Estimation of age-at-death for adult males using the acetabulum, applied to four Western European populations

Methods to estimate adult age from observations of skeletal elements are not very accurate and motivate the development of better methods. In this article, we test recently published method based on the acetabulum and Bayesian inference, developed using Coimbra collection (Portugal). In this study, to evaluate its utility in other populations, this methodology was applied to 394 specimens from four different documented Western European collections. Four strategies of analysis to estimate age were outlined: (a) each series separately; (b) on Lisbon collection, taken as a reference Coimbra collection; (c) on Barcelona collection, taken as a reference both Portuguese collections; and (d) on London collection taken as reference the three Iberian collections combined. Results indicate that estimates are accurate (83-100%). As might be expected, the least accurate estimates were obtained when the most distant collection was used as a reference. Observations of the fused acetabulum can be used to make accurate estimates of age for adults of any age, with less accurate estimates when a more distant reference collection is used.     

The Intergenerational Cycle of Criminality—Association with Psychopathy*

Abstract: Preventive interventions early in life are likely to lower the risk of intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior. We investigated if psychopathy among homicidal offenders is associated with criminal offending among the offenders’ offspring. The basic sample consisted of consecutive Finnish homicide offenders (during 1995–2004) who had been subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination and rated for a file‐based PCL‐R, and their offspring. Criminal behavior among both genders of the offspring was more common than in the general population. In general, the offspring’s crimes against others (e.g., threat, intimidation, deprivation of freedom, breach of domicile) were associated with their parent’s psychopathy. A grandfather’s major mental disorder was associated with a high rate of crime committed by the offspring. Especially, the sons of male psychopathic homicidal offenders had the highest rate of committing crimes, which was often expressed as vandalism. However, both genders of offspring seem to require special preventive programs to ameliorate these problems.     

Murder in Black and White

Abstract

In this paper we will tell the story of “The Poisoning of the Late Levi Smelser.” Through detailed examination of both the media reports and official documents, the ensuing narrative portrays how race and gender influence the criminal justice processes of late antebellum New Orleans. As the story unfolds, two types of accounts emerge. We come to know the major participants in this case, Kitty, the slave, Levi Smelser, the victim, Theresa Smelser, the widow, and Adam Scott, the young foreman of Smelser's tin and copper shop, in their ordinary and comfortable lives before the murder. Secondly, we see these same characters play shifting roles of guilt and innocence in the planning and implementation of the murder as the newspapers reveal, magnify and glorify new “particulars,” day-by-day. This story is actually composed of a number of plots and constitutes a “scenario” of crime creation by sources of the mass media and related groups. As a scenario, the story represents “an interactional moment or site of meaning creation.”     

Not Just a Boy's Club

Abstract

The extant literature suggests that habitual criminality among women is rare and that female career criminals are ostensibly nonexistent. Using the criminal records of 500 male and female adult recidivists, this study applies the concept of career criminality to women and describes how this application has specific gendered elements. Like their male peers, women are chronic, versatile offenders engaged in violent, property, and public-order offending. Women are disproportionately engaged in forgery, fraud, and prostitution whereas men are disproportionately engaged in rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. No gender differences existed for a variety of additional offenses and criminal justice system statuses. However, significant gender differences exist for social demographic characteristics, such as age and timing of onset, and criminal career parameter indicators, such as span of criminal career. These data and analyses indicate that the career criminal classification has important implications for criminal career research and gender-based criminology.     

知识背景、三维解构与智识启迪:贝卡里亚犯罪学思想论要

从刑事一体化的角度来看,贝卡里亚及其《论犯罪与刑罚》一书,不仅是刑法学界的遗产,也是犯罪学的一笔丰厚遗产。贝卡里亚的犯罪学理论是建立在对前启蒙时代犯罪学的批判之上的,通过与前启蒙时代犯罪学的比较,可以发掘贝卡里亚对犯罪学理论的巨大贡献。系统整理贝卡里亚及其犯罪学思想,不仅是犯罪学对于学界的一种理论贡献,更是对于深度融合刑事法学各个学科,具有不可低估的学术意义。     

The impact of timing and frequency of parental criminal behaviour and risk factors on offspring offending

This paper explores mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour by investigating specifically the timing and frequency of the parents' criminal behaviour while including risk factors for criminal behaviour. The results demonstrate a dose–response relationship: parents' number of criminal convictions is positively related to offspring's conviction rate. Furthermore, children whose parents had only been convicted before the child's birth have more convictions than those whose parents had never been convicted. Children whose parents had been convicted after the child's birth have more convictions than those whose parents had only been convicted before the child's birth, but this difference can be explained partly by the observation that the latter group had fewer risk factors for crime. When parental convictions at different ages were examined, children whose parents had been convicted between their 7th and 13th birthdays exhibit more criminal behaviour than children whose parents were convicted in other periods, but none of the differences were significant. There does not appear to be a sensitive period for the impact of parental criminal behaviour. The results demonstrate support for static as well as dynamic explanations of intergenerational transmission such as the transmission of a criminogenic environment and/or mediation through risk factors.     

Using context and difference in sex offender treatment: An integrated systemic approach

Summary

The primary objective of this paper is to promote a re-examination of the current use of cognitive-behavioural programmes in work with men who have sexually offended against children or adults and to encourage the application of ideas from the systemic field. In order to support this objective, the paper puts forward and develops the following arguments:

1. That the current content of manualised programmes in this field has been distilled too far and left behind some of the most important principles of the cognitive approach. Returning to the work of Marshall et al (1999), the need for a thorough and broad-based assessment of each individual prior to deciding treatment goals is clearly recommended. Further, there is a need to pay much more attention to differences between, as well as similarities of those who sexually offend.

2. That ideas from within the systemic therapeutic field be integrated within existing approaches to attempt to address some of the limitations of cognitive-behaviour therapy as currently employed. Evidence for the potential benefits of this comes from a broad personal experience of working directly with offenders and consulting to group facilitators.

It is concluded that all therapeutic approaches reach a ‘moment of integration’ (Pinsof, 1994), when their failures are recognised and other approaches are drawn on. It is suggested that this moment may be upon us in this area.     

Ideological and pedagogical tensions in an environmental sustainability education project: A review of adult education practices around Lake Fundudzi,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Research in poor communities in South Africa faces intellectual challenges and tensions which offer lessons for evaluating environmental education (EE). This article illuminates five such tensions that emerged during the course of an adult environmental education programme, implemented from 1999 to 2002, in communities surrounding the catchment of Lake Fundudzi in South Africa: tensions arose between traditional and modern concepts of community; between traditional and post-apartheid structures of local governance; between liberal empowerment and traditional conservationist ideologies; and also within and between environmental ideologies and research paradigms. Paramount among the lessons learned is the need to develop multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary (MIT) practices that are sensitive to local community and environmental needs, and to solutions expressed through local residents, community workers and academics – in other words, the recognition and affirmation of local indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs).     

新形势下成人高等教育发展探索

随着21世纪知识经济的来临,社会主义市场经济的日益发展和完善,成人高等教育在普通高等教育大规模扩大招生规模的夹击中,要如何生存和发展?本文揭示了成人高等教育的地位,面临的问题以及在改革中如何求得发展。