2017 - Page 16 of 100 - searchfortruth.info

Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness

February 10, 2019October 14, 2017 by admin

FORWARD

The selection of effective handgun ammunition for law enforcement is a critical and complex issue. It is critical because of that which is at stake when an officer is required to use his handgun to protect his own life or that of another. It is complex because of the target, a human being, is amazingly endurable and capable of sustaining phenomenal punishment while persisting in a determined course of action. The issue is made even more complex by the dearth of credible research and the wealth of uninformed opinion regarding what is commonly referred to as "stopping power".

In reality, few people have conducted relevant research in this area, and fewer still have produced credible information that is useful for law enforcement agencies in making informed decisions. This article brings together what is believed to be the most credible information regarding wound ballistics. It cuts through the haze and confusion,..

To Flee or Not: Postkilling Responses Among Intimate Partner Homicide Offenders in Hong Kong

November 20, 2018October 14, 2017 by admin

Abstract

Among 112 homicides involving sexual intimates that occurred in Hong Kong between 1989 and 2002, 38% ( n = 42) of offenders remained voluntarily at the homicide scene, 21% (n = 24) committed suicide, 20% (n = 22) escaped and denied involvement, 13% (n = 14) disposed or hid the body of their victim, and 9% (n = 10) escaped but later voluntarily surrendered. This study used police investigation reports, coroner’s reports, witness statements, and other relevant documents to compare these five types of postkilling behavior. The type of response was explained by the offender’s characteristics, the strength of attachment to the victim, and situational factors. The offender’s prior criminal conduct or history of violence was not significant in predicting the type of postkilling response...

A Typology of Multiple-Perpetrator Rape

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

Some consistency in existing typologies of rape has been found, which have extended from lone to multiple perpetrator offenses. The current study sought to explore the facets of multiple-perpetrator rape (MPR) in a sample representative of one geographical area. Seventy-five victim statements of MPR reported to an urban police force in the United Kingdom were classified into a qualitative model denoting offender actions in MPR. Four types from pathways through the model were produced: violence, criminality, intimacy, and sexuality. Analysis of the crime scene variables provided additional evidence of the four types. Finally, the associations between the four types and offense characteristics, such as victim and perpetrator age, were explored. Implications of these findings for the prevention and investigation of MPR are discussed along with suggestions for future research directions....

The Role of Marijuana in Homicide

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

In this paper we examine the relationship between marijuana use and homicide. Data derive from interviews with 268 individuals incarcerated in New York State correctional facilities for homicides that occurred in 1984. We found that in terms of lifetime use, marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug in this sample; that about one-third of respondents who had ever used marijuana used the drug in the 24-hour period before the homicide; and that almost three-quarters of those respondents were experiencing some type of effect from the drug when the homicide occurred. A total of 18 respondents (7% of the total sample) said that the homicide was related to their marijuana use. We examine the reasons these respondents gave for this relationship and the other substances they reported using at the time of the homicide. We also demonstrate that from the perspective of a conceptual framework that specifies the ways...

Establishing the Victim–Offender Relationship of Initially Unsolved Homicides Partner, Family, Acquaintance, or Stranger?

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

This analysis examines the extent to which homicides initially reported as unknown offender in end-of-year reports, once cleared, are more likely to have been perpetrated by strangers than other cleared homicides. Using solved and unsolved homicides in Indianapolis (N = 829), we determined victim–offender relationships in homicides reported as unsolved in year-end reports, when solved, were not significantly different from homicides reported as having a suspect in year-end reports. Indianapolis homicides were classified disproportionately as acquaintances. Findings help negate the ongoing myth that unsolved homicides are disproportionately stranger homicides. Results suggest decreased homicide clearance rates are not due to increased stranger homicides....

Personality Disorders And Psychoses Form Two Distinct Subgroups Of Homicide Among Female Offenders

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

This study examined circumstances of homicide by women in relation to their subsequent diagnoses. We investigated the written reports of forensic psychiatric examinations on 125 Finnish women who committed murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, or attempted manslaughter during 1982-92. In 86% of the cases the victims were adults, in 15% children. Intimate partners were the victims in 54% of the cases. Stabbing was the most frequent method and a quarrel the most frequent motive. The diagnoses of personality disorders and psychoses formed distinct subgroups. Psychotic women attacked proportionally more children than the personality disordered, who mainly attacked adults. Personality disordered women were more likely to have been intoxicated with alcohol at the time. Future treatment programmes and studies are suggested....

What’s the ROI on Cold Case Investigations?

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

The field of forensics has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years, so much so that decades-old crime cases can sometimes be solved with DNA testing and other modern technology. In an effort to increase case clearance rates (and catch bad guys long gone) police departments have slowly opened more ‘cold case’ units over the last 20 years; a phenomenon that has been documented and dramatized on TV.

In a new RAND paper, researchers Robert C. Davis, Carl Jensen, and Karin E. Kitchens set out to measure the effectiveness of cold case units by posing a simple question, though one that’s rarely asked of police work: What’s the return on investment? They write:

[D]espite the increasing number of cold-case units and the expenditure of significant resources to fund them, we know virtually nothing about the return on this investment. Does it make sense...

Relational Distance and Homicide: The Role of the Stranger

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

I. INTRODUCTION

When the actions of one individual cause the death of another, a homicide has occurred. While that initial statement is simple, homicide is a multi-faceted act involving numerous possible causes and circumstances. As Nettler suggests, there are many routes that lead to culpable killing.' Given the diverse nature of the acts described as homicide, it is little wonder that theoretical writing on the subject as a whole has been spartan. The first step in explaining any phenomenon is adequate classification of the groups of acts sought to be understood.3 In the case of homicide, a number of strategies have been tried in classifying those acts that result in death. Some authors have concentrated on causes of homicide, including psychological imbalance (mental illness, psychiatric disorders), motivations (political, religious, sexual, self-defense, conflict) and methods (poison, shooting, beating). By far the most common tactic has been to study the...

Homicide And Allied Inquiries: In Whose Best Interests?

November 20, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

Over a decade ago the present author presented some comments on homicide inquiries in this journal. Since then there have been a number of important developments, including the increase in the number of such inquiries and changes in their constitution and functions. A somewhat neglected area has been soliciting the views of those who chair such inquiries. The present contribution endeavours to remedy this deficiency.

Psychotropic Drugs And Homicide: A Prospective Cohort Study From Finland

November 21, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

After a high-profile homicide case, there is often discussion in the media on whether or not the killing was caused or facilitated by a psychotropic medication. Antidepressants have especially been blamed by non-scientific organizations for a large number of senseless acts of violence, e.g., 13 school shootings in the last decade in the U.S. and Finland [1]. In September 2014, there were more than 139,000 hits from Google for the search terms “antidepressant, homicide”, and more than 1,050,000 hits for the terms “antidepressant, violence”. It is likely that such massive publicity in the lay media has already led a number of patients and physicians to abstain from antidepressant treatment, due to the perceived fear of pharmacologically induced violence.

What is the scientific evidence for an association between psychotropic drugs and homicidal behavior? Most of the available studies are case reports that only suggest a coincidental link between violence or homicide and antidepressants...

Psychiatric Characteristics of Homicide Defendants

November 21, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

Objective The authors examined the rate of mental disorders in an unselected sample of homicide defendants in a U.S. jurisdiction, seeking to identify psychiatric factors associated with offense characteristics and court outcomes.

Method Defendants charged with homicide in a U.S. urban county between 2001 and 2005 received a psychiatric evaluation after arrest. Demographic, historical, and psychiatric variables as well as offense characteristics and legal outcomes were described. Bivariate analyses examined differences by age group and by race, and logistic models examined predictors of multiple victims, firearm use, guilty plea, and guilty verdict.

Results Fifty-eight percent of the sample had at least one axis I or II diagnosis, most often a substance use disorder (47%). Axis I or II diagnoses were more common (78%) among defendants over age 40. Although 37% of the sample had prior psychiatric treatment, only 8%...

Sexual (Lust) Homicide Definitional Constructs, Dynamics, and Investigative Considerations

February 21, 2019October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

This chapter discusses the historical definitional origins of sexual homicide (lust murder), the dynamics of sexual homicide injury, offense definition constructs and their limitations, and key presumptions of injuries associated with sexual homicide offense models. The chapter concludes by arguing for the clarification of concepts, characterizations, linkages, and research into the offense dynamics and offender motivations of sexual (lust) homicides.

INTRODUCTION

Violent interactions in which people are engaged are based on experiences and expectations of reality. For that reason, an understanding of violence and its extremes must consider the offender’s construct of reality. As Skrapec noted, “behavior is the product of one’s own sense of reality regardless of the degree to which that reality matches the objective facts of that person’s life” (1, p. 51–52). The mental representations of an offender’s realities are acted upon and acted out, and they may be presumed to be detectable and specifiable in the...

On the Plausibility of Adaptations for Homicide

February 20, 2019October 13, 2017 by admin

1 Introduction

1. People kill other people in every known culture around the world. The question is why. This chapter presents our theory of Evolved Homicide Adaptations, and contrasts this theory with two competing conceptions of why people kill: The Byproduct Hypothesis and the Evolved Goal Hypothesis. Prior to presenting these competing views of homicide, we discuss the concept of “innateness” from an evolutionary perspective in relation to our conception of evolved homicide adaptations.

2. The Concept of Innateness from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology The term “innateness” is used to refer to a multitude of different phenomena (see Elman, Johnson, & Bates, 1996). Our conceptualization of innateness falls in line with the standard definition of the innateness of adaptation. It is clear that selection has acted on genes that pattern human ontogeny. These genes provide the blueprint for the development of adaptations. Like the blueprints to a house,...

Religious Affiliations and Homicide: Historical Results from the Rural South

November 21, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

Abstract

Durkheim had argued that Protestantism decreased homicidal tendencies while Catholicism tended to increase it. However, other writers have maintained that fundamental Protestantism may increase the tendency toward homicide. This study examines the question by relating religious affiliation data by race obtained from a 1916 Census Department study to homicidal rates in the rural South for 1920, and finds that both Protestant and Catholic affiliations for whites are related to less homicide, while for blacks religious affiliation is unrelated to the homicide rate. For the case of the South, these results tend to refute Durkheim's position that Catholicism increases the tendency toward homicide.

Multiple Homicide Offenders Arbitrary Cut-Off Points and Selection Bias

November 21, 2018October 13, 2017 by admin

On Christmas Eve in 2008, an unemployed aerospace engineer dressed as Santa Claus entered his ex-wife’s parents’ home in Covina, California and proceeded to shoot indiscriminately at the 25 or so partygoers inside. He then planned to light the house on fire using a homemade blowtorch, but an unexpected explosion foiled his detailed plans and ultimately quashed his plot to escape. The house, now engulfed in flames, burned to the ground and hid the gruesome fates of those inside. Nine people, including the man’s ex-wife and her parents, died as a result of the gunfire and/or fire. The badly burned offender retreated to his brother’s house some 30 miles away and decided the odds were against him ending his own life with a single gunshot to the head.According to police, Bruce Pardo had no prior criminal record or history of violence. To those who knew... nicest guy” who “always had a smile.”

Acute Opioid Withdrawal Precipitated by Blood Transfusion in a 21-Year-Old Male

February 21, 2019October 13, 2017 by admin

To the Editor:

Cancer patients can be among the most challenging groups in which to maintain pain control. At our institution, many cancer patients are managed with patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) opioids, sometimes on an outpatient basis. These patients frequently undergo multiple surgeries as well as courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and, as a result, often require multiple blood product transfusions. According to the American Association of Blood Banks standard,1 blood transfusions should not be co-administered with any intravenous drugs or fluids apart from 0.9% sodium chloride. For many cancer patients, it is difficult or impractical to establish additional intravenous access solely for blood product administration, and therefore, the practice at our institution has been to disconnect any current intravenous infusion for the duration of blood product transfusion. Here, we describe a case of severe opioid withdrawal after disconnection of intravenous hydromorphone PCA and initiation of a blood transfusion....