The Influence of Case and Professional Variables on the Identification and Reporting of Child Maltreatment: A Study of Licensed Psychologists and Certified Masters Social Workers

All 50 states have laws requiring mental health and other professionals to report suspected maltreatment. Unfortunately, many professionals who are mandated to report suspicions of child maltreatment often fail to recognize potential maltreatment or fail to report their suspicions. The present study examines several factors that may influence identification and reporting of child maltreatment. Subjects were licensed psychologists in the Midwest and certified Masters social workers in Nebraska. Child maltreatment included neglect, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, and sexual abuse. Characteristics associated with the family or “case” (race, socioeconomic status of family, age of victim, type of maltreatment) were manipulated and presented in hypothetical case vignettes. Characteristics of the professional (e.g., training and experience with identification and reporting, personal history of maltreatment and violence) were also investigated. Ratings of the severity of the potential maltreatment situation, suspiciousness that maltreatment is occurring, and likelihood of reporting maltreatment were completed after reading each case vignette. The results indicate that a variety of case and professional factors may influence identification and reporting of maltreatment. Implications for training professionals and further research are discussed.     

Loners,Colleagues, or Peers? Assessing the Social Organization of Radicalization

This study explores the utility of a sociological model of social organization developed by Best and Luckenbill (1994) to classify the radicalization processes of terrorists (i.e., extremist perpetrators who engaged in ideologically motivated acts of violence) who are usually categorized as loner or lone wolf attackers. There are several organizational frameworks used to define or classify violent acts performed by individuals who may or may not have ties to extremist groups, but these studies largely ignore the role of social relationships in radicalization and the extent to which they inform our knowledge of terror. To address this gap, we apply the Best and Luckenbill model of social organization using a qualitative analysis of three case studies of four lone actor or small cell terrorists. The findings demonstrate lone actors are not always true loners in the context of radicalization, and highlights the ways that the Internet and social ties foster the radicalization processes of terror.

     

Accountability in Governance Networks: An Assessment of Public,Private, and Nonprofit Emergency Management Practices Following Hurricane Katrina

What is the most effective framework for analyzing complex accountability challenges within governing networks? Recognizing the multiscale and intersector (public, private, and nonprofit) characteristics of these networks, an accountability model is advanced organized around democratic (elected representatives, citizens, and the legal system), market (owners and consumers), as well as administrative (bureaucratic, professional and collaborative) relationships. This concept draws from 2005 events following Hurricane Katrina. Multiple failures of governing networks to plan for and respond to Katrina include a breakdown in democratic, market, and administrative accountability as well as a pervasive confusion over trade‐offs between accountability types emerging from crises. This essay offers several useful recommendations for emergency management planners as well as for those who teach and research.     

Forensic implications of respiratory derived blood spatter distributions

The nature of blood aerosols produced in physiological studies of an upright subject expiring small volumes through straws, spitting and mouthing sounds, and a semi-prone subject spitting through a bloody mouth or snorting through a single nasal orifice and by a simplified physical model of the respiratory system were investigated. Each manoeuvre produced many hundreds of droplets of a range of size, the vast majority being less than 1mm diameter. Droplets under 1mm dia. travelled over 1m - much further than could be expected if their flight was ballistic, like that of impact spatter. Respired blood aerosol properties are explained in terms of established mechanics of airflow shear induced aerosol production and the fluid mechanics of exhaled air movement.     

Bladder rupture after intentional medication overdose

We report the case of a 51-year-old woman who had a medical history of diabetes, depression with past suicide attempts, and suicidal ideation. She was found unresponsive in a motel with multiple bottles of medicines (melatonin, carisoprodol, ativan, and clonazepam) and an unopened bottle of wine. She was transported to the local hospital and treated for benzodiazepine toxicity and aspiration pneumonitis.The decedent gradually became more alert and was extubated 3 days after hospital admission. The decedent was reportedly getting up to use the restroom when she became tachypneic and diaphoretic and complained of generalized body pain. Her condition quickly declined, and she was pronounced deceased. A postmortem examination revealed an acute bladder rupture and soft tissue hemorrhage.A review of the literature reveals that isolated bladder rupture after minimal or no trauma in association with alcohol or drug ingestion is an infrequently reported, but recognized, injury. The diagnosis of bladder rupture should be considered in a patient with lower abdominal pain, even without a history of trauma. A history of voiding or bladder dysfunction should increase the suspicion for this injury. If suspected, a retrograde cystogram should be obtained promptly. Failure to consider and recognize this injury may lead to significant morbidity.     

Psychopathy and predatory violence in homicide,violent, and sexual offences: Factor and facet relations

Purpose. Evidence has been found pointing to a relationship between psychopathy and predatory violence. The present study investigated the violence mode and its relationship with psychopathy on factor as well as on facet levels. It was hypothesized that predatory violence would be related to the affective and/or interpersonal facets of psychopathy. A subsidiary hypothesis was that sexual offences could also be differentiated by means of violence mode. Methods. Participants were 82 male inmates convicted of a violent crime, a sexual crime, or a homicide. Psychopathy was assessed with the Hare PCL‐R2 and the violence mode was assessed by means of Cornell's Aggressive Incident Coding Sheet, based on interviews with the offenders and a review of the official record. Results. On the psychopathy subcomponent level, only the interpersonal facet was positively related with predatory violence. This association makes sense considering that psychopaths' interactions with others are defined by gradients of power and control and narcissistic gratification, rather than by attachment patterns. By contrast, the antisocial facet was associated negatively with predatory violence. Our subsidiary hypothesis concerning the possibility of differentiating sexual violence on the basis of the two violence modes was not confirmed. Conclusions. The present results add to the growing evidence that predatory violence is related to the personality traits of psychopathy rather than to its life‐style and antisocial characteristics. Therefore, a risk analysis of future predatory violent behaviour might benefit from the inclusion of the assessment of the personality facets of psychopathy instead of focusing solely on the antisocial behaviour.     

A Manner of Speaking: Declaration,Critique and the Trope of Interrogation

In this paper I will argue for the ethical and political virtue of a form of critique associated with the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s tryptich of essays on critique—namely ‘What is Critique?’ ‘What is Revolution?’ and ‘What is Enlightenment?’—develop a formulation of critique understood as an attitude or disposition, a kind of relation that one bears to oneself and to the actuality of the present. I suggest that this critical attitude goes hand in hand with a mode of intellectual practice realized rhetorically in the form of the interrogative and methodologically in ‘problematology’. But, in addition to highlighting the habitus of critique suggested by Foucault, I also want to consider the entanglement of this critical enterprise in the conditions of the present that it attempts to diagnose. Specifically, I ask, in what way is a critical enterprise in the interrogative mood itself imbricated in the trope of interrogation that fills so much of our current political and public landscape?     

Arsenic Poisoning Caused by Intentional Contamination of Coffee at a Church Gathering—An Epidemiological Approach to a Forensic Investigation

Abstract: An outbreak of apparent food‐borne illness following a church gathering was promptly reported to the Maine Bureau of Health. Gastrointestinal symptoms among church attendees were initially attributed to consumption of leftover sandwiches that had been served the previous day. However, a rapid epidemiological and laboratory assessment revealed the etiology of illness, including the death of an elderly gentleman, was not food‐borne in origin. A criminal investigation determined that deliberate arsenic contamination of the brewed coffee by one of the church members was the source of the outbreak. Public health officials and criminal investigators must be aware that intentional biologic aggression can initially present as typical unintentional disease outbreaks. Practitioners must also consider the need to properly maintain and preserve potential forensic evidence. This case demonstrates the key role public health practitioners may play in criminal investigations.