GRANDPARENT VISITATION RIGHTS

In recent years, legislators in all fifty states have given grandparents rights to petition for visitation privileges with grandchildren that can be enforced over parental objections. Grandparent visitation rights reflect an effort to protect meaningful relationships children enjoy with nonparental caregivers, enlist the assistance of extended family when the child's nuclear family is disrupted, and defend the interests of grandparents themselves. This psycholegal analysis explores the direct and indirect consequences of grandparent visitation statutes for family functioning. Statutory provisions are summarized, and the effects of these statutes are evaluated in light of what is known about the role of grandparents in child development, how courts evaluate children's "best interests" in grandparent visitation disputes, and how these statutes can alter family functioning in informal ways. The authors conclude that there are risks as well as benefits to children and families in grandparent visitation statutes, and suggest directions for procedural and statutory reform.     

Child witnesses and the confrontation clause

InMaryland v. Craig, the United States Supreme Court relied heavily on a brief prepared by a committee of the American Psychology-Law Society on behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA brief concluded that sexually abused children may be particularly vulnerable to distress in the legal process, especially when forced to confront the defendant face to face, and that such acute distress may be inconsistent with the state's interests in promotion of reliable testimony and child welfare. APA also argued that psychological theory and research provide foundations for individualized determination of the need for measures to protect children from face-to-face confrontation. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AFE06051 00002     

An Integrated Model of Legal and Moral Reasoning and Rule-Violating Behavior: The Role of Legal Attitudes

Legal socialization theory predicts that attitudes mediate the relation between legal reasoning and rule-violating behavior [Cohn, E. S., & White, S. O. (1990). Legal Socialization: A Study of Norms and Rules. New York: Springer-Verlag]. Moral development theory predicts that moral reasoning predicts rule-violating behavior directly as well as indirectly [Blasi, A. (1980). Bridging moral cognition and moral action: A critical review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 1–45]. We present and test an integrated model of rule-violating behavior drawing on both theories in a longitudinal study of middle school and high school students. Students completed questionnaires three times during the course of 1 year at 6-month intervals. Legal and moral reasoning, legal attitudes, and rule-violating behavior were measured at times one, two, and three respectively. Structural equation models revealed that while moral and legal reasoning were directly and indirectly related to rule-violating behavior among high school students, legal reasoning bore no direct relation to rule-violating behavior among middle school students. The implications for an integrated model of reasoning and rule-violating behavior are discussed.     

The organizational structure of international drug smuggling

While most group offending is not well organized, it is generally assumed that high levels of organization can be found in group offending that generates revenue, such as white-collar crime, drug sales, and smuggling drugs or humans. The organizational structure of international drug smuggling has typically been viewed as highly rational and formally structured. Employing interviews with thirty-four federal prisoners convicted of smuggling large volumes of cocaine into the United States, this study explored the organizational structure of high level international drug smuggling. The subjects described a general lack of formal structure and depicted the drug smuggling operations as composed of isolated work groups without formal connections among each other. These findings bring into question the idea that these groups are rationally organized around pursuing efficiency and support recent research that suggests network security or minimizing risk are key organizing principles of drug trading organizations.     

Social disorganization theory and the college campus

Researchers and the mass media have focused increasing attention on campus crime in light of a few high-profile incidents. While rare, these incidents are important because college students are less likely to attend, spend time on, or participate in social activities on high crime campuses. The current study contributed to research on campus crime by exploring the generalizability of the updated social disorganization model to campus communities by using data collected from Peterson's Guide to Four-Year Colleges and the Uniform Crime Report for the year 2000. While social structural features of campus populations are clearly associated with rates of campus property crime, the role of social organization is less certain. These results have implications for future research and crime prevention planning on college campuses.     

A Statistical Validation of the Individuality and Repeatability of Striated Tool Marks: Screwdrivers and Tongue and Groove Pliers*

Abstract: Tool mark identification relies on the premise that microscopic imperfections on a tool’s working surface are sufficiently unique and faithfully transferred to enable a one‐to‐one association between a tool and the tool marks it creates. This paper presents a study undertaken to assess the validity of this premise. As part of this study sets of striated tool marks were created under different conditions and on different media. The topography of these tool marks was acquired and the degree of similarity between them was quantified using well‐defined metrics. An analysis of the resulting matching and nonmatching similarity distributions shows nearly error‐free identification under most conditions. These results provide substantial support for the validity of the premise of tool mark identification. Because the approach taken in this study relies on a quantifiable similarity metric, the results have greater repeatability and objectivity than those obtained using less precise measures of similarity.     

Assessment of Silicone Polymer Composites for Environmental Forensic Applications: A Proof of Concept Study*

Abstract: This study evaluates the use of polydimethylsiloxane polymer composites (PDMS, Fe–PDMS) as a passive sampling media to preconcentrate analytes found in environmental settings. Samplers were made using commercially available silicone products. The composite samplers were assessed for their sorption properties using Atrazine and Irgarol 1051 as model compounds. The initial study assessed the utility of PDMS sheets as adsorption material by following analyte depletion from spiked water samples by solid‐phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Follow‐up studies conducted at high and low concentrations using lab manufactured iron‐ PDMS rods (Fe–PDMS) showed effective uptake at differential rates from concentrations ranging between 1 μg/L and 10 μg/L. Adsorption mechanism was reversible, and compounds were recovered from the exposed materials and analyzed by liquid–liquid extraction‐GC/MS. Both composites showed better affinity for Irgarol 1051, 100% removal, than for Atrazine, 30% removal, likely representing their K_OW differences, 3.6 and 2.6, respectively. This “proof of concept” study demonstrates the positive implications for the use of silicon polymer composites as a monitoring tool for environmental forensic purposes.     

Potency Trends of Δ9‐THC and Other Cannabinoids in Confiscated Cannabis Preparations from 1993 to 2008*

Abstract: The University of Mississippi has a contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to carry out a variety of research activities dealing with cannabis, including the Potency Monitoring (PM) program, which provides analytical potency data on cannabis preparations confiscated in the United States. This report provides data on 46,211 samples seized and analyzed by gas chromatography‐flame ionization detection (GC‐FID) during 1993–2008. The data showed an upward trend in the mean Δ⁹‐tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ⁹‐THC) content of all confiscated cannabis preparations, which increased from 3.4% in 1993 to 8.8% in 2008. Hashish potencies did not increase consistently during this period; however, the mean yearly potency varied from 2.5–9.2% (1993–2003) to 12.0–29.3% (2004–2008). Hash oil potencies also varied considerably during this period (16.8 ± 16.3%). The increase in cannabis preparation potency is mainly due to the increase in the potency of nondomestic versus domestic samples.     

Root Morphology and Anatomical Patterns in Forensic Dental Identification: A Comparison of Computer‐Aided Identification with Traditional Forensic Dental Identification*

Abstract: An online forensic dental identification exercise was conducted involving 24 antemortem–postmortem (AM–PM) dental radiograph pairs from actual forensic identification cases. Images had been digitally cropped to remove coronal tooth structure and dental restorations. Volunteer forensic odontologists were passively recruited to compare the AM–PM dental radiographs online and conclude identification status using the guidelines for identification from the American Board of Forensic Odontology. The mean accuracy rate for identification was 86.0% (standard deviation 9.2%). The same radiograph pairs were compared using a digital imaging software algorithm, which generated a normalized coefficient of similarity for each pair. Twenty of the radiograph pairs generated a mean accuracy of 85.0%. Four of the pairs could not be used to generate a coefficient of similarity. Receiver operator curve and area under the curve statistical analysis confirmed good discrimination abilities of both methods (online exercise = 0.978; UT‐ID index = 0.923) and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient analysis (0.683) indicated good correlation between the results of both methods. Computer‐aided dental identification allows for an objective comparison of AM–PM radiographs and can be a useful tool to support a forensic dental identification conclusion.     

Genetic study of 15 STRs loci of Identifiler system in Angola population

Angola is located in the African continent, in the area of southern Africa and has a population of approximately 14 million inhabitants. The Angola population has origin from Occidental and Southern Bantu people that came from the great lakes region, creating the most ever known African migration of our days.Allele frequencies for the 15 STRs loci in the AmpFlSTR Identifiler kit (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, HUMTH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, HUMVWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818, HUMFIBRA/FGA and including the segment of the X-Y homologous gene amelogenin) were studied for Angola population.The genotype frequency of the 15 STR loci showed no significant deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium expectations and great values for the combined power of discrimination and combined power of a priori exclusion validate the application of these markers in forensic genetics. Comparative analyses between Angola population data and other relevant population database from Africa, Europe and American are presented.