Risk Terrain Modeling and Socio-Economic Stratification: Identifying Risky Places for Violent Crime Victimization in Bogotá, Colombia

This research focused on the effect of the built environment on Bogotá’s violent crime by using the Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) technique. The current study used 17 ecological variables, including micro-level data on the spatial distribution of socio-economic strata, and the location of an array of businesses and other features of the landscape. As suggested by the results of this study, the spatial distribution of violent crime in Bogotá is highly correlated with the allocation of socio-economic strata throughout its geography. A statistically valid RTM analysis identified the micro-level risk factors associated with three types of violent crime incidents, namely homicide, assault, and theft incidents. These results suggest that future violent crime incidents are more likely to occur at a reduced number of high-risk micro-places. Moreover, while homicide and assault incidents were more likely to cluster within the poorest areas of the city, theft incidents presented a higher risk of victimization near the city center, where economic activity and suitable targets concentrate. This study offers a unique account regarding the effect of socio-economic segregation on violent crime victimization across Bogotá’s geography and within different socio-economic strata classifications.     

How nonrecidivism affects predictive accuracy: evidence from a cross-validation of the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA)

Prediction effect sizes such as ROC area are important for demonstrating a risk assessment's generalizability and utility. How a study defines recidivism might affect predictive accuracy. Nonrecidivism is problematic when predicting specialized violence (e.g., domestic violence). The present study cross-validates the ability of the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) to distinguish subsequent recidivists and nonrecidivists among 391 new cases with less extensive criminal records than previous cross-validation samples, base rate=27%, ROC area=.67. Excluding ambiguous nonrecidivists increases the base rate to 33%, ROC area=.74. Random samples of 50 recidivists and 50 unambiguous nonrecidivists yield ROC areas from .71 to .80. Published norms significantly underestimate official recidivism. Ambiguous nonrecidivism is prevalent and leads to underestimating base rates and predictive accuracy.     

Student-to-Student Abuse in the Indian Residential Schools in Canada: Setting the Stage for Further Understanding

The Indian residential school system in Canada was established to assimilate Aboriginal children into mainstream society by removing the “Indian within them.” In the past 20 years survivors of the schools have come forward with stories of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated against them by staff. However, what is significantly less spoken of is the abuse which occurred between students. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation recently held a small gathering of survivors, Elders, advocates, and researchers to discuss ways to bring this issue into the open. This article comes out of the discussions held at the gathering. Within the article we offer a conceptualization of the dynamics and processes of student to student abuse within the Indian residential schools in Canada with the hope that it will encourage a deeper discussion of this issue.     

Indirect Causes And Effects In Policy Change: The Brent Spar Case

This article discusses the occupation of an oil-related structure called the Brent Spar in the British sector of the North Sea by Greenpeace protesters in 1995. Shell intended to 'dump' the buoy in the deep North Atlantic. The aftermath of the occupation and associated publicity was a change of policy about the disposal of the Spar by Shell, Europe's largest multinational company. The article considers alternative explanations for policy change – most importantly the influential propositions by Baumgartner and Jones (1993). The general importance of their work means that the opportunity is taken to set out their themes at some length, but the particular case suggests that their notion of change stemming from a redefinition of the problem may only imperfectly fit sudden policy changes of the Brent Spar type. The article argues that their 'venue shopping' concept better illuminates the case – but the significant venue change was geographical – i.e. from Britain to Germany – rather than institutional – i.e. from a policy community to an issue network. The case study superficially accords with an influential body of literature in the 1980s and 1990s that sees outcomes as changing through the mobilization of a wider range of participants in issue networks, but it is argued that there is no automatic link between an expanded roster of participants and outcomes if the decisive decision-making power is retained in the original closed system. The case study suggests there can be an illusion of an issue network when the dominance of a policy monopoly is publicly challenged – but where decision-making power is retained among original participants.     

Pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) isolation and identification in aged autopsy tissues and fluids

The isolation and detection of pancuronium bromide was developed for aged autopsy samples to identify and confirm this compound in questioned tissue samples. A novel protocol was optimized for the isolation of the target drug in highly decomposed tissues. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) cartridges containing styrene-divinylbenzene were investigated. This polymer retained quaternary drugs and facilitated sequential elution upon washing with commonly available solvents. The semi-purified SPE samples were prescreened by pyrolysis GC-MS. A candidate specimen was then confirmed by microbore high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray-ionization/mass spectrometry (microHPLC-ESI-MS/MS) with a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer. The developed procedures provided a qualitative or semiquantitative (at best) basis for the investigation of difficult cases involving overdoses of polar drugs.