The Nature and Extent of Conservation Policing: Law Enforcement Generalists or Conservation Specialists?

Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natural resource protection. Traditional conceptions of fish and wildlife police associate these officers almost entirely with fishing and hunting activities. The relative scarcity of academic literature regarding fish and wildlife police agencies results in a lack of understanding about their role in the criminal justice system in general. The current study seeks to contribute to the limited existing literature by examining conservation policing in Florida, a state not yet studied in this context, by analyzing some 2,910 field events. Findings indicate that officers devote a considerable portion of their attention to traditional law enforcement activities in addition to the type of enforcement customarily associated with fish and wildlife law enforcement.     

Sense-making and secondary victimization among unsolved homicide co-victims

Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contributes to identity reconstruction. This qualitative study examines how perceived communication with the criminal justice system can inhibit sense-making among unsolved homicide co-victims. One-time intensive interviews were conducted with 37 co-victims about their interactions with police and prosecutors. A grounded theory approach suggest that co-victims held negative views of the police and prosecutors because they perceived them as inhibiting their ability to adequately locate information needed to understand the crime and achieve justice. Results also suggest that race and ethnicity play a role in reducing sense-making because constructions of meaning were based on perceptions of discrimination. In the end, the intense desire for information, resolution, and justice led several co-victims to investigate their loved one's murder. Policies that law enforcement should adopt to promote better communication with co-victims and facilitate sense-making are examined.     

Low-Hanging Fruit: Leadership,Perceived Prosocial Impact,and Employee Motivation

Transformational leadership affects public service motivation, but little is known about the context dependency of this association. If citizen contact and, therefore, relative perceived impacts on others and society differ, the association between transformational leadership and motivation is also expected to differ. Analyzing public employees and their leaders from four organizational contexts, we find that employees have relatively higher perceived impact on others and are more user-oriented in contexts with high citizen contact. The association between transformational leadership and employee motivation also depends on employees’ perceived impact, implying that some fruit hangs lower than other when leaders try to increase employee motivation.     

Does contact with the justice system deter or promote future delinquency? Results from a longitudinal study of British adolescent twins

What impact does formal punishment have on antisocial conduct—does it deter or promote it? The findings from a long line of research on the labeling tradition indicate formal punishments have the opposite-of-intended consequence of promoting future misbehavior. In another body of work, the results show support for deterrence-based hypotheses that punishment deters future misbehavior. So, which is it? We draw on a nationally representative sample of British adolescent twins from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study to perform a robust test of the deterrence versus labeling question. We leverage a powerful research design in which twins can serve as the counterfactual for their co-twin, thereby ruling out many sources of confounding that have likely impacted prior studies. The pattern of findings provides support for labeling theory, showing that contact with the justice system—through spending a night in jail/prison, being issued an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO), or having an official record—promotes delinquency. We conclude by discussing the impact these findings may have on criminologists’ and practitioners’ perspective on the role of the juvenile justice system in society.     

Stature Estimation from Postmortem CT Femoral Maximum Length in Contemporary Danish Population

Stature estimation methods for Danish adult population have generally relied on Trotter and Gleser’s and Boldsen’s regression equations that are based on the skeletal remains of recent war dead American Whites, Terry Skeletal Collection, and Danish archaeological medieval skeletal materials, respectively. These equations are probably not suitable for stature estimation in contemporary Danish forensic cases. Furthermore, because postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) is now routinely performed at Danish forensic departments, equations based on PMCT, rather than measurements of defleshed bones, are needed. The aim of this study was to develop new equations for adult stature estimation based on PMCT femoral measurement. Maximum femoral length was measured on the PMCT images of 78 individuals (41 males and 37 females) aged 23–45 years. The measurement accuracy was tested on dry bones, and all the measurements were included in the inter- and intra-observer analyses. Both analyses results demonstrated the reliability of the method and data. Comparison between the living stature of the individuals and the estimates based on the equations by Trotter and Gleser and Boldsen demonstrated the unreliability of the previous equations to some extent. New regression equations were then developed and validated on a different sample of 18 Danish forensic cases. Comparisons of all the equations indicated that both the sets of previous equations underestimated the stature in the new validation dataset. The new equations developed in this study provide a reliable alternative for stature estimation in modern Danish forensic cases.     

QUESTIONING THE GOAL OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

The prominent call to legalise same-sex marriage in Australia raises questions concerning whether its achievement will result in amplified societal acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and on what grounds this acceptance will take place. Same-sex marriage may not challenge heteronormative and patriarchal features typically associated with marriage, and may serve to reinforce a hierarchy that promotes traditional marriage as the ideal relationship structure. This may result in only assimilationist acceptance of LGBT people. However, the consequence of inclusion to marriage ought to reflect social acceptance of LGBTs as people worthy of equal treatment in dignity and in rights, regardless of perceived differences or similarities to a supposed majority standard. This article argues that justice would be best served by introducing and promoting a variety of State-sanctioned unions whilst simultaneously introducing same-sex marriage. This ‘pluralisation strategy’ would increase awareness and legitimacy of other relationship-recognition options, promoting respectful acceptance of LGBT and heterosexual people alike.     

The Dynamic Prediction of Criminal Recidivism: A Three-wave Prospective Study

A three-wave, prospective panel design was used to assess the extent to which static and dynamic risk factors could predict criminal recidivism in a sample of 136 adult male offenders released from Canadian federal prisons. Static measures were assessed only once, prior to release while dynamic measures were assessed on three separate occasions: pre-release, 1 month, and 3 months post-release. Recidivism was coded during an average of 10.2-month follow-up period (SD = 19.2). A series of Cox regression survival analyses with time-dependent covariates and Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to assess predictive validity. Although the combined static and time-dependent dynamic model (AUC = .89, CI = .81–.93) significantly (p < .01) outperformed the pure static model (AUC = .81, CI = .73–.87) the confidence intervals did overlap to some extent. Implications for dynamic risk assessment and management are discussed.

Retrospectives and Prospectives on Hurricane Katrina: Five Years and Counting

New Orleans’ recovery from the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 reflects a long, complex, contentious process that still is not complete. In this article, the authors explore the key factors that have supported and hindered recovery so far. Initial conditions within the city, the web of policy demands, as well as recent changes in law and procedures for the region are explored using a new model that may be applicable to other severe disasters. Any recovery, the authors conclude, must be anchored within a local context, but only with necessary administrative backing from the wider region and society. Recovery from disaster offers a rare opportunity to rebuild damaged communities into more resilient ones when energy and investment are immediately channeled into the stricken region and focused in a constructive redesign that acknowledges environmental risk. The recovery process then shifts to mitigation and reduction of risk. Hence, cities will be better prepared for the next extreme event, which will surely come.