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Month: August 2017

Evaluating The Usefulness Of Functional Distance Measures When Calibrating Journey-to-Crime Distance Decay Functions

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Abstract

This research evaluates the usefulness of applying functional distance measures to criminal geographic profiles using mathematically calibrated distance decay models. Both the travel- path (i.e., shortest distance) and temporally optimized (i.e., quickest travel time) functional distance measures were calculated based on the impedance attributes stored within a linearly referenced transportation data layer of several parishes in Louisiana. Two different journey-to- crime distance decay functions (i.e., negative exponential, and truncated negative exponential) were mathematically calibrated for ‘‘best fit’’, based on the distribution of distances between homicide crime locations and offenders residences. Using the calibrated distance decay functions, geographic profiles were created for a localized serial killer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A probability score was calculated for every point within the study area to indicate the likelihood that it contained the serial offenders residence. A comparison between the predicted (highest probability score) and the actual residence of the serial offender determined the predictive value and procedural validity of functional distance metrics.

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Determining Distance Between Shooter And Victim Using Blood And Back Spatter

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ABSTRACT

This project was developed in hopes of being able to answer questions about a crime scene that have not yet been answered. Blood pattern analysis is a crucial part of crime scene reconstruction. Analyzing the blood spatter left behind at most crime scenes allows for investigators to determine where the victim and the assaulting weapon came into contact with each other, also known as the point of convergence. They can also tell what type of weapon the assailant used to commit the crime with by analyzing the velocity of the spatter. However, a phenomenon known as back spatter analysis or as blow back analysis may also be left behind and studied by the investigator. The intention of this research is analyzing back spatter of objects shot with three different weapons at varying distance. Different ammunition will also be used. The weapons will be a Walther P22, 9mm Walther PPS, and a .380 Smith & Wesson Bodyguard using Critical Defense

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Appendix 1: Autopsy Protocol in Case of GunshotWounds and Intoxication

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Clothing:
The body is received clothed in a white sleeveless T-shirt, black running pants, blue bikini underwear and blue and black flip-flops sandals. A gunshot defect is in the left pectoral region of the T-shirt, with no soot or gunpowder on the surrounding fabric.

External Examination: 28 May 2003 at 1255 hours
The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished man who appears consistent with the above-stated length, weight, and age. The body length is personally measured at 65. Rigor mortis is fully developed. Livor mortis is posterior, partially blanches with digital pressure, and extends to the posterior axillary line. The body is cold from refrigeration. The anterior aspect of the left shoulder has a few small postmortem tan-yellow ant bites. The scalp is atraumatic and is covered by straight black hair in a full distribution. The skin is light brown. The irides are brown and the pupils are midsized.5 The conjunctivae have no petechiae. Facial hair comprises a mustache and chin whiskers.

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The Impact of Sport Sponsorship on Brand Equity

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Abstract

Recently, traditional marketing communication elements are faced with challenges of reaching increasingly fragmented consumer markets. The companies are forced to find new communication ways due to the highly cluttered market environment. Consequently, corporate sponsorship of sports has become an increasingly popular and one of the fastest growing marketing communication tools which bypasses media clutter and provides the environment where a brand can differentiate itself from the others. Red Bull sponsors various kinds of sport and athletes and through the years became the representative brand of ‘extreme sports culture’ social identity. Therefore, the paper focuses on the Red Bull sport sponsorship and strives to investigate its possible effects and reveal its impact on different aspects of brand equity. Throughout the paper several theories within the fields of cognitive and behavioural learning are applied. First part of the analysis investigates sponsorship through the spectrum of cognitive learning mechanisms whereas second part explores Red Bull’s sponsorship from the behavioural perspective. Achieved...

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An Examination of Homicide Clearance Rates: Foundation for the Development of a Homicide Clearance Model

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Introduction

Homicide rates around the country show that many individuals choose murder as the ultimate means of conflict resolution. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, 65 percent of homicides are cleared. Unfortunately, consistently high homicide clearance rates are not the norm for departments around the country. To help departments raise their clearance rates, it is important to discover which aspects of homicide case management and investigation produce the best results. First it may be useful to review definitions of “clearance rate.” Bottomley and Pease state, “[A]n offense is said to be cleared up if a person has been charged, summonsed or cautioned for the offense, if the offense is admitted and taken into consideration by the court, or if there is sufficient evidence to charge a person, but the case is not proceeded with...” (1986:44). However, Rinehart (1993) points out that Greenwood, Chaiken, and Petersilia (1977:32) define a cleared case to exist “when police have identified a perpetrator, have sufficient...

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Gunshot Wounds: Determination of the Firing Distance through Micro-CT Analysis

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Aims

Forensic radiology is a specialized area of medical imaging utilizing radiological techniques to assist physicians and pathologists in matters pertaining to the law. Aim of the present research is to apply traditional and innovative radiological techniques in the field of forensic pathology in real cases, as well as in experimental models of wounds,in order to identify specific injury patterns and to discuss their diagnostic efficiency and their limits, with special regard to the reconstruction of the dynamic of the event..

Method

Human legs, surgically amputated, were cleaned of dried blood and any other contaminants and cut into 3 sections (approximately 6 cm in height). Firing into human legs was carried out perpendicularly at distances of 5, 15, 23, 30 and 40 cm using a 7.65-mm pistol and jacketed bullets (Fig 1). Uninjured skin sections of legs were used as controls.

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Who Sponsors Whom and Why? An Empirical Investigation of Sports Sponsorships

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Abstract

This paper applies a two-sided matching model to investigate the formations of sports sponsorships using a dataset containing the shirt sponsorships from 43 English football clubs during the period from 1990 to 2010. We find that sponsorships become less valuable as the distance between the club and the sponsor’s head office grows and that better-performing clubs can attract more distant sponsors. In addition, there is an assortative matching between a club’s attendance and a sponsor’s revenue. Based on the estimates from the two-sided matching model, we simulate the counterfactual matching outcomes if sponsorships on alcohol and gambling are banned. Our estimates suggest that such bans will not have the biggest impact on the (relatively successful) clubs that currently have alcohol and gambling sponsors. Instead, it is clubs with low attendance and clubs in low income, less populated areas will be most affected.

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Antitrust and Franchising: Conspiracies Between Franchisors and Franchisees Under Section 1

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A1993 article in this Journal reported, without fanfare, a federal district court’s holding that a “franchisor and franchisee were legally incapable of conspiring” in restraint of trade. Since that time, two other district courts and two courts of appeals have echoed that decision. Franchisors and franchisees that have spent time and energy ensuring compliance with the antitrust laws may be pleasantly surprised to learn that many of these efforts may be unnecessary. Because Section 1 of the Sherman Act (the key antitrust statute under which franchisor actions have been challenged) proscribes only “contracts, combinations and conspiracies” in restraint of trade or commerce, if franchisors are, as a matter of law, incapable of conspiring with franchisees, then franchisors need not worry about such things as mandating the prices at which franchisees resell products, “tying” continuation of the franchise to required purchases, or otherwise restricting franchisees’ actions. Franchisors could require all franchisees to participate in promotions and sales pricing without any...

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Analyzing an Offender’s Journey to Crime: A Criminal Movement Model (CriMM)

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Abstract

In the current study we develop a Criminal Movement Model (CriMM) to investigate the relationship between simulated travel routes of offenders along the physical road network and the actual locations of their crimes in the same geographic space. With knowledge of offenders’ home locations and the locations of major attractors, we are able to model the routes that offenders are likely to take when travelling from their home to an attractor by employing variations of Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm. With these routes plotted, we then compare them to the locations of crimes committed by the same offenders. This model was applied to five attractor locations within the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Information about offenders in these cities was obtained from five years worth of real police data. After performing a small-scale analysis for each offender to investigate how far off their...

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Trustee Liability for Breach of the Duty of Loyalty: Good Faith Inquiry and Appreciation Damages

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In remedying breaches of its vaunted duty of loyalty,' the law of trusts in New York is fettered by rules that emphasize restitutionary principles. Created by a stubborn adherence to absolute liability, this emphasis persists because it was written into the Restatement of Trusts. Although absolute liability and restitution of gain may still serve valid purposes,' justice requires an inquiry into the character of the breach as well as full compensation of the beneficiary when a trustee makes a sale tainted with a conflict of interest.The trustee owes a duty of loyalty to the beneficiary." The selfdealing trustee 8 who neglects to obtain prior court approval is buttably presumed to be disloyal ' the no further inquiry rule bars consideration of good faith and fairness." Such absolute liability is intended to negate the temptation of self-interest." Because of the no further inquiry rule, however, honest and dishonest trustees are subject to the same measures of damages. These measures do not permit the beneficiary

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Travel-To-Crime: Homing In On The Victim

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ABSTRACT

Environmental criminology focuses on the intersection in time and place of the offender and victim. Patterns of crime are generally explained in terms of the routine activities of the offender. His or her travel to crime distances are short and crimes are committed within the offender's 'awareness space'. It has generally been theorised that victims also have short journeys to crime, associated with their routine behaviour. This review, however, suggests that occupancy of 'unawareness space', where people are away from familiar surroundings, may confer heightened risk. This is supported in research in the special case of crime and tourism, though other travelling victim patterns have been largely ignored. This paper postulates that crime risk increases at the intersection of offender awareness and victim unawareness spaces. The 2002–3 British Crime Survey provides some suggestive evidence on this. Its analysis reveals that 26.9% of self-reported victimisation occurs more than 15 minutes away from the victim's home. For personal

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The Restatement of the Law of Trusts

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As a preface to a discussion of any of the tentative drafts of the restatement of law it is interesting to recall the situation which created the need for the American Law Institute, and the objects which its founders hoped to attain. Logic is a method of classification, and the logical machinery of the law is a classification of the opinions of appellate courts under titles or concepts. As rapidly as the increasingly numerous opinions appear, they are put under the protection of one of these abstractions, and, once there, automatically become part of the field of "law" for which the abstraction stands as a symbol. The more ingeniously the legal analogies and concepts are used, the more dissimilar become the cases grouped under any one classification, until at times these terms become almost meaningless. Yet prior to the American Law Institute no systematic reclassification had ever been attempted. The magnitude of the task was terrifying. The conservative

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The Psychiatrist’s Role in Determining Accountability for Crimes: The Public Anxiety and an Increasing Expertise

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I. INTRODUCTION

In conjunction with the criminal law, the psychiatrist witness has been asked to evaluate people at four different stages. He has been asked to give his opinion whether the defendant understands the charges and is able to aid his defense, whether the defendant should be held responsible for his activity, to recommend a disposition and finally to recommend a stay for execution of sentence.' This comment will discuss the second of these functions, the role of the psychiatrist in determining whether someone should be held accountable for the consequences of his acts who has accomplished activity classified by society as criminal. This comment will discuss the legal tests for insanity only peripherally, by illustrating the legal semantical difficulty produced by the attempts of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to deal with this problem. The legal tests have been so overtreated and overemphasized that one noted authority has remarked: "Rivers of ink, mountains of printer's

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The Confidential Relationship Theory of Constructive Trusts-An Exception to the Statute of Frauds

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The constructive trust, often referred to as a trust "implied in law," has been generally recognized as an exception to the Statute of Frauds. Fraud, duress, mistake, undue influence, or the breach of a fiduciary relationship may all be the basis for a constructive trust. Promises to convey or to hold property in trust, which would ordinarily be unenforceable under the statute, have often resulted in the imposition of a constructive trust when the abuse of a confidential relationship has been found.3 The "abuse of confidence" exception to the statute, which defies accurate definition, has provided courts of equity with an elastic means for intervention whenever such is considered just and proper.and confidence can be found in every transaction involving a fiduciary. To this extent, the fiduciary relationship is undoubtedly "confidential." The true fiduciary relationship and the duties and obligations which adhere thereto, however, can generally be placed into distinct categories wherein an underlying legal relationship also exists. Such would...

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The Criminal Profiling Illusion: What’s Behind the Smoke and Mirrors?

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Criminal profiling (CP) is the practice of predicting a criminal’s personality, behavioral, and demographic characteristics based on crime scene evidence (Douglas, Ressler, Burgess, & Hartman, 1986; Hicks & Sales, 2006). This practice is being utilized by police agencies around the world despite no compelling scientific evidence that it is reliable, valid, or useful (Snook, Eastwood, Gendreau, Goggin, & Cullen, 2007). This disparity between the use and the lack of empirical support leads one to consider the question Why do people believe CP works despite the lack of evidence? We explain this criminal profiling illusion in terms of the nature of the information about CP that is presented to the people and how they process that information.

Our article is divided into five sections. First, we outline current knowledge of CP techniques, the frequency with which CP is used in criminal investigations, and the extent to which police officers and mental health professionals perceive CP as a valuable tool. Second, we argue...

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Rediscovering Conservatism: Burkean Polictical Theory and Constitutional Interpretation

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Abstract

Recent decisions of the Rehnquist Court--particularly the Court's 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey have caused many to question widely held assumptions about the meaning of judicial conservatism. In this article, Ernest Young argues that the views of the modern judicial "conservatives" such as Judge Robert Bork and Justice Antonin Scalia are antithetical to classical conservative political theory, as exemplified by the writings and speeches of the eighteenth-century British philosopher/politician Edmund Burke. In particular, Mr. Young argues that strict adherence to the original understanding of the Constitution, judicial deference to democratic majorities, and formulation of legal directives as bright-line rules are all inconsistent with classical conservatism. Instead, Mr. Young advocates an approach to constitutional interpretation inspired by Burke's emphasis on tradition and evolutionary reform. Moreover, Mr. Young speculates that it is precisely this "common-law constitutionalism" that may be driving the emerging center of today's Supreme Court.

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