among experts is to recognize that all such experts should be enabled to make known how their expertise matches with the temporal and spatial boundaries of victim, crime and setting. In turn, they should be apprised of where they fit into the overall judicial process and their limits within the investigation. Consequently, each expert requires access to the factual background of the case, to the site and its contents throughout the investigation. Each forensic team member has a responsibility to influence the investigation--throughout its course when possible--to make findings within their areas of expertise, and to make these available to the rest of the team so as to contribute most meaningfully to the aims of the investigation, both forensic and humanitarian. The on-site crime scene manager has an overarching role to enable integrated access to the complete scene and its contents by each forensic expert team member. In other words, the forensic scientist is given access and the ability to influence the investigation while control of evidence from the site as to identity and criminal activity are maintained by the crime scene manager. This contribution is directed at both the crime scene manager and each forensic expert; it describes the essential spatial and temporal parameters of an expert's opinion so as to encourage cooperation, and discourage conflict, within the forensic team.     

Quantitative analysis of multiple illicit drugs in preserved oral fluid by solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

We present a validated method for the simultaneous analysis of basic drugs which comprises a sample clean-up step, using mixed-mode solid-phase extraction (SPE), followed by LC-MS/MS analysis. Deuterated analogues for all of the analytes of interest were used for quantitation. The applied HPLC gradient ensured the elution of all the drugs examined within 14 min and produced chromatographic peaks of acceptable symmetry. Selectivity of the method was achieved by a combination of retention time, and two precursor-product ion transitions for the non-deuterated analogues. Oral fluid was collected with the Intercept, a FDA approved sampling device that is used on a large scale in the US for workplace drug testing. However, this collection system contains some ingredients (stabilizers and preservatives) that can cause substantial interferences, e.g. ion suppression or enhancement during LC-MS/MS analysis, in the absence of suitable sample pre-treatment. The use of the SPE was demonstrated to be highly effective and led to significant decreases in the interferences. Extraction was found to be both reproducible and efficient with recoveries >76% for all of the analytes. Furthermore, the processed samples were demonstrated to be stable for 48 h, except for cocaine and benzoylecgonine, where a slight negative trend was observed, but did not compromise the quantitation. In all cases the method was linear over the range investigated (2-200 microg/L) with an excellent intra-assay and inter-assay precision (coefficients of variation <10% in most cases) for QC samples spiked at a concentration of 4, 12 and 100 microg/L. Limits of quantitation were estimated to be at 2 microg/L with limits of detection ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 microg/L, which meets the requirements of SAMHSA for oral fluid testing in the workplace. The method was subsequently applied to the analysis of Intercept samples collected at the roadside by the police, and to determine MDMA and MDA levels in oral fluid samples from a controlled study.     

Impulsivity in Juvenile Delinquency: Differences Among Early-Onset, Late-Onset, and Non-Offenders

The present research investigated differences in levels of impulsivity among early-onset, late-onset, and non-offending adolescents. 129 adolescents (114 males, 15 females), of whom 86 were institutionalised (M age=15.52 years) and 43 were regular school students (M age=15.40 years) participated. Each participant completed the Adapted Self-Report Delinquency Scale, Stroop Colour and Word Test, Time Perception task, Accuracy Game, Risk-Taking Game, and the Eysenck Impulsiveness Questionnaire. Results suggest that adolescents who display rapid cognitive tempo, poor mental inhibitory control, and high impulsivity are more likely to be early-onset offenders. Offender and non-offender groups showed significant differences on several measures of impulsivity, which may suggest that late-onset offenders acquire or exacerbate impulse-related problems through social mimicry of early-onset offender peers. Potentially important implications for our understanding of delinquency and the design and provision of prevention programs are highlighted.Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology at the School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She received her PhD in educational psychology from The University of Western Australia. Her major research interests include at-risk behaviours of children and adolescents, self-regulation and goal setting, and developmental trajectories of antisocial and aggressive behaviours School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane Q 4072 AustraliaDoctor of Clinical Psychology student within the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests include at-risk children and adolescents, mental health in adolescents and adults, cognitive-behavioural interventions, and self-regulationMaster of Philosophy student within the School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests include self-regulation, youth at-risk, Indigenous youth issues, and prevention and intervention approachesProfessor of Education and Head of the School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He received his PhD in educational psychology from the University of Alberta, Canada. His research interests include cognitive educational psychology, classroom-based instruction, strategy training, problem solving, and at-risk youthProfessor of Education and Director, Centre for Attention and Related Disorders at the Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia. He received his PhD in educational psychology from the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interests include attentional disorders, severe antisociality in children and adolescents, emotion regulation, complex information processing and cognitive processes of at-risk adolescents Graduate School of Education, The University of Western, AustraliaProfessor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom. He received his PhD in developmental psychology, specialising in cognitive and communicative development in childhood and adolescence from Cambridge University, UK. His research interests include developmental psychology, at-risk children and adolescents, and the impact of media on children’s behaviour     

Persuasion and Resistance: Race and the Death Penalty in America

Although there exists a large and well-documented "race gap" between whites and blacks in their support for the death penalty, we know relatively little about the nature of these differences and how the races respond to various arguments against the penalty. To explore such differences, we embedded an experiment in a national survey in which respondents are randomly assigned to one of several argument conditions. We find that African Americans are more responsive to argument frames that are both racial (i.e., the death penalty is unfair because most of the people who are executed are black) and nonracial (i.e., too many innocent people are being executed) than are whites, who are highly resistant to persuasion and, in the case of the racial argument, actually become more supportive of the death penalty upon learning that it discriminates against blacks. These interracial differences in response to the framing of arguments against the death penalty can be explained, in part, by the degree to which people attribute the causes of black criminality to either dispositional or systemic forces (i.e., the racial biases of the criminal justice system) .     

The merits of Neo-Downsian modeling of the alternative vote: A reply to Horowitz

In Professor Horowitz’s rejoinders (2004, 2006) to Fraenkel and Grofman (2004, 2006a), he mischaracterizes our formal results, retreats from previous claims about the conditions for the alternative vote electoral system to generate centripetal outcomes, renders explicit his dubious assumptions about voter behavior in divided societies, and greatly exaggerates the global evidence in support of pro-moderation outcomes under the alternative vote. Here we respond to Horowitz's (2004), criticism in this journal of the formal model of Fraenkel and Grofman (2004) and to the broader defense in Horowitz (2006) of majoritarian vote pooling arrangements as means of mitigating ethnic conflict in deeply divided societies.     

Agenda Setting and the Blogosphere: An Analysis of the Relationship between Mainstream Media and Political Blogs

This paper asks: what is the relationship between the mainstream media and blog agendas? To be more precise, this paper tracks media coverage and blog discussion of 35 issues during the 2004 presidential campaign to test the hypothesis that the mainstream media agenda exerts a substantial impact on the blog agenda against the increasingly popular hypothesis that the blog agenda exerts a strong influence on the mainstream media agenda. Using a computer‐assisted, quantitative content analysis of ten randomly selected A‐list political blogs and 50 randomly selected, less popular political blogs over the five‐month period from July 1 to November 30, 2004, the author finds that on the vast majority of issues there was a complex, bidirectional relationship between mainstream media coverage and blog discussion rather than a unidirectional media or blog agenda‐setting effect.     

Gender Differences in Peer and Parental Influences: Body Image Disturbance,Self-Worth,and Psychological Functioning in Preadolescent Children

The connections between body image disturbance and psychological functioning have been well established in samples of older adolescent girls and young women. Little is known, however, about body image in younger children. In particular, little is known about possible gender differences in preadolescent children. The current study explored self-reported body image disturbance and psychological functioning in relation to peer and parental influences in 141 elementary school-aged girls and boys aged 8–11. Results suggest that girls are more concerned about dieting and are more preoccupied with their weight than are boys. Girls also reported a greater drive for thinness and a higher level of family history of eating concerns than did boys. Correlations suggested that girls' experiences of body image concerns (body dissatisfaction, bulimia, and drive for thinness) were related to a number of factors (such as family history of eating concerns, peer influences, teasing, depression, and global self-worth) whereas boys' experiences of body image concerns were related to fewer factors. On the basis of these findings, the assessment and treatment of body image concerns in preadolescent children (especially girls) are of great importance. Implications for intervention and prevention programs are discussed.     

Privatizing Federal Credit Programs: Why Sallie Mae?

The federal government subsidizes lending to a number of borrowers—notably students, farmers, and homeowners. Government‐sponsored enterprises issue the securities that channel capital to many of these privileged borrowers. One of the largest of these enterprises, the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae), is scheduled to be wholly privatized by September 30, 2008. What explains the privatization of this enterprise? To identify distinctive features of Sallie Mae that permitted or abetted privatization, we investigate the structure, related capital market innovations, and growth of three government‐sponsored enterprises. We conclude that a unique structural feature of Sallie Mae may explain the pace of privatization. The core asset of Sallie Mae, the student loan, is guaranteed and subsidized by the government. The case of Sallie Mae is an instructive yet poorly understood example of how the federal government can leverage private‐sector assets and incentives to achieve public policy missions.