Unusual facial markings and lethal mechanisms in a series of gasoline inhalation deaths

A review of deaths associated with hydrocarbon toxicity from gasoline sniffing in South Australia throughout a 10 year period from July 1987 to June 2002 revealed 4 cases. The victims were all Aboriginal people from remote inland communities. Each death had occurred while the victim was lying in bed sniffing gasoline from a can held to the face. Once unconsciousness had occurred, the mouth and nose had been pressed firmly against the can by the weight of the head. In each case, the effects of gasoline toxicity had been exacerbated by hypoxia and hypercapnia from rebreathing into the container once a tight seal had been established between the face and the can. The circular impressions left by the can edges on the faces of each of the victims provided an autopsy marker that assisted in clarifying the details of the fatal episodes. Discouraging solitary gasoline sniffing in bed may reduce the death rate in communities where this behavior is practiced.     

Prescriptions for punishment: Official ideologies and jall overcrowding

This study assesses key actors’ “worlds of fact” regarding jail overcrowding in California through an examination of their perceptions of causes and effects, support for different solutions, and adherence to major punishment ideologies. How policymakers define and structure a specific problem Gail overcrowding), can influence how policy options are differentially weighed as well as how existing policy processes can be improved. A mail survey was sent to two key decision making groups who largely regulate the intake and outflow of local jails: sheriffs and chief probation officers of the 58 California counties. Group differences in responses were predicted from the perspectives of blame avoidance, domain dissensus, and punishment theory. Relationships were examined among perceived causes, effects, solutions, and punishment ideologies. While both sheriffs and probation chiefs advocated highly similar “control-oriented” punishment ideologies, probation chiefs advocated more “progressive” solutions to jail overcrowding. Perceived causes and effects of jail overcrowding, along with support for deterrence ideology, were strongly related to elite support for three potential solutions: building more institutions, passing tougher laws to deter potential offenders, and using shorter sentences for low-risk offenders. Implications of these results for understanding jail overcrowding and policy processes are discussed.     

A New Start Toward a More Decentralized Federalism in Brazil?

Brazil's political history can be read as a cyclical alternationbetween centralization and decentralization—a contestbetween the center and the periphery. Centralizing tendenciesreached one height under the "Estado Novo" of GetúlioVargas (1937–1945) and peaked again under a series ofmilitary governments from 1964 to 1985. Forces favoring regionalismand more state and local autonomy have been given impetus duringthe 1980s by trends of regional differentiation, popular mobilization,return to civilian government in 1985, several key elections,and state and local financial crises. The constitution promulgatedin October 1988 features decentralizing fiscal provisions thatgive reason to believe that federalism may be revitalized inthe next several years in response to grassroots demands fromstate and local governments. However, these federalism reformsmay be threatened by the national government's attempts to thwartthe constitution's decentralization provisions and by nationaleconomic and political instability.     

The Covenantal Basis for the Development of Swiss Political Federalism: 1291-1848

This study argues that the modern political philosophy of federalismis directly linked to the Swiss Reformed idea of religious covenant,which was first formulated in the 1520s and 1530s by HeinrichBullinger in Zürich. Bullinger's concept of religious covenanthad roots both in the Old Testament and in the early federalideal and reality that had come out of the Swiss Middle Ages;it therefore had important social and political implicationsas well as theological meaning. During the sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries, this theological idea of federalism fedinto and helped to create the modern political concept of federalism,especially in the thought of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay and JohannesAlthusius. Political federalism became a reality in the Constitutionof the United States in the late eighteenth century. The Swissfederal Constitution of 1848 was instructed by the mature conceptof political federalism, by the Constitution of the United States,and by the long tradition of Swiss federalism. All of theseinfluences had some basis in the uniquely Swiss idea of religiouscovenant.     

Who are the most highly cited forensic scientists in the United States?

The most highly cited forensic practitioners in the United States were identified using a publicly available citation database that used six different citation metrics to calculate each person's composite citation score. The publication and citation data were gleaned from Elsevier's SCOPUS database, which contained information about ~7 million scientist each of whom had at least five entries in the database. Each individual was categorized into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, one of which was legal and forensic medicine (LFM). The database contained citation records for 13,388 individuals having LFM as their primary research discipline and 282 of these (2%) were classified as being highly cited. Another 99 individuals in the database had LFM as their secondary discipline, making a total of 381 highly cited forensic practitioners from 35 different countries. The career-long publication records of each individual were compared using their composite citation scores. Of the 381 highly cited scientists, 93 (24%) had an address somewhere in the United States. The various branches of forensics they specialized in were anthropology, criminalistics, DNA/genetics, odontology, pathology, statistics/epidemiology, and toxicology. The two most highly cited scientists, according to their composite citation score, were both specialists in DNA/genetics. Bibliometric methods are widely used for evaluating research performance in academia and a similar approach might be useful in jurisprudence, such as when an expert witness is instructed to testify in court and explain the meaning of scientific evidence.     

On creating ethical,productive, and durable research partnerships with police officers and their departments: a case study of the National Justice Database

ABSTRACT

Translational policing science must begin with explicitly communicated research aims and a shared vision for promoting safety. For researchers to approach police departments without first considering the concerns held by officers and their departments at large, is unethical, unproductive, and undermines efforts to secure longstanding mutually useful researcher-practitioner partnerships. In presenting a case study analysis of the multi-method National Justice Database’s recruitment practices, this article highlights some of the challenges that emerge when articulating study aims that hold relevance for public safety; defining theoretically- and solution-oriented research questions; administrative police data collection, analysis, and dissemination; and bolstering human research subject protection protocols for sworn officers who may be justifiably reluctant to participate in social science research endeavors. Implications for ethical policing research practice, fostering collaborative researcher-practitioner partnerships, and leveraging the benefits of data science are also discussed.     

Hong-Kong-style community policing: a study of the Yau Ma Tei fruit market

This paper explores the policing of a traditional wholesale fruit market located in a densely populated neighborhood of urban Hong Kong. Based on ethnographic and historical research, we outline the political arrangements that govern the discretionary arrangements of police power at the market. A historically developed system maintains an informal status quo against various pressures to change. We identify crucial features in the contemporary policing system that emerge from a fusion between the democratic ethos of community policing ideals and non-democratic aspects of local administration in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. These features of this historically developed mode of order-maintenance, we suggest, might be seen as broadly characteristic of a “Hong Kong style” community policing.     

Concentrations of zolpidem and zopiclone in venous blood samples from impaired drivers compared with femoral blood from forensic autopsies

The concentrations of zolpidem and zopiclone were determined in peripheral blood samples in two forensic materials collected over a 10-year period (2001-2010). The z-hypnotics were determined in venous blood from living subjects (impaired drivers) and in femoral blood from deceased persons (forensic autopsies), with the latter classified as intoxication or other causes of death. The z-hypnotics were determined in blood by capillary column gas chromatography (GC) with a nitrogen-phosphorous (N-P) detector after solvent extraction with n-butyl acetate. The analytical limit of quantitation (LOQ) was 0.02mg/L for zopiclone and 0.05mg/L for zolpidem and these have remained unchanged throughout the study. When death was attributed to drug intoxication (N=918), the median concentration of zopiclone in blood was 0.20mg/L compared with 0.06mg/L for other causes of death (N=1215) and 0.07mg/L in traffic offenders (N=691) (p<0.001). Likewise, a higher median concentration (0.30mg/L) was found in intoxication deaths involving zolpidem (N=357) compared with 0.13mg/L for other causes of death (N=397) or 0.19mg/L in impaired drivers (N=837) (p<0.001). Median concentration in blood of both z-hypnotics were appreciably higher in intoxication deaths when no other substances were identified; 0 70mg/L (N=12) for zopiclone and 1.35mg/L (N=12) for zolpidem. The median concentrations of z-hypnotics in blood decreased as the number of co-ingested substances increased for intoxication deaths but not other causes of death. The most prevalent co-ingested substances were ethanol in autopsy cases and diazepam in the motorists. This large compilation of forensic cases should prove useful when toxicologists are required to interpret concentrations of z-hypnotics in blood samples in relation to cause of death.