Study to Examine The Links Between Organised Crime and Corruption

Targets of corruption

Due to the big differences among Member States’ institutions, the criminal structures in the EU take advantage of corruption in a variety of ways. In some countries (IT, BG, RO), ‘political patronage’ creates a vertical system of corruption that functions from top to bottom in all public institutions: administrative apparatuses, the judiciary and law enforcement (i.e. police and customs). In other countries politicians, magistrates, and white-collar criminals form closed corruption networks that are not systematic in nature. White-collar crime at the middle level of government bureaucrates is common (at various degrees of intensity) to almost all member states. In countries with low level of corruption, the cases are sporadic. The most wide-spread and systematic forms of corruption targeted by organised crime is associated with the low-ranking employees of police and public administration. Organised crime also targets tax administrations, financial regulators and any other regulatory body that might impact criminal activities, but in a less systematic and significant way. ...

Read More!

Nonlethal Self-defense, (Almost Entirely) Nonlethal Weapons, And The Rights To Keep And Bear Arms And Defend Life

INTRODUCTION

Owning a stun gun is a crime in seven states and several cities. Carrying irritant sprays such as pepper spray or Mace is probably illegal in several jurisdictions. Even possessing irritant sprays at home is illegal in Massachusetts if you’re not a citizen, and in several states if you’re under eighteen (even if you’re sixteen or seventeen).

Yet in most of these jurisdictions, people are free to possess guns in the same situations where stun guns or irritant sprays are illegal. So deadly devices are fine. But say you have religious, ethical, or emotional objections to killing, or don’t want to risk accidentally killing an innocent bystander, or don’t want your children to potentially have access to a deadly weapon. Not wanting to kill, and knowing that stun guns and irritant sprays pose at most a very small risk of death, you get a stun gun (which over 198,000 civilians have apparently done) or an irritant spray. Then you’re a criminal. In public places within some other jurisdictions,

Read More!

Distribution of Crime

Why Does Aging Out Occur?

• Despite the debate over variance and invariance, “aging out of crime” is a general pattern.
• Explanations: Young people are risk-takers and thrill-seekers, whereas aging individuals become more concerned with ties to conventional society, families, and long-term rewards.“Aging out” and Three Strikes Laws
• Three strikes laws create longer mandatory prison sentences for second and third time offenders. • By the time an individual has received their second and third strike offense, they may be “aging out” of their criminality.

Part III. Gender

• Official police data and surveys suggest that males are much more likely to be offenders. For example, victim studies show that 80% of offenders are males. URC arrest ratio is about 3 male offenders to every one female, and 6 to 1 for violent crimes.
• Self-report data show smaller differences. Is this because of different types of crime?

Read More!

Understanding White Collar Crime

§ 1.01 Defining “White Collar Crime”

Criminologist and sociologist Edwin Sutherland first popularized the term “white collar crime” in 1939, defining such a crime as one “committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” Sutherland also included crimes committed by corporations and other legal entities within his definition. Sutherland’s study of white collar crime was prompted by the view that criminology had incorrectly focused on social and economic determinants of crime, such as family background and level of wealth. According to Sutherland’s view, crime is committed at all levels of society and by persons of widely divergent socio-economic backgrounds. In particular, according to Sutherland, crime is often committed by persons operating through large and powerful organizations. White collar crime, Sutherland concluded, has a greatly-underestimated impact upon our society. Sutherland’s definition is now somewhat outdated for students of the criminal law. As white collar crime began to capture the attention of prosecutors and the public in the mid-1970s,..

Read More!

Automated External Defibrillators Can Save Lives During Cardiac Emergencies

If you look around an office building, a restaurant, a shopping center, or most public buildings, you may notice a small box hanging on the wall labeled “Emergency Defibrillator.” Inside this box is an AED, an automated external defibrillator. An AED provides an electric shock to a person experiencing cardiac arrest. While AEDs come in many different shapes and sizes, depending on the manufacturer, the basic components of every AED are a charging box with a lithium battery and an electrode pad to that delivers the electric charge to the person in need.

Fortunately, most AEDs that you see will never be used. However, The University of North Carolina School of Medicine is not taking any chances. Even though the majority of their 18 medical school buildings are within a stone’s throw of the world-class UNC Hospitals, they are installing an AED on the main floor of every building that does not already have one.

Paula Miller, MD, Associate Professor and Director of UNC Cardiac

Read More!

Differences in Diagnostic Approach Between Family Physicians and Other Specialists in Patients with Unintentional Body Weight Loss

Abstract

Background. Unintentional weight loss is a diagnostic dilemma with diverse diagnostic possibilities for physicians.

Objectives. Our study focused on the evaluation of differences in diagnostic approach between family physicians and physicians in other specialties.

Methods. Outpatients who visited National Taiwan University Hospital from January 1996 to December 1996 with unintentional weight loss of 5% or more within 6 months were recruited by a computer search. All data were obtained from a structured medical record audit.

Results. There was no significant difference in the utilization of common diagnostic laboratory tests between the two groups. However, other specialists ordered more carcinoembryonic antigen tests (P < 0.01) and hepatitis B antigen tests (P < 0.05), but fewer upper gastrointestinal tract barium studies (P < 0.05) than family physicians. For patients without a definite final diagnosis, the diagnostic total costs for laboratory tests and imaging studies were lower for family physicians than other specialists (P < 0.01). For patients with biomedical disorders, the diagnostic cost was not significantly different between the two groups. For patients

Read More!

Comparison of Pattern of Breathing with other measures of Induction of Anaesthesia, using Propofol, Mehohxital, and Sevoflurance

We assessed change of the pattern of breathing as a marker of induction of anaesthesia, using a method of maintaining spontaneous breathing throughout the induction period. We compared this index with a measure used clinically, the lash re¯ex, and measures used for drug investigations such as loss of grip of an object, cessation of ®nger tapping, and loss of arm tone. Ninety female patients (mean age 32 (17±63) yr, mean weight 63 (10) kg) were randomly allocated to induction of anaesthesia using propofol, methohexital, or sevo¯urane. The i.v. agents were given by slow injection estimated to give an induction dose (for weight drop end point) in 90 s.Sevo¯urane was given by progressively increasing the inhaled concentration to 8% so that induction should occur within 90±120 s. We measured time to change in breathing pattern, loss of voluntary ®nger tapping, loss of the lash re¯ex (tested at 15 s intervals), loss of postural tone in an...

Read More!

ACPA Medications & Chronic Pain Supplement 2007

INTRODUCTION

For over a quarter century, the American Chronic Pain Association, a non-profit, tax exempt organization, has offered a support system for people with chronic pain through education in pain management skills and self-help group activities. To learn more about the ACPA and how to become a member, please visit our web site at www.theacpa.org, or call the National Office at 800-533-3231. The ACPA Medications & Chronic Pain 2007 Supplement is updated yearly and includes web links for certain medications and relevant Internet sites of interest. Generic names are primarily listed with brand names in parentheses. This supplement is not meant to serve as medical advice for your condition or regarding your medication needs. Remember that the best source of information about your health and medication needs is from an open dialogue with your treating doctor. Prescription medications are lawfully available only from a health care professional licensed to prescribe them. Do not use them unless prescribed for you by such an individual...

Read More!

Academic Anesthesia Faculty Salaries: Incentives, and Productivity

In the United States, financial compensation for academic anesthesiologists has usually been based on rank and/or clinical time. Typically, faculty salaries would increase with seniority and the associated increases in rank (i.e., assistant professor associate professor full professor). Since most of the actual financial compensation is derived from clinical activity, a certain clinical expectation (i.e., usually number of days per week in the operating room plus call) would be expected. If a faculty member has research grants, money from the grant may be used to help pay a faculty member’s salary and increase his or her nonclinical time. These are the principles by which academic departments have for years compensated their faculty, although there have undoubtedly been many variations. Over the past 10 to 15 years, many American academic anesthesia departments have increasingly had problems with recruiting and retaining faculty (especially junior faculty), making it difficult to provide clinical coverage for all of the...

Read More!

Pulmonary Embolism as Cause of Cardiac Arrest

Background: Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a possible noncardiac cause of cardiac arrest. Mortality is very high, and often diagnosis is established only by autopsy. Methods: In a retrospective study, we analyzed clinical presentation, diagnosis, therapy, and outcome of patients with cardiac arrest after PE admitted to the emergency department of an urban tertiary care hospital. Results: Within 8 years, PE was found as the cause in 60 (4.8%) of 1246 cardiac arrest victims. The initial rhythm diagnosis was pulseless electrical activity in 38 (63%), asystole in 19 (32%), and ventricular fibrillation in 3 (5%) of the patients. Pronounced metabolic acidosis (median pH, 6.95, and lactate level, 16 mmol/L) was found in most patients. In 18 patients (30%), the diag- nosis of PE was established only postmortem. In 42 (70%) it was diagnosed clinically, in 24 of them the diagnosis of PE was confirmed by echocardiography. In 21 patients, 100 mg of recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator was administered

Read More!

Problem Oriented Guides for Police Problem-Specific Guides Series Guide No. 48 Bank Robbery

The United States experienced a dramatic increase in bank robberies between 1965 and 1975, when the number of crimes quadrupled from 847 to 3,517. Despite the enactment of the federal Bank Protection Act in 1968, robberies continued to rise through the early 1990s and now average around 8,800 per year (see Figure 1).§ Other countries have faced similar fluctuations in the number of bank robberies. For the most part, the incidence of bank robbery is closely related to other crime trends, especially commercial robbery. In the United States, banks have comprised an increasing proportion of the nation’s commercial robberies: in 1989, 6 percent of commercial robberies were of banks; this proportion increased steadily to 9 percent in 2004. (See Figure 2.)§§ Although bank robberies track crime trends, they vary by the size of the jurisdiction. In recent years, bank robberies in smaller U.S. cities have comprised an increasing share of commercial robberies: nearly 12 percent of commercial robberies in smaller cities are...

Read More!

The Use of LSD In Analytical Psychotherapy

The use of LSD in analytical psychotherapy is based mainly on the following psychic effects.

In LSD inebriation the accustomed world view undergoes a deep-seated transformation and disintegration. Connected with this is a loosening or even suspension of the I-you barrier. Patients who are bogged down in an egocentric problem cycle can thereby be helped to release themselves from their fixation and isolation. The result can be an improved rapport with the doctor and a greater susceptibility to psychotherapeutic influence. The enhanced suggestibility under the influence of LSD works toward the same goal.

Another significant, psychotherapeutically valuable characteristic of LSD inebriation is the tendency of long forgotten or suppressed contents of experience to appear again in consciousness. Traumatic events, which are sought in psychoanalysis, may then become accessible to psychotherapeutic treatment. Numerous case histories tell of experiences from even the earliest childhood that were vividly recalled during psychoanalysis under the influence of LSD. This does not involve an ordinary recollection, ...

Read More!

LSD Use and Effects

LSD Use and Effects

Use

LSD is ingested orally. A microdot tablet or square ofthe perforated LSD paper is placed in the userps mouth, chewed or swallowed, and the chemical is absorbed from the individualps gastrointestinal system. Paper squares are the preferred medium because their small size makes them easy to conceal and ingest. Also, because LSD is not injected or smoked, paraphernalia are not required.

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse data for LSD are limited to estimates of lifetime use, defined as the use of LSD at least once in a personps lifetime. During 1993, 13.2 million Americans, 12 years of age and older, reported having used LSD at least once compared to 8.1 million in 1985, an increase of more than 60 percent. In addition to the steady increase in LSD use since 1990, the data reveal two significant expansions in the number of lifetime users of LSD; one expansion occurred from 1985 to 1988 and the other from 1990 to 1991.

Source Document: Travel Back to the DEA Home Page

Read More!

A Short Guide About Hallucinogenic Drugs

LSD Use and Effects

Use

LSD is ingested orally. A microdot tablet or square ofthe perforated LSD paper is placed in the userps mouth, chewed or swallowed, and the chemical is absorbed from the individualps gastrointestinal system. Paper squares are the preferred medium because their small size makes them easy to conceal and ingest. Also, because LSD is not injected or smoked, paraphernalia are not required.

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse data for LSD are limited to estimates of lifetime use, defined as the use of LSD at least once in a personps lifetime. During 1993, 13.2 million Americans, 12 years of age and older, reported having used LSD at least once compared to 8.1 million in 1985, an increase of more than 60 percent. In addition to the steady increase in LSD use since 1990, the data reveal two significant expansions in the number of lifetime users of LSD; one expansion occurred from 1985 to 1988 and the other from 1990 to 1991.

Read More!

Why Lying Pays: Truth Bias in the Communication with Conflicting Interests

Abstract

We conduct experiments of a cheap-talk game with incomplete information in which one sender type has an incentive to misrepresent her type. Although that Sender type mostly lies in the experiments, the Receiver tends to believe the Sender’s messages. This confirms “truth bias” reported in communication theory in a one-shot, anonymous environment without nonverbal cues. These results cannot be explained by existing refinement theories, while a bounded rationality model explains them under certain conditions. We claim that the theory for the evolution of language should address why truthful communication survives in the environment in which lying succeeds.

1 Introduction

Verbal communication can occur even between senders and receivers with conflicting interests, and is often accompanied by lying and suspicion. Some communication-theoretic literature reports that, even in such situations, although senders usually lie, most receivers believe senders’ messages; this is called “truth bias,” the receiver’s intrinsic presumption that the senders are telling the truth (McCornack and Parks, 1986). The purpose of this paper is to...

Read More!

Psychiatric Malpractice: Stories of Patients, Psychiatrists, and the Law

Abstract

Psychiatric Malpractice

Psychiatric Malpractice is written by an attorney who has a history of bipolar disease. It is particularly suited to the novitiate psychiatrist and the general psychiatrist who wants to know about the liability aspect of psychiatric practice.

James Kelley presents classic malpractice cases with good and bad outcomes for the patient: prescription for the wrong medication, release of patients who were still acutely ill, violence by a patient against another person, and unusual disputes about the standard of psychiatric care. Of particular interest are cases of sexual misconduct by psychiatrists. In California Medical Board punishments, sexual misconduct with a patient is near the top of the list along with drugs. Kelley chose the cases not only for their intrinsic interest, but also because of the legal issues involved and the public attention evoked.

Read More!