A re-examination of the MMPI-2 aggressiveness and immaturity indices in law enforcement screening

This study reports an analysis of Bartol's (1991) Immaturity Index and Hargrave and associates' (1988) Aggressiveness Index as a measure of police conduct. The correlations between the supervisory ratings and the Immaturity and Aggressiveness indices were examined for 1020 law enforcement officers. The results showed that Immaturity Index was related to termination for failure to complete training and insubordination. The Aggressiveness Index was related to a termination for failure to complete training and several other problematic police behaviors, but was not found to be specifically linked with acts of aggression. Implications for using these two indices in law enforcement selection are discussed. Authors' Note: Cary Rostow, Ph.D. is president of Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is in private practice in Baton Rouge. Robert Davis, Ph.D., is executive vice-president and director of science, research, and development for Matrix, Inc., and has a private practice in Baton Rouge. James B. Pinston, Ph.D., is a clinical neuropsychologist within the department of neurology at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center and School of Medicine in Shreveport, Louisiana. Dennis R. Combs, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Tulsa. Dennis R. Dixon, M.A., is currently a doctoral student at Louisiana State University.     

Clinical forensic medicine and its main fields of activity from the foundation of the German Society of Legal Medicine until today

The fields mainly covered by clinical forensic medicine are subject to time-related changes which are described on the basis of the German literature of the 20th century. Some fields of forensic sexual medicine (diagnosis of virginity, proof of criminal abortion, potentia coeundi, potentia generandi, potentia concipiendi) have become less important in the daily work of medicolegal institutes, whereas victims of rape and sexual abuse continue to form a major part of the forensic examination material in the German-speaking countries. The evaluation of suspected physical child abuse has grown in importance since the 60s, and it is essentially the merit of Elisabeth Trube-Becker that this problem is now dealt with also in scientific medicine. More recently, medicolegal experts are increasingly confronted with further groups of persons: victims of domestic violence, abused/neglected seniors, refugees from countries where torture is used. A new special field, which established itself only in the 90s, is the estimation of age with regard to the criminal responsibility of suspects who have no identity papers or pretend to have none. A phenomenon frequently observed in the last two decades is the non-accidental self-infliction of injuries. Whereas in the first half of the 20th century the motive for self-mutilation was typically to evade military service, this category of injury was later mainly seen in the context of insurance fraud; more recently most forensically relevant self-inflicted injuries refer to simulated offenses (fictitious sexual offenses and robbery, attacks allegedly having a political background). One of the traditional fields of clinical forensic medicine continues to be the evaluation of victims and suspects following bodily harm and attempted homicides. In the field of civil law medicolegal experts are particularly often concerned with controversial consequences of traffic accidents (e.g. alleged whiplash injuries after rear-end collisions at low velocities).     

STR analysis of artificially degraded DNA-results of a collaborative European exercise

Degradation of human DNA extracted from forensic stains is, in most cases, the result of a natural process due to the exposure of the stain samples to the environment. Experiences with degraded DNA from casework samples show that every sample may exhibit different properties in this respect, and that it is difficult to systematically assess the performance of routinely used typing systems for the analysis of degraded DNA samples. Using a batch of artificially degraded DNA with an average fragment size of approx. 200 bp a collaborative exercise was carried out among 38 forensic laboratories from 17 European countries. The results were assessed according to correct allele detection, peak height and balance as well as the occurrence of artefacts. A number of common problems were identified based on these results such as strong peak imbalance in heterozygous genotypes for the larger short tandem repeat (STR) fragments after increased PCR cycle numbers, artefact signals and allelic drop-out. Based on the observations, strategies are discussed to overcome these problems. The strategies include careful balancing of the amount of template DNA and the PCR cycle numbers, the reaction volume and the amount of Taq polymerase. Furthermore, a careful evaluation of the results of the fragment analysis and of automated allele calling is necessary to identify the correct alleles and avoid artefacts.     

Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in a population sample from continental Greece, and the islands of Crete and Chios

Eight Y chromosome short tandem repeat (STR) polymorphisms (DYS19, DYS385, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, and DYS393) were analyzed in the sample of 117 unrelated Albanian males living in Kosovo. A general STR allelic frequency pattern in the Albanian population from Kosovo corresponds to other European populations. Fourty six haplotypes were observed in single copy. The most frequent haplotypes were (DYS19-DYS385-DYS389I-DYS389II-DYS390-DYS391-DYS392-DYS393) 14-11/11-13-29-24-11-13-13 (10.26%), 14-14/17-12-28-24-10-11-12 (9.40%), 13-16/18-13-30-24-10-11-13 (9.40%), and 14-17/17-13-31-24-10-11-13 (9.40%).     

Beyond PTSD: mental health consequences of violence against women: a response to Briere and Jordan

This article proposes that we move beyond posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in our conceptualization of traumatic stress responses of victimized women exposed to serial forms of unrelenting violence, such as intimate partner violence and stalking. It is argued that the traditional PTSD framework is ill fitting in the context of some forms of violence against women (VAW), and these limits have consequences for developing appropriate interventions for some victimized women. The article further suggests going beyond PTSD by developing a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which PTSD and other mental health symptoms contribute to the vast array of deleterious personal, societal, and economic costs of VAW.