searchfortruth.info > Blog > 2017 > July > Page 6

Month: July 2017

Liability Aspects of BDSM Clubs and Presenters

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The relationship between BDSM and the law changes significantly from nation to nation. It is entirely dependent on the legal situation in individual countries whether the practice of BDSM has any criminal relevance or legal consequences. Criminalization of consensually implemented BDSM practices is usually not with explicit reference to BDSM, but results from the fact that such behavior as spanking or cuffing someone could be considered a breach of personal rights, which in principle constitutes a criminal offense. In Germany, Netherlands, Japan and Scandinavia, such behavior is legal in principle. In Austria the legal status is not clear, while in Switzerland some BDSM practices can be considered criminal. Spectacular incidents like the US scandal of People v. Jovanovic and the British Operation Spanner demonstrate the degree to which difficult grey areas can pose a problem for the individuals and authorities involved. It is very important to learn the legal status of the right of consent in the judicial statue of the country of resident for the practitioners of BDSM.

The relationship between BDSM and the law changes significantly from nation to nation. It is entirely dependent on the legal situation in individual countries whether the practice of BDSM has any criminal relevance or legal consequences. Criminalization of consensually implemented BDSM practices is usually not with explicit reference to BDSM, but results from the fact that such behavior as spanking or cuffing someone could be considered a breach of personal rights, which in principle constitutes a criminal offense. In Germany, Netherlands, Japan and Scandinavia, such behavior is legal in principle. In Austria the legal status is not clear, while in Switzerland some BDSM practices can be considered criminal. Spectacular incidents like the US scandal of People v. Jovanovic and the British Operation Spanner demonstrate the degree to which difficult grey areas can pose a problem for the individuals and authorities involved. It is very important to learn the legal status of the right of consent in the judicial statue of the country of resident for the practitioners of BDSM.

Additional Resource: BDSM and the Law

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Look For Bodies Of Drowned People On The Bottom And Get A Notice To Mariners Out —Warning Reading Words May Make You Sick

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Last year we had a local backpacker freeze to death. They’d likely be alive today if they had brought a Satellite Messenger & activated its emergency signal (by the time they were reported missing and the search crews went out, they had frozen to death overnight). Of course, there are many other good reasons to carry a Satellite Messenger. With newer, 2-way Satellite Messengers you can get interactive help like medical advice (assessment & treatment), other information like helicopter landing sites, best evacuation routes, etc. In fact, you may get enough information to help yourself and not even need a rescue—the best possible outcome.

The older inReach SE is highly capable & a deal for only $250

Updated 2018

The the unit I use, the older but still highly capable (Amazon’s choice) DeLorme inReach SE, is still available for only $250 on Amazon. This is $150 less than the new Garmin inReach SE+. The older DeLorme inReach SE is the unit I continue to use each

Additional Resource: Best Satellite Messenger inReach vs SPOT?

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Evaporated Liquid Nitrogen-Induced Asphyxia: A Case Report

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INTRODUCTION

Nitrogen gas (N2), as a major inert gas of the atmosphere, is liquefied to liquid nitrogen (LN2) on cooling to -196℃ and easily vaporizes at room temperature. Known to be harmless with the exception of potential frostbite injury, LN2 is widely used in laboratories and in industry for freezing, filling, or cleaning purposes (1, 2). The few reported cases of accidental harm from LN2 (3-5) were caused by careless management, which may have involved sudden LN2 evaporation leading to oxygen depletion in limited spaces. However, those reports (3-5) did not reveal indisputable evidence of the cause of asphyxia even though they included complete autopsies, toxicological analysis, and blood gas analysis. In this case report, a postgraduate student was found dead in an underground dry area where a cylinder of LN2 had been disposed. By a complete autopsy, we analyzed the atmosphere gas of the dry area through a reconstruction of the accidental scene in order to help define the cause of death.

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The Autopsy Lexicon

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● Context. Although standard autopsy texts and other publications discuss the general content of autopsy reports, and some provide examples of autopsy report formats, no publication to date has recommended specific headings for autopsy report organization. The College of American Pathologists Autopsy Committee decided it would be helpful to provide suggestions for autopsy report headings to foster more standardized autopsy reporting, to facilitate review of reports by third parties, and to facilitate searches of electronically stored autopsy reports
. Objectives. To create a model document (named the Autopsy Lexicon), which defines standard categories of information that are useful to include in autopsy reports; to offer specific wording for the headings of various sections of the report; and to explain the rationale for including the various items of information and headings.
Participants and Methods. The members of the Autopsy Committee of the College of American Pathologists prepared the document by reviewing various examples of autopsy report formats, identifying specific categories of information usually contained in such reports, and developing

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Body Posing in Homicides

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Crime scene staging and sexual posing and/or positioning of a body in a crime scene are recognized dynamics in homicide investigation. Staging might misdirect an investigation if unrecognized.

A careful and intelligently guided examination of the crime scene and of the forensically analyzable evidence found there gives direction to and often determines the success or failure of an investigation. It is clear, however, that some crime scenes are difficult to evaluate when the victim’s body and perhaps other elements of the scene have been deliberately manipulated.

A number of authors have defined staging as the purposeful alteration of a crime scene in an attempt to mislead investigators and to frustrate the criminal justice process. An example would be making a homicide appear to be a suicide. Staging does not refer to efforts taken by a surviving family member or other loved ones to cover or dress a victim in order to avoid embarrassment.

In death investigations, surviving family members and loved ones experience extreme...

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Media Consumption And Public Attitudes Toward Crime And Justice: The Relationship Between Fear Of Crime, Punitive Attitudes, And Perceived Police Effectiveness

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ABSTRACT

Public knowledge of crime and justice is largely derived from the media. This paper examines the influence of media consumption on fear of crime, punitive attitudes and perceived police effectiveness. This research contributes to the literature by expanding knowledge on the relationship between fear of crime and media consumption. This study also contributes to limited research on the media’s influence on punitive attitudes, while providing a much-needed analysis of the relationship between media consumption and satisfaction with the police. Employing OLS regression, the results indicate that respondents who are regular viewers of crime drama are more likely to fear crime. However, the relationship is weak. Furthermore, the results indicate that gender, education, income, age, perceived neighborhood problems and police effectiveness are statistically related to fear of crime. In addition, fear of crime, income, marital status, race, and education are statistically related to punitive attitudes. Finally, age, fear of crime, race, and perceived neighborhood problems are statistically related to perceived police effectiveness....

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Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis

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The word “name-calling” provokes negative associations, but the term “diagnostic labeling” has an aura of scientific precision, objectivity, and professionalism that lends it tremendous power. Language confers power (Miller and Swift 1977), and that power is “not distributed equitably across the social hierarchy” (Hare-Mustin and Marecek 1997, 106), a fact that has had tremendous impact on those who have sought mental health services. Diagnosis of physical problems has often been extremely useful, and in principle, psychiatric diagnosis can be helpful, too (e.g., Emily J. Caplan, chapter 5 in this volume). Unfortunately, psychiatric labeling has been conceived of and applied in extremely biased ways and is surprisingly unwarranted by scientific research, and thus it can result in serious harm (P. Caplan 1995). As Hare-Mustin and Marecek note: “a diagnostic label . . . has a profound influence on what we think of people so labeled and how they think about themselves” (1997, 105). In addition, diagnostic labels often create problems with employers and the...

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Forensic Toxicology: Detection Of Homicidal Poisonings

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Those at highest risk for being victims of poisoning are the terminally ill and mentally incapacitated, drug addicts, the elderly, and the very young. Unwanted spouses or lovers compose another high-risk group. The offender is usually personally involved with the victim and is often a caregiver. Poisoners often assume the role of attempting to "nurse" the victim back to health. Poisoners often derive pleasure from seeing their victims suffer, and serial poisoners usually enjoy the thrill of having power over the life and suffering of the victim. Perpetrators of homicidal poisonings are often employed in the medical or caregiving fields. Substances that can be lethal in small amounts appeal most to perpetrators. The ideal poison for a homicide is odorless, tasteless, difficult to detect, and a bearer of symptoms similar to naturally occurring diseases. It has become increasingly difficult to find a poison with all of these features, since modern....

Additional Resource: Just a Pinch of Cyanide: The Basics of Homicidal Poisoning Investigations

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Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Dogs which had 1st learned to panel press in a harness in order to escape shock subsequently showed normal acquisition of escape/avoidance behavior in a shuttle box. In contrast, yoked, inescapable shock in the harness produced profound interference with subsequent escape responding in the shuttle box. Initial experience with escape in the shuttle box led to enhanced panel pressing during inescapable shock in the harness and prevented interference with later responding in the shuttle box. Inescapable shock in the harness and failure to escape in the shuttle box produced interference with escape responding after a 7-day rest. These results were interpreted as supporting a learned "helplessness" explanation of interference with escape responding: Ss failed to escape shock in the shuttle box following inescapable shock in the harness because they had learned that shock termination was independent of responding.

Overmier and Seligman (1967) have shown that the prior exposure of dogs

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The Effect of Various Coverings on the Rate of Human Decomposition

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Abstract

A multitude of factors can affect the decomposition process, increasing or decreasing its rate. Some of the most frequently observed variables are temperature, moisture, insect activity, and sun or shade exposure. Coverings can impact the decomposition process, and are found frequently in forensic cases. In a survey of New Mexico cases, Komar (2003) reported that sixteen individuals were found wrapped in plastic, and twenty were noted as wrapped in a cloth or blanket. In a survey conducted of eighty-seven cases, fifty-four of the bodies were wrapped in some type of covering. Plastic was most common, but a variety was noted, including rugs, sleeping bags, and blankets, (Manhein, 1997). In order to document how coverings affect early decomposition an experiment was designed to mimic a forensic setting. Three human cadavers were used in each of two repetitions of this experiment. Two of the cadavers were covered, one in plastic tarp......

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The Varieties of Homicide and Its Research Proceedings of the 1999 Meeting

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ABSTRACT

Any scholar attempting to trace historic trends in homicide must grapple with the issue of missing data, some of which are yet to be uncovered, but others of which have disappeared forever. This paper shows the utility of multi-source “capture-recapture” (or “dual enumeration”) methods for estimating the number of unrecorded murders, using newspaper and archives data for the state of South Carolina, 1877-1878. Results are dramatic. In comparison with the capture-recapture estimate of total homicides, at least 58% of the state’s murders for the 2 years are not to be found in the South Carolina State Department of Archives and History; the major newspaper of the state missed at least 30%; and the combined sources missed at least 20%. Clearly, any historical trend study based on the 2 sources alone would face a formidable under count problem. The 19th century Southern culture and social structure, and the ruralness of the state,...

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Sexual Homicide of Elderly Females Linking Offender Characteristics to Victim and Crime Scene Attributes

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The FBI consults regularly on the investigation of extraordinarily violent and unusual homicide cases. Although overall awareness of elderly victimization throughout the United States has greatly increased over the past decade, little attention has been focused on elderly female victims of sexual homicides and the offenders who commit these crimes. Law enforcement agencies are often faced with rarely seen and excessively violent crime scenes as they attempt to solve these homicides. This in-depth study examines the characteristics of 128 elderly women who were murdered by 110 offenders as well as the characteristics of the attendant crime scenes. An empirical analysis of crime scene attributes, victim characteristics (including severity of victim injuries), and offender demographics produces significant predictive information about offender characteristics that may assist law enforcement investigations of such cases.

Case 1
A 77-year-old widow was sexually assaulted and murdered in her bedroom. The medical examiner identified three separate causes of death. The offender strangled the victim into unconsciousness, severely fractured her skull using...

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Investigation and Prosecution of Homicide Cases in the U.S.: The Process for Federal Involvement

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ABSTRACT

This research builds on earlier studies conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) that focused on the federal death penalty system. It responds directly to a call for research into the process by which “homicide cases are investigated and how and why some of those cases enter the federal system and others enter the state system.” Using qualitative research techniques, this study examined the processes by which criminal cases, especially homicide cases, entered the federal criminal justice system. Researchers visited nine federal districts and interviewed federal, state, and local investigators, prosecutors, and defense attorneys who potentially played a role in determining whether homicide cases were investigated and prosecuted in the state or federal systems. The ten original districts were selected purposefully and should not be considered representative of the 94 federal districts. The findings in this report are limited to the first four districts analyzed. These districts are geographically diverse, with and without state capital provisions, and sent among the highest and...

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Honour Killing? Or Just Plain Homicide?

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In all known human societies, the deliberate killing of another human being most especially when the victim is a close relative of the perpetrator is invariably viewed as an exceedingly serious offence. It is easy to see why. Over and above the fact that human life is universally regarded as being sacred in its own right, no family and beyond that no community can hope to survive in good order unless all its members’ respect each others’ right to exist. Hence incidents of homicide and hence the ultimate betrayal of such expectation of mutual respect invariably attract calls for severe sanctions to be implemented, up to and including the elimination of the perpetrator him or herself. This also serves as a reminder that there are circumstances in which acts of homicide are regarded as legitimate. Warfare is one example; execution by properly constituted authorities of those found guilty of a criminal offence is another; and in acephalous...

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Homicides of Children and Youth

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Murders of children and youth, the ultimate form of juvenile victimization, have received a great deal of deserved publicity in recent years.1 Yet, while images of Polly Klaas and student victims at Columbine High School are vivid in the public’s mind, statistics on juvenile murder victims are not. Substantial misunderstandings exist about the magnitude of and trends in juvenile homicide and the types of children at risk of becoming victims of different types of homicide. This Bulletin gives a brief statistical portrait of various facets of child and youth homicide victimization in the United States. It draws heavily on homicide data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHRs), which are part of the Bureau’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program; however, it also relies on a variety of other studies and statistical sources. Highlights of the findings presented in this Bulletin include the following: ◆ In 1999, about 1,800 juveniles (a rate of 2.6 per 100,000) were victims of homicide in the United States...

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Fantasy Fusion And Sexual Homicide

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Abstract:

This paper presents an analysis of the confessions of two men who kidnapped, raped, killed, and mutilated a young woman (though not necessarily in that order). Following their initial denials of involvement, both men provided lengthy iterations of the crime, although, as you will see, their recollections of what occurred—or at least their recounting of events for the police—differ some-what dramatically from one another. In addition to mining these narratives for clues about the dissociative structure of perpetrators’ interiority and actions, I have attempted to find within the stories information relevant to the most widely disseminated theory in the forensic and criminological literature as regards the antecedents of sexual homicide, namely that it is the over reliance on sexualized,aggressive fantasies that undergirds these fatal interactions (Burgess et al., 1986;Ressler, Burgess & Douglas, 1992; Prentky et al., 1989; Meloy, 2000; Schlesinger,2000). While so many in the forensic field have concentrated on the criminogenic power of the paraphillic fantasy to transform dreamers into

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