Applying Time-series Cross Correlation Analysis to Examine the Nexus between Firearms and Homicide in Hong Kong

This paper applied time series analysis to examine the nexus between firearm robberies and homicide in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HK). Recent years have seen a reduction in firearm related offences in HK compared to Britain. For instance, only three cases of firearm robbery in 2004 in HK (0.1% of all robbery; 2,237 incidents) involved genuine firearms, compared to 4,117 firearm robbery incidents (4% of all robbery) in Britain in the same year. This paper established a cross-correlation coefficient of 0.50 at lag 0 for the annual rate of two serious crimes, genuine firearm robbery and homicide, after identifying an ARMA(1,0) model from each time series (1972–2002). The results suggest that the prevalence of firearm robbery is moderately associated with the prevalence of homicide in HK.

The use of error rates to predict and characterize the efficacy of presumptive field tests

From a forensic perspective, a presumptive test, one which indicates the presence or absence of a certain target material such as blood, is an invaluable tool. Among these tests, there are different specificities, sensitivities, and shelf lives. The accuracy of a test is an algebraic combination of the specificity and sensitivity of the test. Each test has limitations as given by its false positive and false negative rates. The aim of this study was to illustrate how the false positive and false negative rates are to be properly determined using a simulation study for the phenolphthalein test. New presumptive tests must be properly evaluated/validated through testing of commonly encountered household items and other potentially probative items usually found at crime scenes, however, the makeup of test sets must appropriately capture all error rates. In order to correctly use these results when the test is applied to an unknown sample recovered at a crime scene, the error rates cannot be applied directly to estimate whether or not the sample is actually the analyte of interest. In a validation study, the forensic scientist calculates the false positive rate as the p(Positive Reaction|Blood), whereas at the scene, the crime scene investigator wishes to determine the p(Blood|Positive Reaction). All crime scene investigators need to ensure that the conditional is not transposed when interpreting such results. Furthermore, this work provides a model for the assessment of a multiple test diagnostic system intended for investigators.     

论清代命案初验之运作

本文以白描的手法勾勒了清代命案发生后,初次检验的运作情况。从中可以看出,清代的检验运作总体上是严谨的,由于官僚体制、诉讼模式等的不同,其呈现出与今日不同的面相。由于审验合一的特性,清代的检验在命案审理中之地位远较今日重要,检验是理解清代命案诉讼的一把锁匙。     

Institutional anomie and cross-national differences in incarceration†

Messner and Rosenfeld's (2007) institutional anomie theory (IAT) has mainly been applied by criminologists to explain crime rates at various aggregate levels. However, Messner and Rosenfeld also suggest that the same social and cultural forces that lead to high crime may explain differences in punishment, although this latter proposition has yet to be subject to empirical testing. Using a variety of data sources for 41 countries measuring various structural and cultural configurations, in this study we assess the extent to which IAT can explain cross-national differences in incarceration. Our results indicate that the strength of the economic institution and the extent of institutional imbalance reflecting a dominant economic institution are positively associated with incarceration rates when the national culture is characterized by individualism, a competitive achievement orientation, or both. A national culture characterized by both collectivism and a cooperative achievement orientation, however, serves as a buffer against the punitive effects of an institutional imbalance that favors the economy. Our results are discussed in the context of the extant IAT literature and future research on cross-national incarceration.     

A non-standard method for estimating accuracy of lie detection techniques demonstrated on a self-validating set of field polygraph examinations

Abstract

A unique method for estimating field accuracy of the Comparison Question Test (CQT) – a polygraph technique – is presented, based on a combined probabilistic and algebraic model. It is built on paired examinations in criminal cases in which two opposing versions per case have been subjected to polygraph tests. The developed model is ground-truth free, thus there was no need to rely on external criteria of deception (e.g., confessions or physical evidence) in estimating the accuracy of the CQT. Results indicate an accuracy rate of 0.94 in detecting guilty examinees (Sensitivity) with a 0.06 False Negative rate and an accuracy rate of 0.835 (Specificity) with False Positive of 0.165 for the innocents. These figures excluded 20% of the cases that were ruled inconclusive. When no inconclusive calls were allowed, the accuracy rate dropped down to 0.8 with 0.2 error rates for both the guilty and the innocent examinees. The importance of this research stems from its being a field study that due to the unique methodology was not subjected to weaknesses usually found in polygraph field validity studies. This method is applicable to other techniques of deception detection and with some necessary adaptations may be also to eyewitness situations.     

The flight from cool: American men and romantic love in the 1950s

The article uses love letters to re-analyze current notions about men and romantic love in the 1950s. Examining advice literature as well as evidence from fiction and film, European and American historians generally describe the 1950s as an era of emotional “formalization” or suppression. A newly analyzed set of 300 love letters by over a dozen American men suggests a much more nuanced view. Some of their letters support scholarly accounts of “remasculinization” in the 1950s, displaying a hard-boiled, tough-guy quality to compensate for challenges to men's roles in the workplace and family. Other men, however, openly expressed their passions, fears, and other feelings. Since these letters were written to the author's mother, they also suggest new potentials and opportunities for “personal” research. Given the paucity of love correspondence in postwar archives, professional historians might find personal collections useful evidence to study the character and dilemmas of modern romance.     

Ideas,Economics and 'the Sociology of Supply': Explanations for Fertility Decline in Bangladesh

The persistence of high rates of fertility in Bangladesh, despite the poverty of its population, has been given alternative, and apparently competing, explanations, including the absence of effective forms of family planning, the resilience of pro-natalist values and norms and the existence of material constraints which led to the reliance on children as economic assets. The recent and dramatic declines in fertility rates, in the absence of any apparent major economic changes in the decades prior to the onset of fertility decline, appears to contradict materialist explanations for fertility behaviour and to support explanations which stressed ideas about the acceptability of birth control and the availability of the means for doing so. This article argues that such an interpretation is based on an historical analysis of events in Bangladesh. It offers an alternative explanation which stresses socio-economic change as the primary motor for change in family size preferences, but which recognises the role of modern forms of family planning in facilitating the pace of the resulting fertility decline.     

The Structure of Government Intervention in African Agriculture

This article examines the determinants of various rates of agricultural subsidies (output, input, exchange rate distortions, and aggregate) using commodity-level data from eight African countries in the 1980s. Econometric results indicate that structural adjustment policies were more effective in reforming exchange rate distortions than in liberalising commodity markets. Output policies are determined within the national context while input subsidies are more responsive to commodity-specific conditions. Further-more, agricultural subsidies were strongly influenced by the degree of urbanisation and by the number of people per unit of arable land in a manner consistent with cheap food policy strategies.     

Elimination rates of breath alcohol

Legal driving limits are set coequally with 0.5 g/L blood alcohol concentration (BAC) or 0.25 mg/L breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) in Austria as well as in other European countries. As mostly some time elapses between BrAC measurement and driving offence, a back calculation of alcohol concentrations is often required. The calculation of hourly BrAC elimination rates can thereby help to avoid unnecessary variances. A study with 59 participants was performed under social conditions. BrAC was determined with the legally accredited Alcotest 7110 MK III A every 30 min, and concomitantly venous blood samples were drawn. Five hundred and four BrAC/BAC value pairs were evaluated. The overall mean peak BrAC was calculated with 0.456 mg/L (±0.119 mg/L standard deviation). The mean hourly BrAC elimination rate was overall determined with 0.082 mg/L per h (0.050–0.114, 95% range). Mean rate of females (0.087 mg/L h⁻¹) and the according 95% limits were statistically significantly higher than of males (mean rate 0.078 mg/L h⁻¹, p < 0.04). Our results confirm the possibility to implement hourly BrAC elimination rates, provided that adequate statistical ranges and basic forensic scientific rules that have been set up for alcohol back calculations are observed.     

Community Characteristics and Death by Homicide,Suicide and Drug Overdose in Italy: The Role of Civic Engagement

A number of recent theories suggest that high civicness, civic participation and social capital protect a community from deviant behavior. Most empirical studies of this hypothesis have been conducted in North America. This paper examines to what extent this hypothesis applies to Italy and to three forms of violent death: homicide, suicide, and drug overdose, using the Putnam concept of civicness. Official statistics on civicness, unemployment, per capita G.D.P., urbanization, couples’ separation and age group concentration from the 95 sub-regions (provinces) of Italy were used as predictors of violent death. Among regions, homicide and suicide rates were negatively correlated. Southern provinces had more homicides, while northern provinces had more suicides and deaths from drug overdose. Analyses of interactions among independent variables revealed that certain relationships, which at first sight appeared to concern the whole of Italy, in reality concern only the north or only the south. This suggests the existence of specific effects, whereby some independent variables are only triggered in the particular conditions encountered in the north or in the south of Italy. Civicness was negatively associated with homicide only in the south, where it was also positively associated with suicide. Death by drug overdose was mostly explained by wealth. The overall pattern of results was more complex than present theories suggest.