Estimating age in Maori, Pacific Island, and European children from New Zealand

The islands of New Zealand are populated by persons of European, Maori, and Pacific Island extraction. The purpose of this research is to quantify the levels of dental maturation of each of these three populations, in order to obtain data that will be useful in forensic identification and age estimation. The sample consisted of 1383 orthopantomographs (660 males, 723 females) of 477 Maori, 762 European, and 144 Pacific Island children between the ages of 3 and 14 years. Each radiograph was digitized and the stages of mineralization of the seven left mandibular permanent teeth were assessed using the eight stages described by Demirjian. Values for 1, 3, 5, 50, 95, 97, and 99% confidence intervals are listed for each maturity score. Intra-observer reliability was evaluated using Bland-Altman's method on data from re-scoring one out of every 20 radiographs and standard dental maturation curves were constructed for the three populations by means of a quantile regression method. Despite the fact that quantile regression analysis showed that across the age group investigated there were differences between boys and girls, knowledge of the sex does not increase the accuracy of the age estimate, simply because the magnitude of the error of age estimation is greater than the difference between the sexes. Our analysis also shows that population divergence is most marked after the age of 9 years, with a peak difference seen at age 10.     

Uniqueness of the Dentition as Impressed in Human Skin: A Cadaver Model*

Abstract: Bitemark interpretation assumes that the human dentition is unique and that its attributes can be accurately transferred to skin. A cadaver model was used to investigate whether the correct biter could be determined from similarly aligned dentitions once the dentitions were impressed in human skin. One‐hundred dental stone models, which were measured and determined to be unique, were divided into 10 groups based upon similarities of mal‐alignment patterns. One model was randomly selected from each group and bites were produced on unembalmed human cadavers. Metric/angular measurements and hollow volume overlays of the models were compared with the bites made. The percentage of dentitions from each group as well as the 100 dental model population that could not be excluded as the biter was determined. Results showed difficulty distinguishing the biter from individuals with similarly aligned dentitions and in some cases, an incorrect biter appeared better correlated to the bite.     

Power, crime and criminology in the new imperial age

As a consequence of the U.S. pursuit of neo-liberal global hegemony in the post-Soviet era, the language of empire has returned to political discourse and social analysis after an eighty-year absence. Although the pursuit of empire and the exertion of imperial control is deeply and demonstrably injurious to the nations and people subjected to this control, orthodox criminology has given relatively little attention to this emerging world of transnational social injury, choosing instead to continue its traditional focus on private crimes of greed, lust and rage. In this essay I detail how legal formalism, methodological individualism, ameliorative motives, mass-communications and the reward structure of orthodox criminology combine to form a meta-theoretical framework that has kept the criminological gaze averted from injurious actions of transnational structures of power. I then offer an alternative framework for a criminology of empire and other power crimes focused on how intersections among economic, political and cultural processes generate social injuries that are analogous to crimes in their nature and consequences, and that, as a result should become as significant a focus of criminological inquiry as the street crimes that now dominate criminological research and writing. What do we do with our knowledge about the suffering of others, and what does this knowledge do to us? -Stanley Cohen      

A Range of Postmortem Assault Experiments Conducted on a Variety of Denture Labels Used for the Purpose of Identification of Edentulous Individuals

Abstract:  Forensic organizations worldwide have recommended that dental prostheses should be labeled with at least the patient's name and preferably with further unique identifiers such as social security number, etc. The practice of denture marking has been conducted over many years and several denture marking systems have been reported in the dental literature. However, very little is known about the resilience of such systems to conditions experienced in the majority of post- and perimortem assaults. The purpose of this investigation therefore, was to expose a selection of 10 denture labels to a series of hostile environments. Results of the study indicate that the majority of the denture labeling systems appear capable of withstanding a range of common, and not so common postmortem assaults. With regard to thermal insult, however, most performed badly with the exception of a label constructed from stainless steel orthodontic band. However, another label in the form of an electronic RFID-tag performed above expectations in the majority of experiments. Furthermore, its cosmetic appearance has proven most popular with many patients.     

Specialization and versatility in sexual offenders referred for civil commitment

Offense specialization and versatility have been investigated in general offender populations, but have only recently been examined in sexual offenders. This study explored the extent of both tendencies in the criminal histories of 572 adult male sexual offenders referred for civil commitment. The specialization threshold and the diversity index were used to compare offender subgroups by referral status (committed versus observed) and offense type (rape, child molestation, and incest). Offense versatility was the more likely tendency across the sample. Committed and observed offenders did not differ. Although predominantly versatile, child molesters were significantly more likely than rapists to specialize in sexual offenses, and were also more likely to specialize in child molestation (compared to rapists specializing in rape). These results confirm previous findings on criminal versatility among sexual offenders. This adds to a growing body of research that questions universal and selective crime control policies designed exclusively for sexual offenders.     

Preliminary Study of Testosterone and Empathy in Determining Recidivism and Antisocial Behavior

Recidivism, repeated criminal behavior after conviction and correction of prior offenses, is a costly problem across the nation. However, the contribution of empathy in determining the risk of recidivism has received limited attention, although lack of empathy has been related to antisocial personality disorder in various studies. Studies linked testosterone to aggression, antisocial behavior, and criminality, and evidence support hormonal connections between empathy and aggression. Adult male prison inmates convicted of violent or nonviolent offenses were included in a cross‐sectional study of empathy, antisocial behavior, salivary testosterone, and recidivism. Subjects underwent criminal history, Empathy Quotient, Levenson Self‐Report Psychopathy Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Spielberger State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory, and salivary testosterone assays. Bivariate analyses indicated multiple correlations between variables. Multivariate modeling analyses found a significant relationship between self‐reported conviction number and psychopathy scale score (p = 0.013). These preliminary results suggest avenues of investigation of factors contributing to recidivism risk.     

The effects of market concentration on costs of local public services: empirical evidence from Dutch waste collection

ABSTRACT

Different concentration indexes are calculated for the Dutch waste collection market and all show that this market was highly concentrated in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. The estimation results in 2002 show that private collection is cheaper but high concentration increases costs of private collection and therefore (partly) offsets the advantage of contracting out. In 2006, the savings gained from privatisation and also the effect of concentration disappear, probably due to the introduction of a VAT-compensation fund. In 2010, for an area with a radius of 30 km, high concentration increases costs, but for larger areas, this effect mostly disappears. For 2014, in most estimations, this concentration effect disappears. If we include fixed effects for a panel, the cost advantage of inter-municipal cooperation is larger than that of private production and concentration effects also disappear. Overall, these estimation results are rather independent of the concentration indexes used, if we investigate several indexes as an alternative for the Herfindahl–Hirschman index.     

Civic Engagement – A Problem in Search of a Solution?

This article discusses the use of community partnerships to produce civic engagement. In two undergraduate courses during the Fall 2016 semester, students created products that met the stated needs of local nonprofit organizations. Students indicated a positive reaction to their experiences in qualitative assessment instruments, and the community partners were appreciative of students’ output. Given the semester-long timeframe of the projects, it is unknown whether they will lead to greater civic engagement on the part of students or the communities in which the projects took place.     

Expanding the scope and content of morality policy research: lessons from Moral Foundations Theory

Scholars have not precisely defined morality policy, and Smith (Policy Stud J 30(3):379–395, 2002) urged an empirical taxonomy be used to identify those policies. We argue that Moral Foundations Theory offers a methodology for empirically identifying issues with moral content. We inventory 15 issues in parliamentary studies of “conscience” voting, 14 morality policies in western democracies compiled by Studlar (in: Mooney (ed) The public clash of private values: the politics of morality policy, Chatham House Publishers, New York, 2001), and then survey MFT empirical studies to identify 22 issues with moral content. Based on this universe of 37 issues, three journals are content analyzed to determine the coverage given them and to outline productive lines for future research.     

After Charlie: the unravelling of the French republican response

Starting with the assault on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015, the French Republic has endured a series of terrorist attacks, culminating in the massacre of civilians on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on 14 July 2016, an outrage deliberately and symbolically timed to coincide with the Bastille Day celebration. During this period, the governing and other elites in France attempted to foster a sense of national unity around key republican values as the most effective response to the threat posed by terrorism. After examining the inconsistent postures struck by the French socialist government in the months following the outrages of 2015 and 2016, Raymond’s article will analyse the contradictions of the previous administration in order to illustrate the argument that the problematic relationship between race, identity and secularism cuts across the traditional ideological cleavages of left and right. The failure of leading mainstream political figures to articulate an effective and unifying discourse in the face of the terrorist threat to France is not, however, purely a failure of communication. Raymond will address the adequacy of a blueprint for social cohesion shaped by the Third Republic and exemplified by the formal separation of church and state in 1905. He considers whether the traditional understanding of what it means to belong to the ‘one and indivisible’ republic has problematized the sense of national self-esteem and contributed to the current tension in France.