Gender inequality and homicide: a cross-national examination

Studies examining gender inequality and crime have often explored the connection between female victimisation and crime. However, feminist theories do provide a rationale for gender inequality affecting all crime, not just female victimisation. Using the ameliorative and the backlash hypothesis the current analysis examined gender inequality and homicide in 94 countries. Using a gender inequality index, we found that as gender inequality increased the homicide rate increased. This finding supports the ameliorative hypothesis, which states that as societies become more equal crime will decrease.     

Examining Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Corporate Offending and Beyond‐Compliance Behavior: The Efficacy of Direct and Indirect Regulatory Interactions

Tom Tyler's Procedural Justice Theory has received support in a variety of studies using criminal justice authorities as the research focus. To date, the theory has not been empirically tested using corporate malfeasance as an outcome, despite evidence that procedural justice is important in achieving regulatory compliance. This study uses factorial survey methods to examine whether corporate behavior is predicted by professionals' perceptions of procedural justice and legal legitimacy. We find that procedural justice and legitimacy considerations are salient only when managers have direct contact with regulatory authorities. This supports John Braithwaite's argument that effective regulation is enhanced by microlevel interactions in which procedural justice can be effectively leveraged to promote compliance.     

Does Treatment Quality Matter?

Research Summary

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has implemented a process to evaluate the treatment quality of interventions provided statewide in all long‐term residential programs. In the current study, we examine the predictive validity of this treatment quality component in the prediction of recidivism of youth (N = 2,397) who completed juvenile justice residential programs from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014. We use hierarchical linear modeling to assess the effects of treatment quality (as youth are nested within programs), controlling for demographic and criminal history factors. The results indicate that higher average treatment quality scores of interventions received within a residential program decreased the likelihood of subsequent arrest, conviction, and reincarceration, whereas the highest treatment quality score of any specific intervention provided within the program decreased the odds of reincarceration only.

Policy Implications

In this study, we confirm the importance of fidelity and implementation quality in the provision of crime prevention treatment interventions to serious, deep‐end juvenile offenders. Additionally, our results shed light on the ability of a juvenile justice agency to measure treatment quality in a substantively meaningful way with the use of limited additional resources. The services provided to keep communities safe, prevent future offending, and rehabilitate juvenile offenders must be held accountable for producing such outcomes, and one method of measuring such compliance is to evaluate the quality of the interventions with respect to staff training, fidelity adherence, evaluation, and corrective action processes.     

Parental Postconflict Explanations: Implications for Children's Adjustment Outcomes

The Post Conflict Explanations (PCE) scale is a compilation of behaviors commonly seen in parent‐child postconflict communications. Following exploratory factor analysis, the PCE emerged as a four‐dimension scale with adequate subscale internal consistency and intercorrelations: Dismissive (α = 0.86), Emotion Dysregulation (α = 0.85), Constructive (α = 0.97), and Blaming (α = 0.77). The PCE and its subscales were further validated through moderate‐to‐strong associations with established scales of family conflict, emotional security, and adjustment outcomes. The identification of these postconflict explanations represents a step forward in distinguishing constructive and destructive conflict behaviors.     

Fatal Complications of Aesthetic Techniques: The Gluteal Region

Cosmetic procedures are common and utilize many techniques to obtain aesthetically good outcomes for patient satisfaction with acceptable safety standards. Cosmetic procedures that involve the gluteal region are becoming increasingly popular as various procedures can target the gluteal region such as liposuction, tumescent liposuction, cosmetic filler injections, autologous fat transfer, depot drug delivery, and implants. Complications of cosmetic gluteal procedures can be localized or systemic with systemic complications being responsible for most deaths. These reported systemic complications include sepsis, thromboembolism, fat embolism with or without fat embolism syndrome, macroscopic fat embolism, anesthesia‐related and blood volume abnormalities. We herein report 10 deaths due to elective gluteal cosmetic procedures. Autologous fat transfer (fat grafting, lipoinjection) following liposuction resulted in 8 of 10 fatal outcomes of the gluteal aesthetic procedures. A comprehensive discussion of gluteal anatomy, gluteal contouring procedures, and the approach to such cases is presented along with the autopsy findings of the reported cases.     

Economic Burden of Child Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence in the United States

Because the effects of children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) carry long lasting consequences for the affected children, IPV exposure may impose a significant economic burden to localities, states, and society at large, made explicit over the victim’s lifetime and over a wide range of behaviors and outcomes, including use of social services, health and healthcare utilization, educational outcomes, workforce productivity, and criminal behavior. While much research has been conducted on the effect of IPV exposure on multiple short- and long-term outcomes, no research to date has examined the economic burden associated with IPV exposure. Using an incidence-based approach, we estimated the aggregate discounted costs associated with healthcare spending, criminal behavior, and labor market productivity accrued by a 20-year-old victim in 2016 projected to the age of 65, applying a 3% discount rate. The average lifetime costs derived from childhood IPV exposure are estimated to be over $50,000 per victim (2016 U.S. dollars) due to increased healthcare costs ($11,000), increased crime costs ($14,000), and productivity losses ($26,000). Over an annual birth cohort of young adults, these costs amount to over $55 billion nationwide. IPV exposure imposes a substantial economic burden to society at large in the form of increased healthcare costs, increased crime costs, and reduced productivity. This study offers an explicit quantification of substantial lifetime costs, which should encourage policy makers to redouble efforts to reduce the incidence of IPV and successfully ameliorate its effects on IPV-exposed children.     

Potentially Lethal Behaviors Associated With Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder: Review of the Literature and Forensic Implications

Abstract:  Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is characterized by loss of the muscle atonia of REM sleep, with release of complex and violent behaviors that are often attempted dream-enactments. This study reviewed the literature on RBD with regard to potentially lethal behavior. A total of 39–41 clinical cases of RBD associated with potentially lethal behaviors to self and/or others were found, involving a child and adults of all age groups, that manifested as choking/headlock ( n  = 22–24), defenestration/near-defenestration ( n  = 7), and diving from bed ( n  = 10). A total of 80.8% ( n  = 21) were males; 19.2% ( n  = 5) were females; mean age was 65.6 ± (SD) 13.8 years (range: 27–81 years, and a child). (Gender/age data were not listed in the remaining cases.) An etiologic association of RBD with a neurologic disorder (or with pharmacotherapy of psychiatric disorders, n  = 4) was present in 21–23 patients. Thus, RBD carries well-documented, potential forensic consequences during RBD episodes that could possibly have been misinterpreted as suicidal or homicidal behavior.     

Characterization of the Products Formed by the Reaction of Trichlorocyanuric Acid with 2-Propanol

Abstract:  We report a recent investigation into the death of a cat that was initially thought to involve intentionally burning the animal via the use of an ignitable liquid. The exposure of the animal to flame was ruled out. Instead, forensic investigation revealed the intentional mixing together of a common outdoor swimming pool chlorinator, trichlorocyanuric acid (TCCA), and 2-propanol (aka, isopropyl alcohol or rubbing alcohol). The reaction of these two chemicals resulted in the formation of cyanuric acid residue, hydrochloric acid, and the evolution of a significant volume of chlorine gas. Further α-chlorination side reactions also occurred between 2-propanol and TCCA to produce a variety of chlorinated 2-propanone species that were detected on the submitted evidence. The identification of the products of both the main reaction and the side reactions allowed the authors to determine what chemicals were originally mixed together by the culprit.     

Freezing skeletal muscle tissue does not affect its decomposition in soil: Evidence from temporal changes in tissue mass,microbial activity and soil chemistry based on excised samples

The study of decaying organisms and death assemblages is referred to as forensic taphonomy, or more simply the study of graves. This field is dominated by the fields of entomology, anthropology and archaeology. Forensic taphonomy also includes the study of the ecology and chemistry of the burial environment. Studies in forensic taphonomy often require the use of analogues for human cadavers or their component parts. These might include animal cadavers or skeletal muscle tissue. However, sufficient supplies of cadavers or analogues may require periodic freezing of test material prior to experimental inhumation in the soil. This study was carried out to ascertain the effect of freezing on skeletal muscle tissue prior to inhumation and decomposition in a soil environment under controlled laboratory conditions. Changes in soil chemistry were also measured. In order to test the impact of freezing, skeletal muscle tissue (Sus scrofa) was frozen (?20 °C) or refrigerated (4 °C). Portions of skeletal muscle tissue (～1.5 g) were interred in microcosms (72 mm diameter × 120 mm height) containing sieved (2 mm) soil (sand) adjusted to 50% water holding capacity. The experiment had three treatments: control with no skeletal muscle tissue, microcosms containing frozen skeletal muscle tissue and those containing refrigerated tissue. The microcosms were destructively harvested at sequential periods of 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 23, 30 and 37 days after interment of skeletal muscle tissue. These harvests were replicated 6 times for each treatment. Microbial activity (carbon dioxide respiration) was monitored throughout the experiment. At harvest the skeletal muscle tissue was removed and the detritosphere soil was sampled for chemical analysis. Freezing was found to have no significant impact on decomposition or soil chemistry compared to unfrozen samples in the current study using skeletal muscle tissue. However, the interment of skeletal muscle tissue had a significant impact on the microbial activity (carbon dioxide respiration) and chemistry of the surrounding soil including: pH, electroconductivity, ammonium, nitrate, phosphate and potassium. This is the first laboratory controlled study to measure changes in inorganic chemistry in soil associated with the decomposition of skeletal muscle tissue in combination with microbial activity.