Testing for Potential Contextual Bias Effects During the Verification Stage of the ACE‐V Methodology when Conducting Fingerprint Comparisons*

Abstract: This study was conducted to assess if fingerprint specialists could be influenced by extraneous contextual information during a verification process. Participants were separated into three groups: a control group (no contextual information was given), a low bias group (minimal contextual information was given in the form of a report prompting conclusions), and a high bias group (an internationally recognized fingerprint expert provided conclusions and case information to deceive this group into believing that it was his case and conclusions). A similar experiment was later conducted with laypersons. The results showed that fingerprint experts were influenced by contextual information during fingerprint comparisons, but not towards making errors. Instead, fingerprint experts under the biasing conditions provided significantly fewer definitive and erroneous conclusions than the control group. In contrast, the novice participants were more influenced by the bias conditions and did tend to make incorrect judgments, especially when prompted towards an incorrect response by the bias prompt.     

Rorschach differences in normal and delinquent white male adolescents: A discriminant function analysis

Rorschach productions from 38 normal and 30 delinquent White male adolescents were scored by three Ph.D. clinical psychologists according to the method given by Beck. The groups were equated for IQ, social class, and age at the time of testing. Rorschach scales representative of various personality dimensions, i.e.,R, M, F, F+, FC, CF, C, FC: CF + C, Sum C, Affective Ratio, Shading, H, andA, were subjected to a linear discriminant analysis. The results showed highly significant and accurate differentiation between the groups (p<0.0005, correct classification rate =86.8%); however, theAffective Ratio was the only scale that heavily contributed to the discrimination. The difference between the groups on this scale was attributed to the delinquents' passive cognitive style. The results also lend support to the notion that delinquents differ from normals along the dimension of impulsivity, a finding relevant to psychodynamic theories of delinquency as reflective of serious ego deficits. Fuller consideration of Rorschach symbolic content and qualitative features of response is recommended.The first two authors' contributions were equal.Currently a Ph.D. candidate in education at Loyola University, Chicago. Major research interests are psychometrics, psychodiagnostics, and statistics.Received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Loyola University, Chicago. Major research interests are psychodiagnosis, psychotherapy evaluation, and the etiology of delinquency.Received his M.D. from Marquette University. Major research interests are juvenile delinquency and the process of psychotherapy.     

The recruitment and retention of indigenous criminal justice agency staff in an Australian state

In Australia, as in other countries that have experienced colonisation, indigenous people are massively overrepresented in all stages of the criminal justice system. If criminal justice agencies are to provide culturally responsive and effective services to this group, it is important that they employ significant numbers of indigenous staff across all levels of their organisations. Despite the positive intentions of many justice agencies to increase the proportion of indigenous staff members they employ, the numbers remain low. In this article, we explore some of the possible reasons for this by reporting the results of focus groups conducted with existing indigenous justice agency employees. The employees raised a number of issues relevant to recruitment and retention. These are discussed in terms of their potential value in improving justice agency indigenous recruitment and retention strategies.     

Linking crime guns: the impact of ballistics imaging technology on the productivity of the Boston Police Department's Ballistics Unit

Ballistics imaging technology has received national attention as a potent tool for moving the law enforcement response to violent gun criminals forward by linking multiple crime scenes to one firearm. This study examines the impact of ballistics imaging technology on the productivity of the Boston Police Department's Ballistics Unit. Using negative binomial regression models to analyze times series data on ballistics matches, we find that ballistics imaging technology was associated with a more than sixfold increase in the monthly number of ballistics matches made by the Boston Police Department's Ballistics Unit. Cost-effectiveness estimates and qualitative evidence also suggest that ballistics imaging technology allows law enforcement agencies to make hits that would not have been possible using traditional ballistics methods.     

Barriers to competition and the effect on political shirking: 1953–1992

Economists and political scientists have offered a variety of explanations for why legislators might rationally choose to ignore the preferences of their constituents, political parties, and presidents. The broad conclusion of this literature is that there is an element of “shirking” in congressional voting. The objective of this paper is to suggest that the effects of shirking in congressional voting may have increased over time, largely in response to the raising of barriers to competition in congressional elections, thereby enabling legislators to vote their own preferences without fear of losing reelection. We use a quasi-experimental design that controls for the effects of party, region, electoral safety, presidential control of the White House, and constituency factors, in isolating the causal effects of barriers to entry on a continuous series of roll-calls regarding the raising of the debt limit between 1953 and 1992. We find that “shirking” in legislative voting on debt limit legislation is a post-1970s phenomenon.     

CPP same-sex survivors class action to proceed on a national basis

By agreement between the Attorney General of Canada and the lawyers for same-sex surviving partners who were denied survivor's benefits under the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the cases will now be heard together in one national class action. The surviving partners have been denied survivor's benefits due to their sexual orientation. Many of the people denied benefits are people with HIV/AIDS whose partners died of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. The case will be heard in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.     

Taxi passenger accidentally stuck by syringe awarded $15,000

In January 2003, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge awarded $15,000 for mental anguish to a woman who was stuck by a syringe found in the back of a taxicab. In assessing the damages, the Court took into account the woman's possible exposure to HIV and the reasonableness of her belief that she was at risk of seroconverting.     

Possession of cannabis legal for now

In two recent rulings the Ontario Court of Justice threw out charges of possession of cannabis contrary to section 4(I) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). The courts found that the accused in each case had been charged with an offence not known to law. Parliament never re-enacted the CDSA section prohibiting simple possession of cannabis (marijuana) after it was struck down by the Ontario Court of Appeal in the Parker case.     

HIV-positive person who did not disclose status convicted of attempted aggravated assault

On 18 September 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada released its unanimous decision in Williams. This is the first case on the issue of criminal liability for HIV exposure decided by the court since its 1998 decision in the Cuerrier case. Williams raised the issue of whether persons with HIV who have unprotected sexual intercourse without disclosing their status to a sexual partner who might already have been infected with the virus, can be convicted of aggravated assault or attempted aggravated assault. The Supreme Court decided that only a charge of attempted aggravated assault could stand. The decision is also significant because the Supreme Court's comments on two ancillary issues may lead to a significant extension of the criminal law related to HIV transmission or exposure.     

The Spatial Patterning of County Homicide Rates: An Application of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis

The possibility that homicides can spread from one geographic area toanother has been entertained for some time by social scientists, yetsystematic efforts to demonstrate the existence, or estimate the strength,of such a diffusion process are just beginning. This paper uses exploratoryspatial data analysis (ESDA) to examine the distribution of homicides in 78counties in, or around, the St. Louis metropolitan area for two timeperiods: a period of relatively stable homicide (1984–1988) and aperiod of generally increasing homicide (1988–1993). The findingsreveal that homicides are distributed nonrandomly, suggestive of positivespatial autocorrelation. Moreover, changes over time in the distribution ofhomicides suggest the possible diffusion of lethal violence out of onecounty containing a medium-sized city (Macon County) into two nearbycounties (Morgan and Sangamon Counties) located to the west. Althoughtraditional correlates of homicide do not account for its nonrandom spatialdistribution across counties, we find some evidence that more affluentareas, or those more rural or agricultural areas, serve as barriers againstthe diffusion of homicides. The patterns of spatial distribution revealedthrough ESDA provide an empirical foundation for the specification ofmultivariate models which can provide formal tests for diffusion processes.