Forensic Evidence in Homicide Investigations and Prosecutions

Even though forensic evidence is collected at virtually every homicide scene, only a few studies have examined its role in investigation and prosecution. This article adds to the literature by providing the results of a study of 294 homicide cases (315 victims) occurring in Cleveland, Ohio, between 2008 and 2011. Through a logistic regression on open versus closed cases, the collection of knives, administration of gunshot residue (GSR) kits, and clothing at the scene were positively and significantly related to case closures, while collection of ballistics evidence and DNA evidence were statistically significant in the opposite direction. With regard to analysis, the clearance rate for cases with probative results (i.e., matches or exclusions) was 63.1% compared to a closure rate of 56.3% for cases without probative results. However, only 23 cases had probative results prior to arrest compared to 128 cases with probative results after arrest.     

Haven't We Been This Way Before? Evaluation and the Impediments to Policy Learning

In this paper, we focus on a policy trial that was undertaken in a complex and controversial policy field (Indigenous community development), with the avowed objective of learning from experience in the field . We observe that despite significant implementation effort and quality evaluation, little systematic policy learning occurred. Four impediments are identified: (i) the policy environment was highly politicized and contested, (ii) the results challenged accepted ways of working, (iii) there were no systematic processes for policy learning to occur, and (iv) the learnings were distorted by inter‐agency competition and associated ‘labelling’. We suggest that, in controversial policy fields, the most useful first step in enhancing evaluation‐use is for bureaucracies to institute systematic processes for evaluation findings to be considered, with the aim of elaborating ‘what works’ into a consensual approach to change. Without change of this kind, evaluation‐use will remain a failed area of policy.     

Comparing Homicide‐Suicides in the United States and Sweden

Research on homicides followed by suicides has largely relied on very localized samples and relatively short time spans of data. As a result, little is known about the extent to which patterns within cases of homicide‐suicides are geographically specific. The current study seeks to help fill this gap by comparing twenty years of homicide‐suicide data for Sweden and a large U.S. county. Although some of the underlying patterns in the two countries are similar (e.g., decreasing rates), a number of important differences emerge, particularly with respect to incidence, weapons used, perpetrator age, and relationship of the perpetrator to the victim.     

The Decipherment of Latent White Board Entries

This case involves an incriminating message written on a white board and erased before the investigators seized the evidence. Investigators inquired about the possibility of recovering the entries and subsequently submitted the board to the Documents and Digital Evidence Branch for examination. In an attempt to recover latent handwritten entries, examinations were conducted utilizing the Foster and Freeman Video Spectral Comparator 6000/Hyper Spectral (VSC 6000/HS). Latent handwritten entries were observed with the use of an excitation band‐pass filter in the range of 485 nm‐610 nm with a longpass barrier filter at 645 nm in front of the camera lens of the VSC 6000/HS. Entries were also recovered and imaged using an alternate light source with the Phase One (P65) imaging system. Multiple latent handwritten entries were recovered utilizing various instruments and lighting techniques. This report discusses the details concerning the examination and the results.     

Bureaucratizing Democracy, Democratizing Bureaucracy

This article analyzes the relationship between how rationality is conceived and how democracy is practiced in the Bureau of Reclamation, a water development agency in the Department of Interior. The efforts of some inside the agency to institutionalize rational decision-making models, partly in response to new environmental law, expanded the number and range of interest groups that participated in its decisions fry incorporating their preferences into their models for evaluating plans. But the terms under which people could express their values and interests were strictly controlled in ways that some felt misrepresented their concerns. How we conceive of rationality has important implications for how and which people are included in bureaucratic decision making.