Evaluation and treatment of insanity acquittees in the community

This paper describes the monitored outpatient treatment program for Psychiatry Security Review Board (PSRB) clients in the largest single community treatment agency in the Oregon system. We describe 161 persons referred to this agency for evaluation and treatment. Ninety-one PSRB clients received treatment and of this group 51% had their conditional release revoked by the PSRB. The most frequent cause of revocation was noncompliance with treatment. There were only 11 crimes committed during the study period, four of which were in the felony range. The majority of PSRB clients are chronically mentally ill persons. We discuss both the treatment approach and our results in light of a recently published research agenda for insanity acquittees.     

Measuring the thickness of facial soft tissues using nuclear magnetic resonance tomography for the purpose of identification

Nuclear spin tomography since its beginnings in the seventies has steadily gained in importance as a method of examination in medical diagnostics as it produces a picture. In the field of forensic medicine the NMR technique as used for anatomic-anthropologic issues attempting to identify skulls this is a valuable supplement to an extension of the existing methods of investigation. The results of a measurement of the thickness of soft facial tissue in a live test person is shown as compared to measures obtained by sonography.     

Detection of cocaine metabolite in perspiration stain, menstrual bloodstain, and hair

Low nanogram and picogram quantities of cocaine metabolite equivalents were detected in extracts from perspiration stains, menstrual bloodstains, and hair using radioimmunoassay. The theory of drug inclusion in hair and its significance are discussed.     

Blood droplet dynamics--I

The interpretation of bloodstain patterns at crime scenes has received increased attention in recent years. Important to an understanding of this is knowledge of the fundamentals of blood droplet formation and impact dynamics. A review of the literature reveals that a considerable amount of work has been done with aqueous drop dynamics. Workers in the forensic science area seem to have been unaware of this. In addition, some of the most important and comprehensive early work with blood droplet dynamics seems to have been forgotten. It is not cited in more recent publications dealing with bloodstain pattern interpretation. This literature is reviewed and discussed as well. The present study presents results of experiments with blood droplet dynamics and high-speed photographs of blood droplet impacts on stationary target surfaces. Some longstanding misconceptions of importance to forensic scientists engaged in crime scene reconstruction are discussed.     

The Economics of Cruel and Unusual Punishment

It has sometimes been argued that one way to reduce the costs of law enforcement would be to reduce the probability of detection and conviction (hence saving those costs), while at the same time increasing the size of the punishment. Following this strategy would keep the expected costs (to a risk neutral criminal) of committing a crime constant and hence keep the deterrence level constant; it would have the benefit, though, of reducing costs to the rest of society.There are some well-known objections to such a policy. One such objection deals with marginal deterrence: A convicted murderer serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in a jurisdiction which bans capital punishment has nothing to lose from killing a prison guard—there is no marginal deterrence to the commission of a more serious crime or any additional crime for that matter. In fact, so long as there remains any upper limit to the amount of punishment that can be inflicted upon a convicted criminal, the only ways to create some type of marginal deterrence are to reduce the punishments for less serious crimes, which will either reduce the deterrence of those less serious crimes, or alternatively to require the use of more of society's scarce resources to increase the probabilities of apprehension and conviction.It is possible to reduce this marginal deterrence problem, however, by practicing cruel and unusual punishment on perpetrators of serious crimes, i.e. by raising the limits of allowable punishment. Anecdotal evidence suggests this practice is followed unofficially with child molesters and killers of prison guards and hence provides some additional deterrence against these crimes.Despite the theoretical validity of this argument, our society has chosen to impose a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, over time we seem to have lowered the threshold of what is considered cruel and unusual. Following Dr. Pangloss, the concluding section of the paper examines why rational maximizers would choose to give up this additional potential deterrence. The explanations depend upon an assumed positive income elasticity of demand for humanitarianism or for insurance against the costs of punishing the innocent. While there are some reasons to accept the humanitarianism argument, the insurance argument seems more persuasive.     

Personal identification by radiographic comparison of vascular groove patterns of the calvarium

A case of forensic identification utilizing the vascular grooves within the skull is presented. The case is unique in that the antemortem radiographs were from childhood, rendering useless the more standard points of comparison. Calvarial vascular grooves represent unique points of comparison when the only available premortem radiographs were obtained during childhood, especially when one is attempting to identify children (living or dead).     

Development strategy and regime type: Why doesn’t democracy matter?

The development strategy literature argues that autonomous bureaucrats in authoritarian Asian NICs followed successful export-led growth strategies while Latin American policymakers were pressured by mobilized sectors to maintain doomed import substitution industrialization. What is more, this ISI strategy made the consolidation of democracy impossible. However, my research on Venezuela indicates that ISI and democracy can be made compatible—the democratic state was penetrated by business and labor, those avenues for penetration were protected from electoral politics, and the relative participation of business and labor remained fluid. How are recently established democracies being made compatible with a new market-oriented development strategy? Evidence from East Asia and Latin America indicates that the transition to market-oriented economies and the institutionalization of participation by key sectors have not gone together. Policymakers are trying to isolate bureaucrats from public pressure and centralize power away from bodies vulnerable to electoral oversight. The “deinstitutionalization” of democratic politics may make the relationship between regime type and development strategy unstable.     

Solid phase extraction method for rapid isolation and clean-up of some synthetic pyrethroid insecticides from human urine and plasma.

A simple and rapid method for the isolation of seven synthetic pyrethroid insecticides (methothrin, fenpropathrin, cyhalothrin, permethrin, cypermethrin, fenvalerate, deltamethrin) with a solid phase extraction (SPE), utilizing Sep-Pak C18 cartridges, from human urine and plasma is presented. The detection of the insecticides was performed using a wide bore capillary gas chromatograph (GC) with flame ionization detection (FID). The insecticide-containing samples mixed with 70% methanol were directly applied to the cartridges and eluted with 2 ml chloroform. The recoveries using the cartridges were between 90-102% for urine and 81-93% for plasma. Mixing samples with 70% methanol prior to extraction, seems very useful for the screening of synthetic pyrethroid insecticides.