Justice Matters: lifting the lid on Pandora's box

The starting point of Justice Matters is simple: criminal justice is far too big; far too costly; far too intrusive. Far from being a means of delivering social justice, it is the cause of much social injustice. The large footprint in society occupied by the combined criminal justice institutions is profoundly socially harmful.

The criminal justice process inflicts unnecessary suffering on many thousands of suspects, defendants and convictees every year. This suffering is experienced very differently depending on your position in society: for instance whether you are young or old, black or white, male or female, rich or poor.

The collateral damage of the criminal justice process is also profound. A criminal record isa life sentence for many: an ongoing obstacle to participation in work and the wider community. Families and communities whose loved ones are arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned and supervised experience deep and lasting loss. Collateral damage is also found in the stress experienced by many victims, whose traumas and distress are often left unresolved, and in the dissatisfaction of witnesses, whose experience of the criminal justice process can be so negative.

Criminal justice also crowds out other, more innovative, just and effective policy and practice solutions to the problems our society faces. It is good at punishing certain individuals and groups. It fails to prevent social problems from arising, or to resolve those that occur.

To get involved in Justice Matters visit: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/why-justice-matters     

Demographic changes in european industrializing towns

Large databases assembled for industrializing European cities now permit crosscultural comparisons of populations that underwent demographic changes as a result of the industrialization process in the nineteenth century. The article draws into a comparative framework communities in France, Sweden, and Belgium, and compares their population development during early industrialization when population growth was rapid (paroxysmal). Special attention is paid to household structure, infant, and child mortality, and differential behaviors of “immigrant” and “native” populations. Finally, the article offers a general model population change during early industrialization as a comparative framework for future research.     

Transportation Challenges for Urban Students With Disabilities: Parent Perspectives

This qualitative study explored parent perspectives of the transportation difficulties students with disabilities experienced getting to and around school. Participants were parents of predominantly African American and Latino/a high school youth with disabilities from low income neighborhoods. Content analysis of 14 meetings with 5 to 12 parents sponsored by the school district revealed five primary themes concerning transportation: the role of aides, exclusion from school programming, scheduling problems, equipment problems, and physical safety issues. Findings are discussed in regard to students' social and emotional experiences at school. Implications for school policy include improving the integration of transportation within inclusion best practice models. Incorporating parent perspectives can help school administrators and staff enrich the quality of inclusive, socially just education for students with disabilities.     

School Problems and Solutions for Students With Disabilities: A Qualitative Examination

The inclusion of students with disabilities is a process that requires collaboration among multiple individuals, with teachers, aides, parents, students, and school systems playing important roles in resolving student problems. In the current study, we examined data from 75 teachers concerning 126 students about problems that students with disabilities had following a transition from a school primarily serving students with disabilities to more inclusive schools. Reported problems were reviewed and five major themes emerged: academic, behavioral, mobility/accessibility, social, and transportation issues. Teachers typically resolved academic problems by working directly with the student or collaborating with school staff. Social problems were resolved through student and teacher initiatives. Behavioral, transportation, and mobility/accessibility problems were resolved through collaboration among many key school figures and family members. Implications for theory, research, and inclusive school practices related to academic curricula, resources, services, and architectural accommodations for students with disabilities are discussed.     

Defendant characteristics and judgment behaviors of adolescent mock jurors

Fictitious court cases involving child abuse were presented to 140 male undergraduates and 140 male junior high school students to determine if the tendency to deal harshly with alleged criminals is dependent upon certain defendant characteristics. Results indicate that younger adolescent jurors give longer sentences than older adolescent jurors, and male defendants receive longer sentences than female defendants. While no significant main effects for case content were found, younger jurors gave longer sentences and attributed more responsibility to a parent who beat his/her child, while older adolescent jurors attributed more responsibility and prescribed longer sentences to a parent who burned the child. Implications for future research with adolescent jurors are discussed.Received Ph.D. from Lehigh University, Major interests include adolescent and adult personality and social development, developmental abnormalities, and jury behavior.Received Ph.D. from Lehigh University. Major interests are personality and sex-role development, and psychology and the law.Received Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. Major interests are cognitive development, guilt feelings, and jury behavior.     

Sudden death following exercise testing related to abnormalities of the cardiac conduction system and coronary artery pathology

A case of sudden death following exercise testing in a 33-year-old man is reported. The forensic autopsy showed atherosclerotic stenosis of the left coronary artery, as well as some changes in the cardiac conduction system, including anomalies of the atrioventricular node and moderate fibrosis and fatty infiltration of the branching bundle. This case demonstrates that cardiac arrest during vigorous exercise may be multifactorial and that abnormalities of the cardiac conduction system may have played some role in the fatal issue.     

Death following acute poisoning by moclobemide

A fatality due to ingestion of a reversible inhibitor of monoamine-oxidase A (MAO-A) is reported. Moclobemide is generally considered as a safe drug far less toxic than tricyclic anti-depressants. However, severe intoxications may result from interactions with other drugs and food such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), anti-Parkinsonians of the MAOI-type (e.g. selegiline) or tyramine from ripe cheese or other sources. In the present case, high levels of moclobemide were measured in peripheral blood exceeding toxic values reported so far in the scientific literature. The body fluid concentrations of moclobemide were of 498 mg/l in peripheral whole blood, 96.3 mg/l in urine while an amount of approximately 33 g could be recovered from gastric contents. The other xenobiotics were considered of little toxicological relevance. The victim (male, 48-year-old) had a past history of depression and committed one suicide attempt 2 years before death. Autopsy revealed no evidence of significant natural disease or injury. It was concluded that the manner of death was suicide and that the unique cause of death was massive ingestion of moclobemide.     

What constitutes a positive result in hair analysis: proposal for the establishment of cut-off values

Hair is still a seldom used specimen in most laboratories but its analysis has the potential of making a valuable contribution. Despite the many worthwhile reports, the scientific community at large still has reservations about the validity of hair analysis. Some of this is due to a lack of consensus among the active investigators on how to interpret the results from an analysis of hair. In USA, passive exposure seems to be a major problem, which can only be eliminated with difficulty. On the other hand, in Europe, scientists are performing standard decontamination procedures. It would be very helpful if a group of active researchers on hair analysis, representative of academic, government and private laboratories could define what are the areas of agreement and what are the issues that require further efforts to get a consensus. We propose the following guidelines: (1) a complete decontamination procedure, including the analysis of the wash solution; (2) two distinct analytical methods (immunoassay and GC/MS, or two different GC/MS methods); (3) the establishment of cut-off values (using 30-mg hair samples), 0.5 ng/mg of 6-MAM in the case of heroin abuse, and 1 ng/mg of cocaine in the case of cocaine abuse, which can be decreased to 0.5 ng/mg when use is supported by other evidence of drug intake.