Asphyxia

SUFFOCATION

SMOTHERING
Smothering and suffocation are often used interchangeably, but the term “smothering” is best used for that form of asphyxia in which the nose and mouth are obstructed e.g. by a hand, paper, clothes, pillow, plastic bag etc. Gagging people to keep them quiet may lead to smothering. Signs of asphyxia are commonly absent or are only slight, and because marks of injury may be few if any at all homicidal smothering may be difficult to diagnose. Overlaying is the accidental death by smothering of young children by adults sleeping with them. In the U.K. it is a criminal offence...

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An Autopsy Report Case of Rape Victim by the Application of PSA Test Kit as a New Innovation for Sexual Assault Investigation in Thailand

Sexual assault is usually an un-witnessed crime. Therefore, forensic investigation and identification of the spermatozoa and semen on the specimen collected from the vagina of female victims plays an extremely important role in the court testimony to confirm the recent episode of sexual intercourse. In fact, microscopic visualization of the spermatozoa is a gold standard method to prove that the female victims had recently been violated. However, if the male offender is a vasectomized or an azoospermic individual, it is impossible to prove the recent sexual event by identification of the spermatozoa and this may let the offender go free. In the US, the reported frequency of azoospermia is 1% to 9% in seminalstains or swabs-examined sexual assault cases and the frequency of contraceptive vasectomy has been estimated to be 750,000 to 1,000,000 per year(1,2). In recent years, the acid phosphatase test was generally used as a routine test for identification of the semen in stains or swabs. However, according to scientific results,...

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Stages Of Shock

Shock involves ineffective tissue perfusion and acute circulatory failure. The shock syndrome is a pathway involving a variety of pathologic processes that may be categorized as four stages: initial, compensatory, progressive, and refractory (Urden, Stacy, & Lough, 2014).

• Initial stage - cardiac output (CO) is decreased, and tissue perfusion is threatened.

• Compensatory - Almost immediately, the compensatory stage begins as the body’s homeostatic mechanisms attempt to maintain CO, blood pressure, and tissue perfusion.

• Progressive - The compensatory mechanisms begin failing to meet tissue metabolic needs, and the shock cycle is perpetuated.

• Refractory - Shock becomes unresponsive to therapy and is considered irreversible.

According to Urden, Stacy, & Lough (2014), as the individual organ systems die, MODS occurs. Death occurs from ineffective tissue perfusion because of the failure of the circulation to meet the oxygen needs of the cell.

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Evaluating Multi-Agency Anti-Crime Partnerships Theory Design And Measurement Issues

Abstract: Inter-organizational partnerships are widely praised as a vehicle for planning and implementing complex, comprehensive community interventions. This article explores conceptual, design, and measurement issues relevant to the evaluation of coalitions, with particular reference to anti-crime initiatives. A general theory of partnerships is outlined that goes beyond organizational models to focus on the complexity of intervention strategies: domains of influence, causal mechanisms, intervention targets, and partnership services. To fill a large gap in our knowledge of coalition effectiveness, impact evaluations should include a mixture of strong research designs with counterfactuals, a theory (or multiple theories) of change, a blend of quantitative and qualitative methods, measurement and analysis at multiple levels, and multiple case studies for understanding the dynamics and external relationships of each partnership. The primary substantive issue for public safety partnerships is the failure to be inclusive, thus undermining their greatest strength. Finding the proper role for "the community" has been a continuous challenge as law enforcement agencies and strategies tend to be over represented...

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Structural Factors And Black Interracial Homicide: A New Examination Of The Causal Process

Abstract

This study evaluates the assumption that deprivation among African Americans and racial inequality lead to black interracial homicide due to racial conflict and antagonism. Using refined race-adjusted Supplemental Homicide Report data, Uniform Crime Report data and census data, we test an alternative hypothesis that draws on the macrostructural opportunity theory to assess and more accurately specify the relationship between structural characteristics and black interracial homicide. We find that first, the relationship between economic factors and black interracial homicide can be explained in large part by high rates of financially motivated crime such as robbery, and second, that economic factors are associated with financially motivated but not expressive black interracial killings. Analyses of black intraracial killings are performed for comparison purposes. Collectively, the findings suggest that conflict-based explanations rooted in racial antagonism and frustration aggression may be premature....

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Automated Information Systems for Homicide Investigation:

I. Introduction

With the growing number of automated investigative support systems in police departments, a tempting assumption would be that those with automated systems are better equipped to face the investigative challenge that certain types of homicides present. Preliminary survey data, however, suggest otherwise. This paper provides a preliminary review of the correlations between departments with and without automated systems and their respective UCR (Uniform Crime Reports) clearance rates. It also summarizes the prominent homicide investigation technology issues throughout the country, with particular emphasis on the role and effectiveness of automated information systems in improving UCR homicide clearance rates. In an earlier survey, respondents indicated that homicide clearance rates either decreased or remained constant while overall homicides decreased (PERF, 1994). Why some departments’ clearance rates decreased and others’ remained consistent, even though homicides actually decreased, deserves further exploration. The two main factors this paper examines are the homicide types and the analytical tools used to solve them. By analyzing...

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Profiling Killers: A Revised Classification Model For Understanding Sexual Murder

Abstract

Generally, murder classifications have failed to be useful for investigators in identifying perpetrators of murders. Based on the experience of the authors, this article extends the definitions of four previously recognized rape-offender typologies (power-assertive, power- reassurance, anger-retaliatory, and anger-excitation) into classifications for sexually oriented killers. These types of murderers and their crime scenes are described through the dynamics of their behaviors, homicidal patterns, and suspect profiles. Each typology is followed by an actual case example that fits that particular type of killer. By identifying crime scene and behavioral factors of these killers, the homicide investigator will be more equipped to process murder scenes, prioritize leads, and apprehend killers. Unlike earlier efforts at crime scene classification, the present work addresses the behaviors, motivational continuum, and the effects of experiential learning by the perpetrators. The relative frequency of the four types within a population of murderers at the Michigan State Penitentiary is revealed....

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COPS | Street Level Prostitution

Street Prostitutes' Clients

Prostitution clients, typically referred to as "johns" or "tricks," are attracted to the illicit nature of the encounter, desire varieties of sex that regular partners do not provide, view sex as merely a commodity, and/or lack interest in or access to conventional relationships. Clients' decision to solicit a prostitute is influenced by the availability of prostitutes, knowledge of where to find them, access to money, perceived risk of getting caught or contracting disease, and ease of securing services. Clients gather such information in a variety of ways: from trial and error; from personal recommendations from others (including friends, bartenders, taxi drivers, and hotel workers); and, increasingly, from information posted on Internet websites. Somewhere around 10 to 20 percent of men admit they have paid for sex, but only about 1 percent pay for sex regularly. While this is still a large number of potential clients, it is considerably lower than some earlier estimates based on flawed research methods.

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The Psychopath As Pimp

ABSTRACT

Although the study of psychopathy has become a significant area for research in recent years, relatively little attention has been paid to examining the role of psychopa-thy in offenders who live off the avails of prostitution (i.e., “pimps”). It may be argued that this dearth in the literature is surprising given that psychopathy is defined by a unique set of interpersonal and affective characteristics that theoretically should facilitate the business of pimping. As such, the present investigation attempted to profile characteristics of perpetrators who engage in pimping. As expected, psychopathy was an important feature of these perpetrators: over one-third of the 22 perpetrators examined met the diagnostic cut-off of 30 on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. To expand our understanding of pimps and their actions, other important perpetrator characteristics were also examined. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to criminal justice factors

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Sexual Identities And Sex Work – Interrogating The Interface A Study On Constructed Identities Among Female Sex Workers In Kampala

Introduction

We have arrived in the sexual tower of Babel where a world of past silences has to be breached. (Plummer 1996) This quote from the work of Plummer is very telling and gives scholars the energy to ask new questions about sexuality and what it means in the current discourse on gender and work. We recognize that sexuality as a subject of study in the social sciences has gained currency by moving the domain of knowledge production away from the psychologists and psychiatrists to the social sciences. For long, our knowledge on sexuality was anchored within the totalizing discourse of the “pure sciences” that suggests that sexuality was one thing to everyone in the world and was an aspect of our biology with an inherent energy that can be used to explain all behaviors of people. The heterosexual married couple was the right mode of living and any differences were deviations that had to be explained scientifically. ...

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Pimp-Controlled Prostitution

A pimp is one who controls the actions and lives off the proceeds of one or more women who work the streets. Pimps call themselves “players” and call their profession “the game.” The context in which this subculture existsis called “the life” (Milner & Milner, 1972). Social scientists of the 1960s and 1970s devoted a significant amount of research energies toward exposing and understanding pimp-controlled prostitution within street-level prostitution (Goines, 1972; Heard, 1968; Milner & Milner, 1972; Slim, 1967, 1969). Street-level prostitution entails sexual acts for money or for barter that occur on and off the streets and include sexual activities in cars and motels, as dancers in gentlemen’s clubs, massage parlor work, truck stops, and crack house work (Williamson, 2000). It represents that segment of the prostitution industry where there is the most violence. Current prostitution-related research on women focuses heavily on the independent woman’s involvement in prostitution (Alexander, 1987; McKeganey & Barnard, 1996; Miller, 1995; Scambler & Scambler, 1997). Parallel to this undertaking isa body of works devoted more specifically to the prostitute’s present involvement with crack cocaine...

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An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution

Abstract

Combining transaction-level data on street prostitutes with ethnographic observation and official police force data, we analyze the economics of prostitution in Chicago. Prostitution, because it is a market, is much more geographically concentrated than other criminal activity. Street prostitutes earn roughly $25-$30 per hour, roughly four times their hourly wage in other activities, but this higher wage represents relatively meager compensation for the significant risk they bear. Prostitution activities are organized very differently across neighborhoods. Where pimps are active, prostitutes appear to do better, with pimps both providing protection and paying efficiency wages. Condoms are used only one-fourth of the time and the price premium for unprotected sex is small. The supply of prostitutes is relatively elastic, as evidenced by the supply response to a 4th of July demand shock. Although technically illegal, punishments are minimal for prostitutes and johns. A prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one. We estimate...

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Analysis of Street-Based Prostitution in New York City

Introduction

Police and prostitutes engage in a cat-and-mouse dynamic, in which the police seek to control the activities of prostitutes, and prostitutes respond by trying to avoid them. This report examines the impact of law enforcement approaches to street-based sex work in New York City and proposes a series of policy and practice recommendations for reform based on the researchers’ analyses of the data collected. This report also seeks to promote reasoned, fact-based, and informed debate regarding street-based prostitution in New York City. Public discussion of this issue usually occurs in flashy headlines that are meant to titillate rather than to explore the consequences of policy decisions in depth. This is a special effort to give voice to the problems faced by street-based sex workers, using their own words, since this is a voice that is almost always left out of policy debates. We propose recommendations based on programmatic possibilities that can create effective solutions for this population and the broader community.The researchers focused on...

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Video Evidence Analysis Programme Update

INTRODUCTION
The profile of video and CCTV within law enforcement has never been higher. The Video Evidence Analysis (VEA) programme at HOSDB assists police in their use of video via the production of guidance and development work. It is steered in its work by a User Group consisting of representatives from UK police video units and chaired by DCC Graeme Gerrard of Cheshire Constabulary. This update provides information on the latest key developments in the work of the VEA team.

DIGITAL IMAGING PROCEDURE
The Digital Imaging Procedure is a guide for those practitioners within the Police and CJS who are involved with the capture, retrieval, storage or use of evidential digital images. It is focused around a flowchart that guides the reader through the process from the initial preparation and capture of images, through the transfer and designation of Master and Working Copies, to the presentation in court and finally the retention and disposal of exhibits. This new version of the Procedure maintains the overall structure...

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Strip Club Testimony

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to investigate women's experiences in stripclubs and to describe the activities in stripclubs from the women's point of view. The format approach is collective story narrative with the author as part of the collective voice. The research was inspired by the author’s experiences in stripping over the course of thirteen years. The author’s intention is to examine the conditions of stripclubs by describing the fundamental way stripclubs are organized. The description features bar activities focused on stripper-customer interactions; survey data on sexual violence in stripclubs; and women's thoughts on stripping.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
Stripclubs are popularly promoted as providing harmless entertainment and as places where respectful men go to watch and talk to women (Reed 1997). Stripclub customers are described as normal men who use stripclubs to avoid adultery and therefore find a safe outlet for their sexual desires in balance with their marital commitments (Reed 1997). In contrast, stripclubs are criticized for being environments where men exercise their social, sexual,...

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Show Me How You See: Lessons from Studying Computer Forensics Experts for Visualization

Abstract

As the first part of a Analyze-Visualize-Validate cycle, we have initiated a domain analysis of email computer forensics to determine where visualization may be beneficial. To this end, we worked with police detectives and other forensics professionals. However, the process of designing and executing such a study with real-world experts has been a non-trivial task. This paper presents our efforts in this area and the lessons learned as guidance for other practitioners.

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