The Challenges to Cooperation Posed by the Nexus of Terrorism and Organized Crime: Comparing the Situations Between the Andean and the Sahel Regions

The recent conflict in the Sahel area is another case where the nexus of terrorism and organized crime causes challenges to the international community. Comparing the situation with that of the Andean region brings forth the challenges faced when dealing with this type of conflict: the states’ weak presence in the remote regions, the insurgents’ ability to offer income and “security” to the people, immediate threat to international investments, unresolved political/regional issues, the marriage of convenience of insurgents/terrorists and organized crime, internal divisions of the insurgent groups and also ideologies surviving or suffering after the elimination of their leaders.     

Effect of eight solvents on ethanol analysis by Dräger 7110 Evidential breath analyzer

The Dr?ger 7110 MK III FIN Evidential breath analyzer is classified as a quantitative analyzer capable to provide sufficient evidence for establishing legal intoxication. The purpose of this study was to evaluate ethanol specificity of this instrument in the presence of other solvents. Effects of eight possible interfering compounds on ethanol analysis were determined in a procedure simulating a human breathing. Most of the compounds studied had either a negligible effect on ethanol analysis (acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, and methyl isobutyl ketone) or were detected in very low concentrations before influencing ethanol readings (methanol, ethyl acetate, and diethyl ether). However, 1-propanol and 2-propanol increased the ethanol readings significantly. Thus, Dr?ger ethanol readings should be interpreted carefully in the presence of propanol.     

The visual politics of corruption

Despite the fact that corruption is essentially invisible, communication campaigns by the global anti-corruption industry regularly feature photographic images. So far, however, we do not know much about the narratives that are encoded in these images. Through the theoretical lens of postcolonialism, this paper takes a first step towards developing an understanding of the visual representation of corruption. Specifically, the paper applies semiotic and iconographic methods to two photography competitions run by Transparency International – the major non-governmental player in the anti-corruption industry. The analysis shows, first, that the anti-corruption industry reinforces colonial stereotypes, suggesting that the ‘sinful’ and ‘irrational’ Global South is waiting to be civilised by the North. Second, through its visual imagery, the anti-corruption industry also emphasises ideas of a ‘humanitarian family’, which serves to cover up the North’s role in transnational webs of corruption. These findings are triangulated with semiotic/iconographic analyses of the Transparency International logo and the Corruption Perceptions Index map.     

Poly-Victimization as a Life Condition: Correlates of Poly-Victimization among Finnish Children

According to criminological literature, victimization tends to cluster among the same adolescents. Recent American studies have shown that the poly-victimized youth are different in terms of their whole victimization profile than those children with fewer or no victimization experiences. In this article poly-victimization is studied among Finnish sixth and ninth graders (n = 13,459) based on the Finnish Child Victim Survey 2008. The article will answer questions with regard to accumulation of victimization and its associations with children's psycho-social well-being. The study examines the individual and family level background characteristics which are related to poly-victimization. The accumulations of these risk factors are analysed with poly-victimized children compared with less or non-victimized children. According to the analysis, poly-victimization exists among Finnish children and adolescents. In addition, the characteristics indicated as risk factors of victimization seem to accumulate among poly-victims. With cross-sectional data, no causal conclusions can be made, but poly-victimization is related to higher levels of psycho-social problems. The results confirm earlier findings of poly-victimization as a life condition.     

Supervision mode effects in computerized delinquency surveys at school: Finnish replication of a Swiss experiment

Objectives

This study provides a Finnish replication of a recent Swiss experiment (Walser and Killias: J Exp Criminol 8:17–28, 2012) on the supervision mode effects in computerized delinquency surveys in schools. This study supplements the Swiss study by using individual level randomization and two additional outcome variables: meta-questions of response integrity and incidence-counting heuristics.

Methods

A total of 924 ninth grade students (15–16 years old) in southern Finland were randomly assigned (at the level of individuals) to supervision either by their teachers or by an external research assistant. Students then responded to an online self-report delinquency survey. Chi-square and t tests were used to compare prevalence levels and means.

Results

In both last year and lifetime recall periods, only one offence type (unspecified theft) showed significantly different outcomes, with external supervision yielding a higher prevalence figure. For other offences, no supervision effects were found. When females and males were separately examined, limited evidence of gender-specific supervision effects emerged. Thus, females appear to report more thefts in external supervision while males report more violence in teacher supervision. No statistically significant supervision effects were found in questions probing response integrity and counting heuristics.

Conclusion

Using teacher supervision in online self-report delinquency surveys does not appear to compromise the validity of the survey results. The findings thus largely corroborate the results of the earlier Swiss test. How supervision condition interacts with respondent characteristics apart from gender calls for further scrutiny.     

Time of death of victims found in cold water environment

Limited data is available on the application of post-mortem temperature methods to non-standard conditions, especially in problematic real life cases in which the body of the victim is found in cold water environment. Here we present our experience on two cases with known post-mortem times. A 14-year-old girl (rectal temperature 15.5 degrees C) was found assaulted and drowned after a rainy cold night (+5 degrees C) in wet clothing (four layers) at the bottom of a shallow ditch, lying in non-flowing water. The post-mortem time turned out to be 15-16 h. Four days later, at the same time in the morning, after a cold (+/- 0 degrees C) night, a young man (rectal temperature 10.8 degrees C) was found drowned in a shallow cold drain (+4 degrees C) wearing similar clothing (four layers) and being exposed to almost similar environmental and weather conditions, except of flow (7.7 l/s or 0.3 m/s) in the drain. The post-mortem time was deduced to be 10-12 h. We tested the applicability of five practical methods to estimate time of death. Henssge's temperature-time of death nomogram method with correction factors was the most versatile and gave also most accurate results, although there is limited data on choosing of correction factors. In the first case, the right correction factor was close to 1.0 (recommended 1.1-1.2), suggesting that wet clothing acted like dry clothing in slowing down body cooling. In the second case, the right correction factor was between 0.3 and 0.5, similar to the recommended 0.35 for naked bodies in flowing water.     

Immediate legitimacy? Problems of legitimacy in a consensually oriented application of law

This article was first presented at the Symposium on the Legitimacy of Law in Modern Society, in Murikka, Finland, in August 1988.     

Fourier-transformed infrared breath testing after ingestion of technical alcohol

The study aim was to evaluate the feasibility of a Fourier-transformed infrared (FT-IR) analyzer for out-of-laboratory use by screening the exhalations of inebriated individuals, and to determine analysis quality using common breath components and solvents. Each of the 35 inebriated participants gave an acceptable sample. Because of the metabolism of 2-propanol, the subjects exhaled high concentrations of acetone in addition to ethanol. Other volatile ingredients of technical ethanol products (methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone, and 2-propanol) were also detected. The lower limits of quantification for the analyzed components ranged from 1.7 to 12 microg/L in simulated breath samples. The bias was +/-2% for ethanol and -11% for methanol. Within-day and between-day coefficients of variation were <1% for ethanol and <4% for methanol. The bias of ethanol and methanol analyses due to coexisting solvents ranged from -0.8 to +2.2% and from -5.6 to +2.9%, respectively. The FT-IR method proved suitable for use outside the laboratory and fulfilled the quality criteria for analysis of solvents in breath.     

Homicide-suicide - an event hard to prevent and separate from homicide or suicide

Suicide preceded by homicide is a rare but tragic event that often shocks the whole community. Annual rates show considerable variation, though not as great as the incidence of homicides. Within the industrialized nations, Finland's prevalence rates for homicide-suicide have been mid-range. The National Suicide Prevention Project recorded and carefully analysed all suicides committed in Finland during a 12-month period. In this material of almost 1400 suicides, 10 verified homicide-suicide cases were found. The perpetrator was male in all but one case, and all the victims were family, 9/10 being spouses and/or children. The most typical homicide-suicide seemed to be a man shooting a family member during a separation process. No perpetrator was found suffering from a psychotic disorder but three had major depression. The homicide-suicides were compared with the suicides and statistically significant differences emerged in two variables: shooting was more often the method used in the homicide-suicide cases, which, furthermore, were more likely to involve a divorce or recent rupture in another long-term intimate relationship. Sharing few common variables with either homicide or suicide, homicide-suicide appears to be a distinct phenomenon whose prevention would seem to be extremely difficult on the individual level. Since shooting is the most common method of homicide-suicide, firearm licenses should be more restricted.