Mass homicide and suicide deadliness and outcome

A study of 98 lone, rampage killers in the United States from 1949 to 1999 found that those who were killed by police officers killed and wounded more victims than those who completed suicide who, in turn, killed or wounded more victims than those who were captured. Those rampage killers who completed suicide were less likely to be judged schizophrenic and more likely to be killing present or former co-workers.     

The Definition and Measurement of ‘Gang Status’: Policy Implications for Juvenile Justice

In this article, we examine gang membership and gang activity in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. We collected the data through a self-administered questionnaire completed by 373 randomly selected 9th and 11th grade students attending two high schools and two junior high schools. By the self-report method, 56 indicated they were currently active in a gang; another 45 had been members of gangs but were no longer involved; and, “wannabes,” or students who at some time had considered joining a gang but did not or could not, totaled 68. The 169 students who indicated some interest in or involvement with gangs represented 45% of the total sample. A more restrictive definition of actual gang membership (i.e., the group must have initiation rites and employ some external symbols of membership, such as “colors,” tattoos, or handsigns) results in a different trichotomization. We employ both the self-definition and restrictive definition of gang membership in our analysis of their personal biographical characteristics and criminal behavior. Our findings suggest that self-definition demonstrates clearer ties to self-reported gang-related activities than does the more restrictive one. We discuss the policy implications of this finding in the article.     

Privacy and Search Engines: Forgetting or Contextualizing?

This article considers the much‐criticized ‘right to be forgotten’ in the context of the European Court of Justice's judgment in the Google Spain case. It defends the ‘right to be forgotten’ as a metaphor that can provide us with a better understanding of the particular privacy concerns of the search‐engine age and their interaction with the freedom to access information, and draws on Goffman's idea of ‘information games’ and Nissenbaum's theory of ‘contextual integrity’. While supporting the principles that underpin the judgment, the article rejects the Court's binary approach of ‘forgetting’ versus ‘remembering’ personal information. Instead, it argues that the EU legislator should introduce more nuanced means of addressing modern privacy concerns. By establishing two remedies – ‘delisting’ or ‘reordering’, depending on the nature of the information – online information flows can be adjusted to preserve both the right to privacy and the freedom to access information in more contextually appropriate ways.     

The Angry Pamphleteer: True Threats,Political Speech,and Applying Watts v. United States in the Age of Twitter

Since the 1969 case Watts v. United States, courts have consistently held that politically motivated speech about or directed to public figures may be punished if it qualifies as a “true threat” rather than protected political hyperbole. Criticism of public officials lies at the core of First Amendment protection, even when that criticism is caustic or crude. Such caustic speech appears on Twitter with increasing frequency, often pushing the boundaries of the constitutional guarantees of free speech. Through an analysis of the political speech-true threat cases that apply Watts, this study identifies and assesses three distinct modes of analysis that lower courts use to distinguish political speech from true threats. They are: (1) criteria-based analysis; (2) ad hoc balancing; and (3) a form of balancing referred to herein as “line-crossing analysis.” This study concludes that criteria-based analysis is the most prominent mode used by lower courts. As applied to new media and political participation, criteria-based analysis risks unduly restricting valuable political speech.     

Narratives about privacy and forgetting in English law

This paper examines narratives about the right of privacy in the UK. It argues that until relatively recently the dominant narrative was one that associated privacy with celebrity claimants and media defendants. Other narratives, such as those concerned with digital privacy and data protection, did not feature as prominently. But changing technological and social contexts mean that these narratives are now understood to be of immense importance too. This paper explores these narratives against the backdrop of the European Commission's proposals for a ‘right to be forgotten’ (now relabelled a ‘right to erasure’), the subject-matter of this special issue, as well as the 2014 Google Spain judgment. The paper emphasises the importance of forgetting as an aspect of the right to privacy and argues that while the UK legislator and courts have been slow to give effect to erasure remedies, they must now start exploring the bounds of legal possibility in order to meet the challenges of the digital age.     

Tiananmen as treated by the Christian Science Monitor

Focusing on one medium's specific responses to a specific news crisis, print coverage by the Christian Science Publishing Company on the Tiananmen Square incident is compared to that of the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Times (Springfield, MA), Sunday Republican, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. The Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper internationally known for its objective, balanced reportage, is described and discussed, particularly regarding its pre‐ and post‐Tiananmen coverage. Its 185 articles beginning June 4, 1989, until a year later are delineated, along with the eight that appeared in the Christian Science Publishing Company's new monthly magazine, World Monitor. The argument is advanced that, despite major changes, the Monitor remains an invaluable media resource to both scholars and the lay public for unbiased reportage.     

Correspondence

This article surveys the problems facing the existence of intellectuals in the twenty-first century by reflecting on the historical and conceptual conditions that have enabled them to flourish in the past but less so in recent times. The first part considers several strands of contemporary philosophical and social thought that, despite their progressive veneer, have served to undermine the legitimacy of the intellectual's role. This delegitimation is largely traceable to a scepticism about the existence of ideas that are simultaneously normative and manipulable. The second part deals with the rise of anti-intellectualism in philosophy and psychology in the twentieth century, focusing especially on the debates surrounding ‘psychologism’. The third part examines what remains the most attractive expression of anti-intellectualism, namely, invisible-hand thinking and its late nineteenth-century transformation through the influence of statistics, evolution and epidemiology. In the conclusion, the main strands of the argument are drawn together in a sketch of an overall account of the rise and fall of the intellectual in the modern era. Finally, I provide one strategy for stemming the current tide of anti-intellectualism by reinterpreting the currently popular concept of ‘heuristics’.     

Molecular Assay for Screening and Quantifying DNA in Biological Evidence: The Modified Q‐TAT Assay*

Abstract: A method is described for the quantitation of total human and male DNA. Q‐TAT utilizes end‐point, multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the amelogenin and SRY loci to quantify DNA and incorporates a cloned nonhuman template to detect PCR inhibition. Standard curves of fluorescence from amelogenin or SRY amplicons were generated from amplification of known amounts of NIST traceable SRM‐female or SRM‐male DNA. Curves showed good linearity up to 500 pg of SRM‐template (R² > 0.99) and reliably estimated total and male DNA content in casework samples. The nonhuman pRL_null template included in each PCR was a sensitive indicator of known PCR inhibitors including EDTA, hemin, blue denim dye, and humic acid. Finally, the SRY amplicon was a sensitive indicator of male DNA and, in mixtures, could reliably estimate male DNA present in an excess of female DNA. The Q‐TAT multiplex is a reliable quantitation method for forensic DNA typing.