Effects of Decomposition on Gunshot Wound Characteristics: Under Moderate Temperatures with Insect Activity

Abstract:  Previous studies document characteristics of gunshot wounds shortly after they were inflicted. This study was conducted to determine if the early stages of decomposition obscure or alter the physical surface characteristics of gunshot wounds, thereby affecting the quantity and quality of information retrievable from such evidence. The study was conducted in August and September, 2005 in Nova Scotia, Canada in forested and exposed environments. Recently killed pigs were used as research models and were shot six times each at three different ranges (contact, 2.5 cm, and 1.5 m). Under these test conditions, the gunshot wounds maintained the characteristics unique to each gunshot range and changes that occurred during decomposition were not critical to the interpretation of the evidence. It was concluded that changes due to decomposition under the conditions tested would not affect the collection and interpretation of gunshot wound evidence until the skin was degraded in the late active or advanced decay stage of decomposition.     

Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Information Processing: Multiple Risk-Factor Models for Understanding Aggressive Behavior in Antisocial Youth

This study examined multiple risk factor models of links among callous-unemotional traits, aggression beliefs, social information processing, impulsivity, and aggressive behavior in a sample of 150 antisocial adolescents. Consistent with past research, results indicated that beliefs legitimizing aggression predicted social information processing biases and that social information processing biases mediated the effect of beliefs on aggressive behavior. Callous-unemotional traits accounted for unique variance in aggression above and beyond effects of more established risk factors of early onset of antisocial behavior, social information processing, and impulsivity. These findings add to recent research showing that callous-unemotional traits are a unique risk factor associated with aggression and criminal offending and suggest that targeting both affective and cognitive vulnerabilities may enhance clinical intervention with antisocial youth.     

Pathways to Depressive Symptoms among Former Inmates

Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the association between incarceration and depressive symptoms among a sample of 13,131 young adults. We find that a history of incarceration is associated with a higher expected rate of depressive symptoms and that this relationship operates most strongly through material hardship. We find no differences in the main effect of incarceration across groups, but we find that the role of certain mediating variables may vary, with marital and employment status being a stronger mediator for males than females, and marriage being a stronger mediator for whites compared to blacks and Hispanics. Our results suggest that incarceration constitutes a potent stressor, but that the pathways to depressive symptoms may differ.     

An Analysis of Forensically Important Insects Associated with Human Remains in Indiana,U.S.A.*

Research documenting insect colonization of human remains is limited in North America, and currently nonexistent for the American Midwest. Such research is essential for forensic entomologists to identify species of research interest in a region. In this study, we collected insects from human remains in 24 cases across Indiana from June 2016 through September 2018. We analyzed species composition across scene type and season. Eight species of blow flies were collected as larvae from human remains, with Phormia regina and Lucilia sericata as the two predominant colonizers. Phormia regina was the most numerous species collected from outdoor scenes (73.6% of total collections) while L. sericata was the most numerous from the indoor scenes (60.4% of total collections). With scene types pooled, Calliphora vicina and Cochliomya macellaria were the predominant species in the fall (55.6% and 42.2%, respectively); P. regina was the dominant colonizer in the spring (68.6%); and P. regina and L. sericata were the predominant colonizers (46.5% and 44.4%, respectively) in the summer. In addition to these findings, we confirmed the first record of Lucilia cuprina colonizing human remains in Indiana having collected this species from three cases. A single adult Chrysomya megacephala was collected from an indoor scene in southern Indiana, which represents its second collection in the state. Beetles belonging to the families Staphylinidae, Silphidae, Histeridae, Cleridae, Trogidae, Dermestdae, and Nitidulidae were also collected from two outdoor scenes. This study provides important baseline data for forensic entomologists in Indiana, as well as surrounding states with similar environments.     

Women’s Radicalization to Religious Terrorism: An Examination of ISIS Cases in the United States

Abstract

American women joining Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have increased and their roles evolved beyond auxiliary and domestic provisions, demonstrating both agency and tenacity for pursuing, recruiting, supporting, and spreading extreme Islamist ideals and terrorism. Social learning theory was applied to information gained from open-source court cases as a way of examining how thirty-one?U.S. women acquired, maintained, and acted pursuant to radicalization to religious terrorism for ISIS. Internet functionalities, reasons, roles, and support types for radicalization and illegal activities for ISIS were examined using self-, dyad-, and group-classifications. A gendered interventive program based on social learning theory’s extinguishing of radicalized ideology and behavior was outlined.     

Refugees Who Have Experienced Extreme Cruelty: A Qualitative Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing after Being Granted Leave to Remain in the UK

Abstract

This study explores how vulnerable refugees’ experiences in the first year after being granted leave to remain in the UK impact on mental health and wellbeing. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with refugee survivors of extreme cruelty. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis with a narrative influence. Reported challenges included requirements to organize housing, finances and welfare benefits rapidly. Most respondents reported low mood, worry, exacerbated PTSD symptoms, physical ailments and isolation, but valued stable housing, meaningful activities, emotional support and service provider sensitivity in managing this transition. Policy and service recommendations are made, to assist integration and improve wellbeing.     

Making Order Out of Trouble: Jurisdictional Politics in the Spanish Colonial Borderlands

Jurisdictional fluidity was a central feature of early modem Iberian law, and jurisdictional tensions were exacerbated by overseas conquest and colonization. Contests over the legal status of conquered peoples featured both jurisdictional jockeying among colonial factions and widespread preoccupation with the symbols and rituals marking cultural and legal difference. This article examines the dynamics of jurisdictional politics in seventeenth-century New Mexico, where church and state officials carried on a bitter feud over legal authority during most of the century. Rather than viewing this contest as either transparently political or a mask for deeper processes defining hegemony, the article argues that seemingly dry legal distinctions were the focus of passionate and persistent struggle precisely because they merged institutional and cultural concerns of missionaries, settler elites, and Indians. The analysis leads to broader, more speculative claims about the role of jurisdictional fluidity in creating an "orderly disorder" that spanned diverse regions within Spanish America and, more broadly, across colonial regimes in the early modern world.     

U.S. Child Safety Seat Laws: Are they Effective,and Who Complies?

This paper assesses the effectiveness of child safety seat laws in the United States. Over the past 35 years, these laws have steadily increased mandatory child safety seat restraint ages. We exploit state‐year level variation in the age until which children are required to ride in child safety seats to estimate triple difference models using Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data from 1975 to 2011. Our findings show that increasing the age thresholds is effective in increasing the actual age of children in safety seats. Across the child‐age distribution, restraint rates increase by between 10 and 30 percentage points or by between 50 and 170 percent, in the long run. We also estimate the impact of the child safety seat laws on the likelihood that a child dies in a fatal accident. We find that the laws saved up to 39 children per year. Finally, we find that the laws primarily induce compliant parents to switch from traditional seatbelt use to child safety seat use, with only small effects among parents who do not restrain their children.