Linking Lasswell’s political psychology and the policy sciences

Contrary to apparent differences in timing and style between Harold D. Lasswells political psychology and the policy sciences approach that he pioneered, the continuity and compatibility between the two are very high. The appropriateness of Lasswells political psychology framework for addressing the intellectual tasks of the policy sciences is demonstrated by linking the insights of his political psychology to the policy sciences framework, and reviewing the common pragmatist philosophy underlying both his political psychology and the policy sciences.     

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).     

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%).     

Digital Realism and the Governance of Spam as Cybercrime

Spamming is a major threat to the formation of public trust in the Internet and discourages broader civil participation in the emerging information society. To the individual, spams are usually little more than a nuisance, but collectively they expose Internet users to a panoply of new risks while threatening the communications and commercial infrastructure. Spamming also raises important questions of criminological interest. On the one hand it is an example of a pure cybercrime – a harmful behaviour mediated by the Internet that is the subject of criminal law, while on the other hand, it is a behaviour that has in practice been most effectively contained technologically by the manipulation of ‘code’ – but at what cost? Because there is not an agreed meaning as to what constitutes ‘online order’ that renders it simply and uncritically reducible to a set of formulae and algorithms that can be subsequently imposed (surreptitiously) by technological processes. The imposition of order online, as it is offline, needs to be subject to critical discussion and also checks and balances that have their origins in the authority of law. This article deconstructs and analyses spamming behaviour, before exploring the boundaries between law and code (technology) as governance in order to inform and stimulate the debate over the embedding of cybercrime prevention policy within the code itself.     

Noncoercive sexual contact with similarly aged individuals: what is the impact?

A community sample of 610 adults were grouped into those who reported no sexual abuse experience, others who reported noncoercive sexual contact with an individual that was at most 4 years older, and those who reported more severe sexual abuse. The first two groups did not differ from each other on current social support, trauma-specific symptomatology, and somatic complaints whereas the more severe sexual abuse group reported more problems on these dimensions. Further analyses suggested that of the two variables, coercion was more closely associated with problematic outcome than was the existence of an age difference.     

Sexual and nonsexual offenders with intellectual and learning disabilities: a comparison of characteristics, referral patterns, and outcome

This article reports an evaluation of a community intellectual disability offender service over the period from 1990 to 2001. Men who committed sex offenses or sexually abusive incidents (n = 106) and men who committed other types of offenses and serious incidents (n = 78) are compared on personal characteristics, referral sources, forensic details, and outcome up to 7 years after referral. The cohorts are older than one would expect from the criminology literature, and, at about 33%, the incidence of mental illness is consistent with some previous studies. A greater proportion of sex offenders had criminal justice involvement and a formal disposal from court. Fire raising was not overly represented as an offense. There was a higher rate of reoffending in the nonsexual cohort, which persisted up to 7 years. Investigating only reoffenders, there was a considerable amount of harm reduction recorded up to 7 years, statistically significant up to 5 years following initial referral.