Recovery of human skeletal elements from a recent UK murder inquiry: preservational signatures.

Factors that control bone preservation are not fully understood but generally include those that reflect "natural" taphonomic or diagenetic processes and also those reflecting anthropogenic activity. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the survival of skeletal elements from a recent UK serial murder investigation (n = 12) and three archaeological cemetery sites from England (n = 112, 95, 182; Roman to early-medieval), share a similar recovery signature. Examination of this data demonstrates that even when clear evidence of traumatic and perimortem dismemberment exists within an assemblage, the distribution of missing elements can be almost identical to archaeological material buried in normal attrition cemeteries. Given that these preservational signatures are so similar, it is concluded that careful observation of bone surfaces is necessary to confidently interpret bone loss, particularly where dismemberment and/or element excision is suggested by the non-anatomical position of the skeleton within the grave. Where postmortem excision of bone is suspected, careful examination of contiguous bone surfaces, both macroscopic and microscopic, is suggested to detect fine cutmark lesions indicative of anthropogenic excision. Without this evidence other preservational factors must be considered both taphonomic and diagenetic.     

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: THE COMMONWEALTH EXPERIENCE*

Abstract: This paper outlines the background and rationale of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation and discusses the specific nature and operation of the FOI Act, including some current issues emanating from the interpretation of some of its provisions by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and the courts. The overall cost/benefit balance of the Act is considered, with particular reference to the recent report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on the operation and administration of the Act.     

Military Culture and Restraint toward Civilians in War: Examining the Ugandan Civil Wars

What explains armed-group conduct toward civilians in war? The National Resistance Army (NRA) of Uganda demonstrated notable restraint toward civilians during its wars in northern Uganda in the 1980s, restraint that is puzzling given the overdetermined predictions for mass atrocity under rationalist, identity, and regime-type theories. Instead, the NRA case demonstrates that military culture—the organizational norms underlying combatant socialization—is a primary determinant of armed-group behavior, influencing combatant conduct in ways not conceptualized under existing theories of victimization. This review of the NRA case, based on field interviews with Ugandan military officers and examinations of Ugandan documentary archives, reveals three key points regarding the role of military culture in effecting restraint. First, the NRA case shows that organizational factors like military culture can determine military behavior toward civilians. Second, it reveals that theories of military culture, incorporating both formal and informal mechanisms of combatant socialization, can provide a more complete theoretical account than existing theories of armed-group conduct. Finally, the NRA provides potential hypotheses for mechanisms through which culture influences military behavior. I analyze the effect of culture on the NRA's conduct as a plausibility probe, generating inductive insights drawn from detailed field research to shed light on the organizational drivers of armed-group restraint. The NRA case thus points the way to a reconceptualization of military culture and the role of organizational factors that influence conflict behavior.     

Intensive psychological treatment of high-risk violent offenders: Outcomes and pre-release mechanisms

Research on correlates of intervention programmes that reduce expected reconviction rates (‘what works’ literature, Risk–Need–Responsivity model) has been highly influential in criminal justice systems throughout much of the western world. But while this psychological research has been acquiring widespread recognition, a deeper understanding of how programmes work and of mechanisms for desistance more generally, has still to develop. This research reports results of a quasi-experimental recidivism outcome study for a series of prison units that provide intensive psychological treatment to high-risk, persistently violent prisoners. Four outcomes were examined over the first 12 months following release on parole: parole violations, new convictions, new convictions for violence, and imprisonment sentences resulting from new convictions. Alongside these results, we conducted preliminary analyses of two potential pre-release mechanisms for surviving the first 12 months on parole without reconviction: lower dynamic risk for violence, and greater release readiness. We found that dynamic violence risk fully accounted for differences between treatment completers and comparison prisoners in proportions reconvicted for violence. However, in all other cases, the proposed mechanisms did not significantly explain treatment-related differences. We close by considering possible explanations for these unexpected results, and reiterating the importance to our field of more sophisticated treatment outcome research.     

Decoding Negotiation Systems in the Middle East and North Africa: A Framework for Analysis

Regional conflicts are becoming increasingly complex due to the involvement of an ever more numerous and interconnected set of actors. Previous research has focused on regional conflict systems and has generated theoretical approaches such as the regional security complex paradigm. However, when complex, multifaceted, seemingly contradictory webs of relationships are spun in a region, new tools are needed to analyze and evaluate them. Drawing on previous regional conflict models, we propose a negotiation-oriented framework of regional conflict analysis that explores the type and intensity of relationships between state and nonstate actors in a conflict system. We offer a seven-step scale of relationships (ranging from ally to active armed opponent) that represents a novel contribution to the methodological efforts to analyze relationships in conflict systems. This framework brings to light the relational imbalance of the MENA region and has the potential to contextualize for negotiators and mediators the complex system of conflicts within, and possibly outside, the region.     

Terrorist Assassinations and Target Selection

This research note examines political institutional changes in the aftermath of terrorist assassinations. Contemporary assassinations are more often a component of wider campaigns of political violence rather than a singular attack on a head of state. The Global Terrorism Database counts 16,831 terrorist assassinations from 1970–2014, indicating significant frequency of these events and includes a wide range of targets from law enforcement officials to foreign diplomats. Utilizing survival analysis, the span of time from a terrorist assassination event to a change in political institutions within states is measured between target types. Outcome differences between target types are identified.     

Using Preferred Applicant Random Assignment (PARA) to Reduce Randomization Bias in Randomized Trials of Discretionary Programs

Randomization bias occurs when the random assignment used to estimate program effects influences the types of individuals that participate in a program. This paper focuses on a form of randomization bias called “applicant inclusion bias,” which can occur in evaluations of discretionary programs that normally choose which of the eligible applicants to serve. If this nonrandom selection process is replaced by a process that randomly assigns eligible applicants to receive the intervention or not, the types of individuals served by the program—and thus its average impact on program participants—could be affected. To estimate the impact of discretionary programs for the individuals that they normally serve, we propose an experimental design called Preferred Applicant Random Assignment (PARA). Prior to random assignment, program staff would identify their “preferred applicants,” those that they would have chosen to serve. All eligible applicants are randomly assigned, but the probability of assignment to the program is set higher for preferred applicants than for the remaining applicants. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of the method, the cost in terms of increased sample size requirements, and the benefit in terms of improved generalizability to the population normally served by the program.     

A Method to Interpolate Osteon Volume Designed for Histological Age Estimation Research

Aging adult skeletal material is a crucial component of building the biological profile of unknown skeletal remains, but many macro- and microscopic methods have challenges regarding accuracy, precision, and replicability. This study developed a volumetric method to visualize and quantify histological remodeling events in three dimensions, using a two-dimensional serialized approach that applied circular polarizing microscopy and geographic information systems protocols. This approach was designed as a tool to extend current histological aging methodologies. Three serial transverse sections were obtained from a human femoral midshaft. A total sample size of 6847 complete osteons from the three sections was identified; 1229 osteons connected between all sections. The volume of all connected osteons was interpolated using ArcGIS area calculations and truncated cone geometric functions. Each section was divided into octants, and two random samples of 100 and of 30 connected osteons from each octant were generated. Osteon volume was compared between the octants for each random sample using ANOVA. Results indicated that the medial aspect had relative uniformity in osteon volume, whereas the lateral aspect showed high variability. The anterolateral–lateral octant had significantly smaller osteon volume, whereas the posterior–posterolateral octant had significantly larger osteon volume. Results also indicated that a minimum of 100 osteons is statistically more robust and more representative of normal osteon distribution and volume; the use of 30 osteons is insufficient. This research has demonstrated that osteon volume can be interpolated using spatial geometry and GIS applications and may be a tool to incorporate into adult age-at-death estimation techniques.