The spoils of war

Antony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall 1945 has been an international best-selling history of the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops in 1945. Now published in paperback, Beevor's magisterial narrative of Berlin's downfall has become a leading work of contemporary popular history. The public discussion of this book has been dominated by two themes: first, the ‘normalization’ of the suffering of German civilians and, second, the ‘disclosure’ of mass rapes by the liberating Soviet army in Germany. This review traces how key debates concerning the remembrance of the Second World War form these dominant readings of Berlin. In particular, it examines the formation of the re-remembering of the wartime rapes of Berlin women, and considers the implications of Beevor's account of the downfall of Berlin for how we understand sexual violence in armed conflict.     

Star Power: An Experiential Learning Exercise to Foster Ecological Perspectives on Power,Privilege, and Oppression

The purpose of this article is to describe the utility of Star Power as an experiential learning exercise applied in a community psychology undergraduate course. This exercise simulates systems of power, privilege, and oppression while fostering an ecological perspective that raises students’ awareness and knowledge about power differentials within society. The simulation of trading and lawmaking works best with 18 to 35 students and takes approximately 80 minutes to conduct. This article highlights three representative student perspectives concerning their participation and experience with Star Power. Strategies for facilitating class discussion are also reported.     

István Széchenyi,the casino movement,and Hungarian nationalism, 1827–1848

The establishment of the Nemzeti Casino (National Casino) in Pest helped establish civil society in nineteenth-century Hungary. Count István Széchenyi, hoping to modernize Hungary on the English model, established the casino in 1827 as a public forum for the Hungarian nobility. By transcending caste divisions between nobles and bourgeois elites, Széchenyi's casino served as an unofficial parliament and stock exchange, and generally helped cultivate Hungarian patriotism. The Pest Casino inspired a nation-wide trend for casinos, which in turn formed a civil society in opposition to Habsburg absolutism. Yet when the casino movement spread to Hungary's minority nationalities, Jews, Slovaks, Romanians, and particularly Croats, the casino also contributed to national divisions in Hungary's ethnically diverse population that affected the course of the 1848 Revolution.     

Constitutional Conventions and the Prince of Wales

The Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) held in Evans v Information Commissioner that certain correspondence between Prince Charles and government officials must be disclosed under freedom of information legislation. Much of the judgment was devoted to a discussion of the constitutional conventions applicable to Prince Charles, and the case provides a useful example of how conventions and laws can interact. In this note, I argue that the Upper Tribunal misunderstood how conventions are distinguished from one another, and misapplied the test for the identification of conventions.     

Forensic Evidence and Criminal Investigations: The Impact of Ballistics Information on the Investigation of Violent Crime in Nine Cities,

We explore the impact of information from ballistics imaging hit reports on the investigation into violent crimes. Ballistics imaging hits link two crimes involving the same firearm by forensically matching tool marks on the fired bullets or cartridge cases. Interview data collected from detectives who received a hit report were used to explore the relationship between the presence of a hit report and outcomes in 65 gun‐related violent crime investigations in nine U.S. police agencies. Findings indicate hit reports rarely contribute to identification, arrest, charging, or sentencing of suspects, because of delays in producing hit reports. On average, hit reports were completed 181.4 days after the focal crime. This delay forces investigations to proceed without the benefit of information from ballistics analysis. Additionally, hit reports rarely contained detailed information that was immediately useful to investigators. Instead, hit reports required additional research by the investigator to unlock useful information.     

Development and Initial Evaluation of a Suicide Prevention Curriculum for Domestic Violence Hotline Workers

Despite evidence of an intersection between suicide risk and intimate partner violence (IPV), crisis hotlines tend to focus on callers at-risk for suicide or callers involved in IPV, but not both. In an effort to begin to address this gap, we developed and conducted an initial pilot test of a suicide prevention curriculum for hotline workers at the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH), highlighting the intersection of these two public health issues. A mixed methods approach was used as a first step to assess the impact of the 3-h suicide prevention training for 42 domestic violence hotline workers. Results showed significant increase in knowledge regarding suicide risk from pre to post-training and a high degree of satisfaction among attendees. Focus groups conducted with hotline workers 3 months after training indicated a greater willingness to engage callers in suicide screening and prevention efforts. A 6-month follow-up focus group with NDVH managers revealed that suicide prevention had become more integrated in the agency culture, a finding that was consistent with an environmental scan of the workplace that showed an increase in displays of suicide prevention information. In sum, suicide prevention training can be feasibly incorporated into domestic violence hotline workers’ roles. Limitations and suggestions for future studies are discussed.     

Analysis of condom lubricants for forensic casework

The detection of DNA is inhibited in cases of sexual assault involving condom use. Trace evidence, including condom lubricant residues, provides crucial associative evidence in such cases. The existing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) methods for lubricant analysis and detection are limited with regard to sensitivity and discrimination. The aim of this research was to establish a new method as an alternative to FTIR for the analysis of condom lubricant residues. Pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (PyGC-MS) and GC-MS are highly sensitive methods of analysis for a wide range of chemical substances. PyGC-MS and GC-MS were used to analyze condom lubricants in standard solution, from clean swabs and from postcoital swabs. Pyrolysis of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) lubricant forms cyclic products known as cyclic dimethyl siloxanes (DMS), which are separated and detected by the GC-MS. The polyethylene glycol (PEG) lubricant can be analyzed by GC-MS directly from solution. The methods of extraction and analysis presented in this paper were shown to be significantly more sensitive than FTIR for the analysis of PDMS and PEG condom lubricants. PDMS was detected as low as 1 mug in standard solution and from clean swabs using the PyGC-MS method. PEG was detected as low as 0.5 microg from standard solution and 50 mug from clean swabs using the GC-MS method. Unfortunately, we were unable to provide further discrimination between condom brands and subbrands. The methods established throughout the research were used successfully to detect condom lubricants from donated postcoital swabs. Lubricants were detected in abundance on swabs 12 h postcoitus. Recommendations are made regarding implementation of new methods for routine analysis of casework samples along with strict pyrolysis interpretation criteria to minimize the possibility of misinterpretation of false positives.