2017 - 2021 Faculty Publications
2021
The other reparation debate California needs to start having
Author(s):
Jodie Warren and George Kaufmann
Publishing information:
Warren, J. and Kaufmann, G. (2021) “The other reparation debate California needs to start having” and “School abuse victims owed amends” San Francisco Chronicle andSFChronicle.com. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-other-reparation-debate-California-needs-to-16643405.php
Derrick Chauvin deserves his prison sentence. Many people of color don’t.
Author(s):
Jodie Warren
Publishing information:
Warren, J. (2021) "Derrick Chauvin Deserves His Prison Sentence. Many People Of Color Don't." Visible Magazine. With Public Voices Fellowship
https://visiblemagazine.com/derrick-chauvin-deserves-his-prison-sentence-many-people-of-color-dont/
Comparison of swabbing, tape lifting and soaking for DNA recovery from handled unfired and fired cartridge cases
Author(s):
E Prasad, C Hitchcock, J Raymond, A Cole, M Barash, D McNevin
The research in this thesis chapter is a follow up study from Chapter 6. This study sought to compare the swabbing, tape lifting and soaking DNA recovery methods on handled unfired and FCCs. Whilst spiking the unfired and FCCs with known amounts of DNA allowed an accurate comparison of DNA recovery methods, firing, calibre and metal composition, we wanted to further investigate the methods of interest using handled ‘trace DNA’samples as encountered in casework. Swabbing and tape lifting were chosen as they performed best in Chapter 6 whilst soaking also provided promising results in Chapter 3.
Publishing information:
Seeing the forest through the trees: Identifying key players in online child sexual exploitation distribution networks.
Author(s):
Dennis McNevin, Kirsty Wright, Mark Barash, Sara Gomes, Allan Jamieson, Janet Chaseling
Continuous probabilistic genotyping (PG) systems are becoming the default method for calculating likelihood ratios (LRs) for competing propositions about DNA mixtures. Calculation of the LR relies on numerical methods and simultaneous probabilistic simulations of multiple variables rather than on analytical solutions alone. Some also require modelling of individual laboratory processes that give rise to electropherogram artefacts and peak height variance. For these reasons, it has been argued that any LR produced by continuous PG is unique and cannot be compared with another. We challenge this assumption and demonstrate that there are a set of conditions defining specific DNA mixtures which can produce an aspirational LR and thereby provide a measure of reproducibility for DNA profiling systems incorporating PG. Such DNA mixtures could serve as the basis for inter-laboratory comparisons, even when different STR amplification kits are employed. We propose a procedure for an inter-laboratory comparison consistent with these conditions.
Publishing information:
McNevin, D.; Wright, K.; Barash, M.; Gomes, S.; Jamieson, A.; Chaseling, J. Proposed Framework for Comparison of Continuous Probabilistic Genotyping Systems amongst Different Laboratories. Forensic Sci. 2021, 1, 33-45. https://doi.org/10.3390/forensicsci1010006
Detecting child sexual abuse images: Traits of child sexual exploitation hosting and displaying websites.
Author(s):
Enrique Guerra, Bryce G. Westlake Ph.D.
Automated detection of child sexual abuse images (CSAI) often relies on image attributes, such as hash values. However, electronic service providers and others without access to hash value databases are limited in their ability to detect CSAI. Additionally, the increasing amount of CSA content being distributed means that a large percentage of images are not yet cataloged in hash value databases. Therefore, additional detection criteria need to be determined to improve identification of non-hashed CSAI.
Publishing information:
Guerra, E., & Westlake, B. G. (2021). Detecting child sexual abuse images: Traits of child sexual exploitation hosting and displaying websites. Child Abuse & Neglect, 122, 105336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105336
Gun violence news information retrieval using BERT as sequencing tagging task.
Author(s):
Hung-Yeh Lin; Teng-Sheng Moh; Bryce Westlake Ph.D.
The growth in both frequency and severity of gun violence in the United States has necessitated increased research into prevention, despite the lack of funding. Comprising more than 60k gun violence media articles with a total data size of 520 MB, the gun violence database (GVDB) was developed to assist natural language processing researchers in developing and testing prevention methods. Original research based on the GVDB utilized a span-selection model to extract shooter and victim information, but their works might potentially trim out important span candidates. We proposed a new approach to improve identification accuracy and recognize every token in a sentence using a sequence tagging technique. We implemented a BIO sequence tagging model at the token-level using BERT, then further classified each token using LSTM, BiLSTM, and CRF. We found that utilizing BERT as an embedding layer, and decoding word representation as a sequence tagging task, improved shooter/victim identification compared to a span-selection model. We believe that if this improved model is combined with gun violence related keywords, automated techniques could be implemented to identify precursors/risks to gun violence on social media, allowing for intervention by law enforcement or community agencies before escalation to deaths.
Publishing information:
Lin, H. Y., Moh, T. S., & Westlake, B. (2021, December). Gun violence news information retrieval using BERT as sequencing tagging task. In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Big Data. Orlando, USA, 15-18 December (pp. 2525-2531). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData52589.2021.9671919
The Ethics of Web Crawling and Web Scraping in Cybercrime Research: Navigating Issues of Consent, Privacy, and Other Potential Harms Associated with Automated Data Collection
Author(s):
Russell Brewer, Bryce Westlake Ph.D. , Omar Arauza, Tahlia Hart
The abundance of data easily accessible on the internet has made it an appealing domain for conducting social science research. Because of the volume of data available, automated collection software, such as web crawlers and web scrapers, are increasingly being deployed. Ethical guidelines that have developed over the decades, however, are not always directly applicable to online research. As a result, there can be ambiguity as to when and how informed consent needs to be obtained, how privacy can be protected, and what potential harms websites, their owners, and even researchers could experience, and how to address them. In this chapter, we argue that automated data collection practices need not be unethical, provided special care is taken by researchers to acknowledge and explicitly address the complexities surrounding informed consent, privacy, and a myriad of other risks and potential harms (to subjects, websites, and researchers).
Publishing information:
Brewer, R., Westlake, B., Hart, T., & Arauza, O. (2021). The ethics of web crawling and web scraping in criminological research: Navigating issues of consent, privacy and other potential harms associated with automated data collection. In A. Lavorgna & T. Holt (Eds.), Researching cybercrimes (pp.435-456). Palgrave Macmillian: Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74837-1_22
2020
Retrieving forensic information about the donor through bacterial profiling
Author(s):
Katherine Phan, Mark Barash, Xanthe Spindler, Peter Gunn, Claude Roux
When fingermarks are left on a surface, bacteria originating from the donor’s skin are also deposited. The skin microbiome is believed to be extremely diverse between individuals, allowing for potential matching between the bacterial communities and touched objects, known as “bacterial profiling”. This study stepped further and investigated how the bacterial profile could be used as an indicator of donor characteristics of potential forensic intelligence interest. Forty-five participants were asked to touch DNA-free playing cards with their dominant and non-dominant hands. Cards were swabbed and bacterial communities determined through 16S rRNA sequencing. Diversity and abundance of bacteria were compared to donor characteristics of gender, age, ethnicity, handedness, home location, sample location, occupation, diet type, use of moisturisers, use of hand sanitisers and use of public transport.
Publishing information:
Phan, K., Barash, M., Spindler, X. et al. Retrieving forensic information about the donor through bacterial profiling. Int J Legal Med 134, 21–29 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-019-02069-2
Evaluation of soaking to recover trace DNA from fired cartridge cases
Author(s):
Peter Gunn Elisha Prasad, Mark Barash, Catherine Hitchcock, Roland A. H. van Oorschot,Jennifer Raymond, Dennis McNevin
Publishing information:
Read the publication
Forensic autosomal short tandem repeats and their potential association with phenotype
Author(s):
Nicole Wyner, Mark Barash, Dennis McNevin
Forensic DNA profiling utilizes autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) markers to establish identity of missing persons, confirm familial relations, and link persons of interest to crime scenes. It is a widely accepted notion that genetic markers used in forensic applications are not predictive of phenotype. At present, there has been no demonstration of forensic STR variants directly causing or predicting disease. Such a demonstration would have many legal and ethical implications. For example, is there a duty to inform a DNA donor if a medical condition is discovered during routine analysis of their sample? In this review, we evaluate the possibility that forensic STRs could provide information beyond mere identity. An extensive search of the literature returned 107 articles associating a forensic STR with a trait. A total of 57 of these studies met our inclusion criteria: a reported link between a STR-inclusive gene and a phenotype and a statistical analysis reporting a p-value less than 0.05. A total of 50 unique traits were associated with the 24 markers included in the 57 studies. TH01 had the greatest number of associations with 27 traits reportedly linked to 40 different genotypes. Five of the articles associated TH01 with schizophrenia. None of the associations found were independently causative or predictive of disease. Regardless, the likelihood of identifying significant associations is increasing as the function of non-coding STRs in gene expression is steadily revealed. It is recommended that regular reviews take place in order to remain aware of future studies that identify a functional role for any forensic STRs.
Publishing information:
Forensic autosomal short tandem repeats and their potential association with phenotype
Author(s):
Elisha Prasad, Catherine Hitchcock, Jennifer Raymond, Andrew Cole, Mark Barash, Peter Gunn, Dennis McNevin, Roland AH Van Oorschot
The ability to recover trace DNA from fired cartridge cases can help establish important
leads regarding the handler of the ammunition. Over recent years, several DNA recovery
techniques for fired ammunition have been published. Three techniques of significant
interest include tape lifting, direct PCR, and vacuum filtration. This study aimed
to compare these to the swabbing method currently employed in our jurisdiction. Brass
and nickel cartridges of five different calibres were spiked with 20 ng of saliva
and subject to DNA collection using all four DNA recovery methods. Unfired and fired
cartridges were tested to examine the effects of firing.
Swabbing recovered a greater quantity of DNA than vacuum filtration while no significant
differences were found between swabbing and tape-lifting. The calibre of ammunition
had no effect on DNA recovery. Firing significantly reduced DNA yield from nickel
cartridges, while unfired brass cartridges returned less DNA than unfired nickel cartridges.
PCR inhibition was not observed in any samples, although degradation indices suggested
that most samples were slightly or moderately degraded. Analysis of profiles showed
that swabbing and tape lifting resulted in greater numbers of alleles from fired nickel
and brass cartridges compared to direct PCR. Samples from nickel cartridges were found
to have a greater number of uploadable profiles than samples from brass cartridges.
In addition, three mixed profiles were obtained from the single source spiked cartridges
as well as evidence of pre-existing DNA on uncleaned cartridges and contaminating
alleles on cleaned cartridges.
Our results suggest that tape-lifting can be a suitable alternative to swabbing, but
that caution must be taken when interpreting profiles from fired cartridge cases as
small amounts of DNA not associated with the handling of the cartridges may be present.
Publishing information:
Elisha Prasad, Catherine Hitchcock, Jennifer Raymond, Andrew Cole, Mark Barash, Peter Gunn, Dennis McNevin, Roland A.H. van Oorschot, DNA recovery from unfired and fired cartridge cases: A comparison of swabbing, tape lifting, vacuum filtration, and direct PCR, Forensic Science International, Volume 317, 2020, 110507, ISSN 0379-0738, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2020.110507.
Detecting child sexual abuse images: Traits of child sexual exploitation hosting and displaying websites.
Author(s):
John Halushka
Based on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 45 in-depth interviews with formerly-incarcerated men, this article explores how former prisoners navigate criminal justice and welfare bureaucracies in their daily lives. Formerly-incarcerated men must repeatedly engage with parole, public assistance agencies, transitional housing facilities, and community-based service providers to maintain freedom and access food, shelter, and rehabilitative services. Accessing resources requires the men simultaneously to manage multiple, overlapping entanglements across a fragmented network of bureaucracies. This runaround exacerbates the stress of poverty, breeds distrust of state authorities, and, in some cases, precipitates recidivism. Former prisoners learned how to cope with the runaround by treating systems navigation as a full-time occupation, but these skills did not translate into long-term economic security. Most study participants recurrently cycled between low-wage jobs, transitional housing facilities, and public assistance programs for years after release. This article illustrates the need to theorize prisoner reentry as a process that unfolds across a network of criminal justice and welfare bureaucracies and demonstrates how formerly-incarcerated men experience citizenship not only through coercive encounters with the criminal justice system but also through their simultaneous entanglements with safety-net bureaucracies.
Publishing information:
Halushka, John. 2020. “The Runaround: Punishment, Welfare, and Poverty Survival After
Prison.” Social Problems. 67(2): 233-250
Detecting child sexual abuse images: Traits of child sexual exploitation hosting and displaying websites.
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake Ph.D.
The sexual exploitation of children has long been a component of society. With the advent of the Internet, along with advancements of, and accessibility to, media-recording devices, child sexual exploitation material has become even more prevalent globally. This chapter chronicles the evolution of child sexual exploitation, beginning in ancient Greece, moving to the impact of the Internet today, and concluding with growing trends. In addition, this chapter examines how child sexual exploitation is addressed internationally, including existing legislation, law enforcement actions, and vigilante justice. Finally, this chapter summarizes how technology has been used to find child sexual exploitation material, and where research and combat tools need to go in order to address the evolving problem.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B. G. (2020). The past, present, and future of online child sexual exploitation: Summarizing the evolution of production, distribution, and detection. In T. Holt & A. Bossler (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of international cybercrime and cyberdeviance (pp.1225-1253). Palgrave Macmillian: Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78440-3_52
The Pregnancy Police: Surveillance, Regulation, and Control
Author(s):
Grace Howard, Ph.D.
A wave of state legislation restricting the right to abortion in 2019 has drawn attention to the contingency of rights of pregnant people. However, the regulation and criminalization of pregnant bodies in the United States began many years before. Drawing from original research in criminal cases, as well as from notable family court hearings, lawsuits, and news reports, this article explores some of the ways in which pregnant people have become subject to surveillance, regulation, and control because of the fact of their pregnancies through criminal prosecution for pregnancy endangerment, involuntary detention, and forced medical intervention. Using a reproductive justice framework, it discusses the ways in which these developments have already laid the foundation for the further erosion of the rights of pregnant people, and the merging of the criminal justice and healthcare systems, both legally and informally. Taken together, this overwhelming pattern of rights violations indicates that, abortion legality aside, there is an ever-growing precedent for the reduced citizenship of pregnant people in the United States.
Publishing information:
The Politics of Pregnancy. Volume 14, Issue 2
Evaluation of soaking to recover trace DNA from fired cartridge cases
Author(s):
Mark Barash, Ph.D., Elisha Prasad, Ph.D., Catherine Hitchcock, Ph.D., Roland A. H. van Ooschot, Ph.D., Jennifer Raymond, Ph.D., Dennis McNevin, Ph.D., and Peter Gunn, Ph.D.
The recovery of trace DNA from cartridge cases is of common interest across many jurisdictions. Soaking offers improved profiling success rates over traditional methods. We evaluated the effects of firing, calibre, and metal composition on controlled and handled DNA samples utilizing a soaking method. Our results show that firing decreases the quantities of DNA recoverable from cartridge cases and higher quantities of DNA are recoverable from nickel ammunition compared to brass. In spiked samples, calibre of ammunition had no significant effect on DNA recovery. Despite slight to moderate DNA degradation and variable profiling success rates, spiked unfired and fired nickel cartridges resulted in more usable profiles than brass cartridges. These findings can aid in triaging the types of ammunition subjected to DNA testing.
Publishing information:
Elisha Prasad, Mark Barash, Catherine Hitchcock, Roland A. H. van Oorschot, Jennifer
Raymond, Dennis McNevin & Peter Gunn (2020): Evaluation of soaking to recover trace
DNA from fired cartridge cases, Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, DOI:
10.1080/00450618.2020.1757758
Terrorists as Rebels: Territorial Goals, Oil Resources, and Civil War Onset in Terrorist Campaigns
Author(s):
Sambuddha Ghatak, Ph.D. and Suveyda Karakaya, Ph.D.
Recent studies show terrorist organizations that target only civilians almost always
fail to achieve their ultimate objectives. On the contrary, groups that target combatants
and civilians have better chances of success. Yet, most terrorist organizations do
not directly target the state. When terrorist organizations shift their strategy from
purely terrorist acts to confrontation against the target state, we may see a transition
from terrorism to civil war.
A terrorist organization’s decision to engage in civil war largely depends on the
organization’s ability to alleviate the collective action problem. We argue terrorist
groups with a territorial goal and groups operating in oil-rich countries are more
likely to engage in civil war. The desire to gain a separate homeland is a powerful
motivator to overcome the collective action problem. Terrorist organizations that
operate in oil-rich countries are more likely to resort to civil war because oil dependence
has the potential to increase grievances, which motivate rebellion, and resources
provide a means of financing rebellion, while weakening target state institutions.
Our findings confirm the existence of a territorial goal and availability of oil resources
trigger transition from terrorism to civil war.
Publishing information:
Ghatak, Sambuddha, and Suveyda Karakaya. (2020) Terrorists as Rebels: Territorial Goals, Oil Resources, and Civil War Onset in Terrorist Campaigns. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1093/fpa/oraa012
2019
Kidnapping and Violence: New Research and Clinical Perspectives
Author(s):
Stephen Morewitz
This book analyzes kidnapping in various forms and from various perspectives. First it argues that kidnapping, including the threat of kidnapping, reflects a breakdown in the mechanisms of social control in society. This volume also discusses the ways governments and para-military and terrorist groups employ kidnappings as part of their foreign and domestic policy. This analysis evaluates why and under what conditions governments, para-military and terrorist groups decide to abduct individuals and groups. It emphasizes how individuals, groups, and governments employ abductions to achieve their psychological, social, religious, and political objectives. This analysis also examines the ways in which cultural traditions in different societies emerge to foster behaviors such as bride abductions. Moreover, this book addresses the extent to which social change modifies these cultural patterns.
Suitable for students and researchers, mental health practitioners, and law enforcement, this volume is a unique analysis of our contemporary understanding of kidnapping and violence, and the social, psychological, political, and cultural motivations for such an act.
Publishing Information:
Morewitz, Stephen J. (2019). Kidnapping and Violence. New Research and Clinical Perspectives. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4939-2116-4
Clinical and Psychological Perspectives on Foul Play
Author(s):
Stephen J. Morewitz
Clinical and Psychological Perspectives on Foul Play examines a wide range of factors that can influence how police determine foul play in possible homicide cases and in other possible crimes. It develops a new theory of uncertainty at micro, meso, and macro levels to explain how law professionals arrive at this decision. Specifically, it examines the extent to which uncertainty in these situations can be influenced by media coverage, family and community pressures, socioeconomic factors, demographic elements of victims, as well as police knowledge and resources. Written for forensic practitioners, this book describes how these professionals can consult with law enforcement on such issues as the staging of crime scenes to mask intent, the initiation of community strategies to find missing persons, and the reliability of behavioral profiles. The latest research from the Foul Play Project and the Missing Persons Project are employed to support the recommendations in this book and to point the way toward further research in this area.
Publishing Information:
Morewitz, Stephen J. (2019). Clinical and Psychological Perspectives on Foul Play. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-26839-8
The frequency of fingerprint patterns separated by ethnicity and sex in a general population from Sydney Australia
Author(s):
Mark Barash
A total of 514 individuals from the Sydney area volunteered their fingerprint scans for analysis. The prints were classified using the eight main patterns of the National Crime Information Centre system. Additional information from the volunteers, including sex and ancestry, was documented. Using this information, the frequencies of each pattern for each biogeographical ancestry (BGA) group and sex were calculated. Trends showed that males and females have a difference in the frequency of plain arches; none of the other patterns showed clear differentiation. BGA trends showed that European and Middle Eastern groups had more similar frequencies for the less common patterns (plain arch, tented arch, radial loop, central pocket loop whorl and double loop whorl). Whereas for the common patterns of ulnar loop and plain whorl, European and South Asian groups were more similar in frequency.
Publishing information:
Walton, A., Moret, S., Barash, M., & Gunn, P. (2019). The frequency of fingerprint patterns separated by ethnicity and sex in a general population from Sydney, Australia. Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 51(sup1), S162–S167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00450618.2019.1569153
The effects of soaking for DNA recovery on the striation patterns of fired cartridge cases
Author(s):
P. Gunn & J. Raymond E. Prasad, L. Van der Walt, A. Cole, R.A.H. van Oorschot, M. Barash
The recovery of trace DNA from fired cartridge cases has recently gained increased interest throughout the literature, with a variety of methods currently being explored. Soaking fired cartridge cases in a lysis buffer holds potential in producing meaningful DNA profiles; however, chemical interactions between the lysis buffer and brass cartridge cases may limit the efficacy of this method. This preliminary study examines the effects of soaking on the microscopic striation detail of brass and nickel 9 mm Parabellum (9 mmP) calibre and .22 Long Rifle (.22LR) calibre fired cartridge cases. Headstamp and coarse striation patterns on 9 mmP fired cartridge cases and finer striation patterns along the outer wall of .22LR fired cartridge cases were microscopically examined prior to and following soaking. Soaking was performed by submerging the fired cartridge cases in 380 µl of ATL buffer (Qiagen, Germany) for 20 minutes. Microscopic analysis of brass and nickel 9 mmP and .22LR fired cartridge cases showed that coarse and fine striation detail remain unaffected following soaking. These results indicate that comparative ballistics examinations may be performed following DNA recovery using the soaking method.
Publishing information:
The frequency of fingerprint patterns separated by ethnicity and sex in a general population from Sydney, Australia
Author(s):
Peter Gunn Andrew Walton, Sebastien Moret, Mark Barash
A total of 514 individuals from the Sydney area volunteered their fingerprint scans for analysis. The prints were classified using the eight main patterns of the National Crime Information Centre system. Additional information from the volunteers, including sex and ancestry, was documented. Using this information, the frequencies of each pattern for each biogeographical ancestry (BGA) group and sex were calculated. Trends showed that males and females have a difference in the frequency of plain arches; none of the other patterns showed clear differentiation. BGA trends showed that European and Middle Eastern groups had more similar frequencies for the less common patterns (plain arch, tented arch, radial loop, central pocket loop whorl and double loop whorl). Whereas for the common patterns of ulnar loop and plain whorl, European and South Asian groups were more similar in frequency.
Publishing information:
Walton, A., Moret, S., Barash, M., & Gunn, P. (2019). The frequency of fingerprint patterns separated by ethnicity and sex in a general population from Sydney, Australia. Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 51(sup1), S162–S167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00450618.2019.1569153
Commentary on: Bright et al. (2018) Internal validation of STRmix™ – a multi laboratory response to PCAST, Forensic Science International: Genetics, 34: 11–24
Author(s):
McNevin D., Wright K., Chaseling J., Barash M.
A recent publication [1] has claimed to address criticism of probabilistic genotyping by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report [2] and addendum [3]. PCAST considered probabilistic genotyping to have “foundational validity… under limited circumstances (specifically, a three-person mixture in which the minor contributor constitutes at least 20 percent of the DNA in the mixture), but that substantially more evidence is needed to establish foundational validity across broader settings”[2]. For more than three contributors and/or for mixtures with minor contributors constituting less than 20% of the DNA, PCAST recommends “the creation and dissemination… of large collections of hundreds of DNA profiles created from known mixtures”[2].
Publishing information:
Police legitimacy in Trinidad and Tobago: Resident perceptions in a high crime community
Author(s):
Ericka Adams, Ph.D.
Violent crime in Trinidad and Tobago has increased over the last two decades, yet the police have been largely unsuccessful in reducing violence. Between 1999 and 2016, the murder rate increased by 475 percent. Despite the fact that the murder rate has increased, approximately 76 homicides are cleared each year, resulting in a low homicide clearance rate. Using 40 semi-structured interviews with community members from a high crime, low-income community in Trinidad and Tobago, this study examines residents’ experiences with police officers, and respondents’ willingness to work with the police to clear criminal cases. The results indicate that due to a lack of institutional trust, citizens are unwilling to trust and work collaboratively with most police officers. Policy implications from this research will be discussed.
Publishing information:
Adams, E. B., (2019). Police legitimacy in Trinidad and Tobago: Resident perceptions in a high crime community. Journal of Crime and Justice. First published online. doi: 10.1080/0735648X.2019.1582350
Determination of vehicle speed from recorded video using reverse projection photogrammetry and file metadata
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D. and Brandon Epstein
The prevalence of security and in-car video has increased the number of motor vehicle accidents captured on digital video. However, inconsistencies in how to accurately determine time and distance for vehicle speed has led to examinations with varying results. A potential solution for calculating time intervals is to use frame timing, accurate to 0.0001 seconds, contained within many digital video file metadata. This paper examines a fatal motor vehicle accident where frame timing information was used with distance measurements from reverse projection photogrammetry to calculate vehicle speed. A margin of error was then calculated based on the accuracy in performing reverse projection photogrammetry distance measurements. The resulting speed calculation was then compared to Event Data Recorder data and found to be within an average of +/- 1.43538 MPH. Using specific time intervals may lead investigators to more accurate speed calculations, specifically those involving variable frame rate video.
Publishing information:
Epstein, B, & Westlake, B.G. (accepted). Determination of vehicle speed from recorded video using reverse projection photogrammetry and file metadata. Journal of Forensic Sciences.
Prisoner Reentry in the United States
Author(s):
John Halushka, Ph.D.
This chapter provides an overview of current literature on prisoner reentry in the United States with a particular focus on ethnographic studies. The first section explores how former prisoners navigate conditions of severe poverty following incarceration. During the period following release, former prisoners struggle to establish employment and independent housing, and mostly rely on family, friends, and public assistance agencies to meet their basic material needs. This daily grind of poverty survival has a devastating effect on their physical and emotional wellbeing and ultimately undermines successful reintegration. The next section explores prisoner reentry as a political project. It begins with an overview of current efforts to get “smart-on-crime,” particularly efforts to reduce corrections costs by rehabilitating offenders in less costly community settings. The chapter then journeys into various community settings to explore how frontline service providers in parole offices, residential treatment facilities, and workforce development programs attempt to rehabilitate offenders. The chapter concludes with an analysis and critique of current efforts to reform the criminal justice system. While current efforts to get “smart-on-crime” represent a welcome departure from “tough-on-crime” politics of the past, these reforms do not go nearly far enough to challenge the political roots of mass incarceration.
Publication information:
Halushka, John. 2019. “Prisoner Reentry in the United States.” Chapter 43 in The Routledge Companion to Rehabilitative Work in Criminal Justice, edited by Peter Raynor, Fergus McNeill, Faye Taxman, Chris Trotter, Pamela Ugwudike, and Hannah Graham. In Press.
Social Structures and Penal Change: Marxist Critiques of Punishment in Late Capitalism
Author(s):
Alessandro De Giorgi, Ph.D.
This chapter offers a critical analysis of neo-Marxist theories of punishment. The first section of the chapter provides a reconstruction of the two main perspectives that have emerged within the materialist criminological tradition: (1) the so called “revisionist histories of punishment” of the 1970s, whose main contribution has been to uncover the existence of a historical connection between the emergence of modern penality (i.e., the transition from the medieval “spectacles of suffering” to the disciplinary prison) and the consolidation of a capitalist system of production based on wage labor (i.e., the birth of the industrial factory); (2) the neo-Marxist critiques of contemporary penality, which have further developed the materialist framework in an attempt to analyze the structural relations between transformations in penal politics and the ongoing restructuring of the capitalist economy. The second section of the chapter describes some critiques that have been raised against the materialist perspective–more specifically, a tendency to overlook the politico-institutional dimensions of penality, a lack of comparative perspective, an almost exclusive focus on prisons to the exclusion of other institutions of social control such as the police, an excessive emphasis on the instrumental side of penal practices at the expense of the discursive/symbolic dimension of punishment. The third section addresses the main challenges facing neo-Marxist theories of punishment today, and envisions some possible new directions of research in this field—namely, the construction of a political economy of penality in the age of Neoliberal capitalism, the elaboration of a materialist critique of the control of labor migrations in a global economy, and the reconnection of the instrumental and symbolic dimensions of penality under a broader critical framework able to shed light on the complex intersections of racial and class power in the reproduction of capitalism.
Publication information:
De Giorgi, A. (forthcoming in 2019) Social Structures and Penal Change: Marxist Critiques of Punishment in Late Capitalism. In S. Farris, B. Skeggs, A. Toscano (eds.) TheSAGE Handbook of Marxism. London: Sage.
“I’ve Risen Up From the Ashes That I Created”: Record Clearance and Gendered Narratives of Self-Reinvention and Reintegration
Author(s):
Ericka Adams, Ph.D. and Elsa Chen, Ph.D.
This study analyzes interviews of 40 persons with criminal records (18 women, 22 men) to examine their expectations and experiences of expungement. Both men and women seek opportunities for personal gain through record clearance, but women are more motivated by moral and religious influences and concern about reputation. Women are more likely than men to acknowledge personal flaws, and to desire to replace criminal identities with law-abiding identities. As women redefine their identities, caregiving is especially important as a personal obligation and professional aspiration. Record clearance is particularly compatible with women’s motivations, willingness to change, and personal and professional goals.
Publishing information:
Chen, E. Y., and Adams, E. B. (2019).‘I’ve risen up from the ashes that I created’: Record clearance and gendered narratives of self-reinvention and reintegration. Feminist Criminology 14:2, 143-172. doi: 10.1177/1557085117733796
The past, present, and future of online child sexual exploitation: Summarizing the evolution of production, distribution, and detection.
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D.
The sexual exploitation of children has long been a component of society. With the advent of the Internet, along with advancements of, and accessibility to, media-recording devices, child sexual exploitation material has become even more prevalent globally. This chapter chronicles the evolution of child sexual exploitation, beginning in ancient Greece, moving to the impact of the Internet today, and concluding with growing trends. In addition, this chapter examines how child sexual exploitation is addressed internationally, including existing legislation, law enforcement actions, and vigilante justice. Finally, this chapter summarizes how technology has been used to find child sexual exploitation material, and where research and combat tools need to go in order to address the evolving problem.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B.G. (2019). The past, present, and future of online child sexual exploitation: Summarizing the evolution of production, distribution, and detection. In T. Holt & A. Bossler (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of international cybercrime and cyberdeviance (pp.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian.
2018
Impact of gangs on community life in Trinidad. Race and Justice.
Author(s):
Ericka B. Adams, Ph.D., Patrick K. Morris, Ph.D., and Edward R. Maguire, Ph.D.
Trinidad and Tobago has more than 100 criminal gangs, some of which engage in high levels of homicide and violence. Recent research has shown that gang members in Trinidad and Tobago are more likely than non-gang members to be arrested for violent, property, and drug crimes. As gangs continue to proliferate throughout the Caribbean, there is a pressing need to understand the nature of these gangs and their impact on the communities in which they are entrenched. Using data from interviews with community members, police officials, and gang members, as well as ethnographic observations from ten high crime, predominantly black communities in the Port of Spain area, this paper investigates the impact of gang violence and the role of gangs in these urban communities. Our findings reveal the dominant nature of certain gangs and their formidable role in controlling turf and using violence to retaliate and intimidate.
Publishing information:
Adams, E. B., Morris, P. K., and Maguire, E. R. (2018). Impact of gangs on community life in Trinidad. Race and Justice.First published online. doi: 10.1177/2153368718820577
Delineating victims from perpetrators: Prosecuting self-produced child pornography in Youth Criminal Justice System
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D.
Video recording technology advancements and accessibility has been paralleled by a growth in self-produced child pornography (SPCP). Although social and judicial attention has been given to instances of teenage sexting, Internet-based forms of SPCP, such as webcam/website sex tourism, have almost been ignored. While some of the proposed legislation reform has referenced video-based SPCP, the majority has focused on SPCP distributed through cellular phones; excluding that which is manifested online or through entrepreneurial efforts. The purpose of this article is to introduce non- sexting SPCP, using the case study of Justin Berry (in the United States), and to propose a broad punishment, education, and counseling response from youth criminal justice systems (YCJS). Recommendations are meant as a starting point, framed with multiple YCJS structures, the duality of victim and perpetrator, the justice and welfare approaches to juvenile justice, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in mind.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B.G. (2018). Delineating victims from perpetrators: Prosecuting self-produced child pornography in Youth Criminal Justice Systems. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 12(1), pp. 255-268. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1467907.
Review of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman, Jr.
Author(s):
John Halushka, Ph.D.
In Locking Up On Our Own, James Forman Jr. explores the racial politics of crime and punishment in post-civil rights Washington, D.C. Forman uses D.C.—a black-majority city with significant power over sentencing policy—as a case study to explore how, beginning in the 1970s, black citizens in D.C. used their newly won political power to demand state protection from street violence. Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as his personal experience as a public defender and charter school founder in Washington D.C., Forman illustrates how, in an effort to protect black lives from drugs and violence, well-intentioned black city officials, police officers, and citizens advocated for "tough-on-crime" policies that wound up contributing to the mass incarceration of the very communities which they sought to protect.
Publication information:
Halushka, J. (2018) Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr. Punishment and Society. First Published Online DOI:10.1177/1462474518777686
Fear of crime and behavioral adaptations: Testing the effects of fear of violence on unstructured socializing with peers
Author(s):
Yue "Wilson" Yuan, Ph.D. and Susan McNeeley, Ph.D.
This study examines whether fear of violent crime experienced by adolescents influences their involvement in unstructured socializing with peers. To test this relationship, we examine data on youth in Chicago collected as part of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The results show that fear of violent crime in neighborhoods and at schools reduces participation in unstructured socializing with peers. However, this result was only observed for adolescents living in neighborhoods with low levels of concentrated disadvantage. This study provides insight into the consequences of fear of crime for individual behavior. Fear of crime can result in withdrawal from social situations, including avoidance of situations that increase risk for delinquency and victimization.
Publication information:
Yuan, Y., & McNeeley, S. (2018).Fear of crime and behavioral adaptations: Testing the effects of fear of violence on unstructured socializing with peers. Deviant Behavior, 39 (12) 1633-1646
Punishment, Marxism, and Political Economy
Author(s):
Alessandro De Giorgi, Ph.D.
The political economy of punishment is a critical approach within the sociology of punishment that hypothesizes the existence of a structural connection between transformations of the economy and changes in the penal field. Inspired by a Marxist framework, this materialist critique of punishment explores—from both a historical and contemporary perspective—the relationships between the reorganization a society’s system of production and the emergence, persistence, or decline of specific penal practices. For example, materialist criminologists have investigated the parallel historical emergence of the factories as the main sites of capitalist production and of prisons as the main institutions of punishment in modern societies. Scholars in this field have also explored the correlations between incarceration rates and socioeconomic indicators such as unemployment rates, poverty levels, welfare regimes, and labor markets. Since it was first systematized by Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer in their seminal work Punishment and Social Structure (1939/1968), this materialist framework has been criticized in mainstream criminological literature for its alleged economic determinism. In particular, critiques have focused on the theory’s tendency to overlook the cultural significance of punishment and the politico-institutional dimensions of penality, as well as on its exclusive emphasis on the instrumental side of penal practices as opposed to their symbolic dimensions. In response to these critiques, recent works have tried to integrate the old political economy of punishment with epistemological tools from different disciplinary fields—cultural studies, feminist and critical race theory, poverty research, institutional theory, and immigration scholarship, among others—in order to overcome some limitations of the materialist approach and develop what might be defined as a cultural political economy of punishment. Particularly in its more recent iterations, the political economy of punishment provides a powerful lens to investigate recent transformations in the US penal field, such as the advent of mass incarceration and the current prison crisis.
Publication information:
De Giorgi, A. (2018) Punishment, Marxism, and Political Economy. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Back to Nothing: Prisoner Reentry and Neoliberal Neglect. Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order
Author(s):
Alessandro De Giorgi, Ph.D.
This article draws from a 3-year ethnographic study conducted in Oakland, California among a group of formerly incarcerated people who face the challenge of reintegrating into society. An average of 1,700 prisoners are released daily from jails, prisons, and federal penitentiaries in the United States, only to be dumped into the segregated neighborhoods from which they were forcefully taken years before. In the wake of neoliberal cost-reduction strategies affecting community supervision programs and social service agencies, the experiences of returning prisoners suggest the emergence of a low-cost model of urban containment that devolves largely to market forces and nonprofit agencies. This barely regulated collection of private forces—backed by the ever-looming threat of prison or jail—is all that is left in a postindustrial city stripped bare of the community networks and welfare services that existed before the neoliberal punitive turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The article documents some of the survival strategies adopted by former prisoners and their families, and illustrates how the cycle of incarceration and reentry operates as a powerful engine for the reproduction of racialized social inequalities in the US.
Publishing information
De Giorgi, A. (2017) Back to Nothing: Prisoner Reentry and Neoliberal Neglect. Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order 44(1): 83–120.
Immigration, illegality, and the law: Governance, equality, and Justice
Author(s):
Claudio Vera Sanchez, Ph.D.
Publishing information:
Vera Sanchez, C.G. (2018). Immigration, illegality, and the law: Governance, equality, and Justice. In M. Guevara Urbina, & S. Espinoza Alvarez (eds.). Immigration and the law: Race, citizenship, and social control. University of Arizona Press.
Murder in a twin island paradise: Trends and strategies implemented to address criminal homicide in Trinidad and Tobago
Author(s):
Ericka Adams, Ph.D and Claudio Vera Sanchez, Ph.D.
The purpose of this chapter is to explore homicide trends in Trinidad and Tobago, to describe the factors that impact the risk for homicide perpetration and victimization, and to discuss the effectiveness of strategies implemented by law enforcement agencies to prosecute homicide cases. The paper employs a detailed review of relevant literature to explore homicide trends and the strategies instituted to investigate and prosecute this criminal offense. Our findings suggest that homicide victimization and perpetration is concentrated among young men of African descent, who reside in underprivileged communities with a high population density. Gang violence prompted by a narco-drug economy, coupled with gun violence, accentuates the risk of homicide perpetration and victimization. As homicide rates remained high, law enforcement officials in Trinidad and Tobago were ill-equipped to investigate and make arrests in these offenses. This chapter adds to the literature on homicide in Trinidad and Tobago by (1) showing that geographic and demographic factors structure homicide victimization and (2) exploring how the political economy of drugs in the Caribbean contributes to murder.
Publishing information:
Adams, E. B., and Vera Sanchez, C. G. (2018). Murder in a twin island paradise: Trends and strategies implemented to address criminal homicide in Trinidad and Tobago. In Deflem, M. (Ed.). Homicide and Violent Crime (Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Volume 23).Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Identification of the Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Affecting Normal Phenotypic Variability in Human Craniofacial Morphology Using Candidate Gene Approach
Author(s):
Barash Mark, Bayer P. E, Angela van Daal
There is a remarkable variety of human facial appearances, almost exclusively the
result of genetic differences, as exemplified by the striking resemblance of identical
twins. Despite intensive research on the genetics of craniofacial morphology using
animal models and human craniofacial syndromes, the genetic variation that underpins
normal human facial appearance is still largely elusive.
As a part of efforts on detecting genomic variants affecting normal craniofacial appearance,
we have implemented a targeted candidate gene approach by selecting 1,319 single nucleotide
polymorphisms (SNPs) in over 170 candidate genes and intergenic regions. This list
has been further expanded with additional 4,732 tag polymorphisms, representing extended
haplotype. All the markers were genotyped in 587 DNA samples using a massively parallel
sequencing approach. We used 3-dimentional (3D) facial scans and direct cranial measurements
to calculate 104 craniofacial anthropometric distances, which were analysed for associations
with 2,332 polymorphisms.
Publishing information:
Performance of the Early Access AmpliSeq™ Mitochondrial Panel with degraded DNA samples using the Ion Torrent™ platform
Author(s):
Ka Tak Wai, Mark Barash, Peter Gunn
The Early Access AmpliSeq™ Mitochondrial Panel amplifies whole mitochondrial genomes for phylogenetic and kinship identifications, using Ion Torrent™ technology. There is currently limited information on its performance with degraded DNA, a common occurrence in forensic samples. This study evaluated the performance of the Panel with DNA samples degraded in vitro, to mimic conditions commonly found in forensic investigations. Purified DNA from five individuals was heat-treated at five time points each (125°C for 0, 30, 60, 120, and 240 min; total n = 25). The quality of DNA was assessed via a real-time DNA assay of genomic DNA and prepared for massively parallel sequencing on the Ion Torrent™ platform. Mitochondrial sequences were obtained for all samples and had an amplicon coverage averaging between 66X to 2803X. Most amplicons (157/162) displayed high coverages (452 ± 333X), while reads with less than 100X coverage were recorded in five amplicons only (90 ± 5X). Amplicon coverage was decreased with prolonged heating. At 72% strand balance, reads were well balanced between forward and reverse strands. Using a coverage threshold of ten reads per SNP, complete sequences were recovered in all samples and resolved kinship and, haplogroup relations. Additionally, the HV1 and HV2 regions of the reference and 240-min heat-treated samples (n = 10) were Sanger-sequenced for concordance. Overall, this study demonstrates the efficacy of a novel forensic Panel that recovers high quality mitochondrial sequences from degraded DNA samples.
Publishing information:
Wai, K.T., Barash, M. and Gunn, P. (2018), Performance of the Early Access AmpliSeq™ Mitochondrial Panel with degraded DNA samples using the Ion Torrent™ platform. ELECTROPHORESIS, 39: 2776-2784. https://doi.org/10.1002/elps.201700371
Development of the MitoQ assay as a real-time quantification of mitochondrial DNA in degraded samples
Author(s):
Mark Barash Ka Tak Wai, Peter Gunn
Publishing information:
Read the publication
Comment on “Linkage analysis of a model quantitative trait in humans: Finger ridge count shows significant multivariate linkage to 5q14.1” by Medland et al., “Common Genetic Variants Influence Whorls in Fingerprint Patterns” by Ho et al. and “Hot on the Trail of Genes that Shape Our Fingerprints”
Author(s):
Ruan, T., Barash, M., Gunn, P. et al. Investigation of DNA transfer onto clothing during regular daily activities. Int J Legal Med 132, 1035–1042 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-017-1736-x
We would like to add our observations on the paper by Medland et al.[1] and in turn the subsequent paper by Ho et al.[2], and its related commentary by Walsh et al.[3]. The investigation by Medland et al.[1] explored the human genome for genetic variants that might influence the fingerprint patterns diversity. The group has chosen the ridge count as a relevant phenotype and subsequently found genomic associations with the 5q14. 1, 1q42. 2 and 15q26. 1 chromosomal regions [1]. Ho et al.[2] continued the efforts initiated by Medland et al. on uncovering the genetics behind human fingerprints by undertaking a genome–wide approach and utilising the whorl phenotype specifically. By identifying these genetic factors, knowledge of the nuanced development of digits and more general foetal development would be extended.
Publishing information:
Investigation of DNA transfer onto clothing during regular daily activities
Author(s):
Travis Ruan, Mark Barash, Peter Gunn, David Bruce
Low levels of DNA from an unidentified human source, often referred to as trace DNA, are ubiquitous, can be transferred onto objects by either direct or indirect methods and have an unknown longevity in situ. Clothing items from crime scenes are often submitted for trace DNA analysis, usually in attempt to identify a person of interest. This study examined the transfer of DNA onto three 10 × 10 cm areas located on the front, back and shoulder of an individual’s external clothing (n = 300) during a regular day’s activity. After wearing for a day, the DNA quantity on all three areas increased approximately 8-fold, which usually corresponded with an increase in the endogenous DNA from the wearer on the front area of the shirt. However, the back area of the shirt was more likely to demonstrate mixtures of endogenous and extraneous DNA. An additional study was also carried out to examine whether domestic …
Publishing information:
Ruan, T., Barash, M., Gunn, P. et al. Investigation of DNA transfer onto clothing during regular daily activities. Int J Legal Med 132, 1035–1042 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-017-1736-x
Laundry in a washing machine as a mediator of secondary and tertiary DNA transfer
Author(s):
Lev Voskoboinik, Merav Amiel, Ayeleth Reshef, Ron Gafny, Mark Barash
The aim of this work was to investigate the possibility of secondary and tertiary DNA transfer during laundry. The modes of transfer tested were mixed and separate laundry of worn and unworn garments in household and public washing machines. In addition, the possibility of a background DNA carry-over from a washing machine’s drum was investigated. In the mixed (worn and unworn garments washed together) laundry experiment, 22% of samples from new unworn socks with no traceable DNA prior to experiment produced DNA profiles post-laundry. In the tertiary DNA transfer experiment performed in a public washing machine (unworn garments only), no detectable DNA profiles were observed. Samples collected from the internal drum of 25 washing and drying machines did not produce detectable STR profiles. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of forensic DNA casework analysis.
Publishing information:
Voskoboinik, L., Amiel, M., Reshef, A. et al. Laundry in a washing machine as a mediator of secondary and tertiary DNA transfer. Int J Legal Med 132, 373–378 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-017-1617-3
Performance of the Early Access AmpliSeqTM Mitochondrial Panel with degraded DNA samples using the Ion TorrentTM platform
Author(s):
Mark Barash
The Early Access AmpliSeqTM Mitochondrial Panel amplifies whole mitochondrial
genomes for phylogenetic and kinship identifications, using Ion TorrentTM technology.
There is currently limited information on its performance with degraded DNA, a common
occurrence in forensic samples. This study evaluated the performance of the Panel
with
DNA samples degraded in vitro, to mimic conditions commonly found in forensic investigations.
Purified DNA from five individuals was heat-treated at five time points each
(125°C for 0, 30, 60, 120, and 240 min; total n = 25). The quality of DNA was assessed
via a
real-time DNA assay of genomic DNA and prepared for massively parallel sequencing
on
the Ion TorrentTM platform. Mitochondrial sequences were obtained for all samples
and
had an amplicon coverage averaging between 66X to 2803X. Most amplicons (157/162)
displayed high coverages (452 ± 333X), while reads with less than 100X coverage were
recorded in five amplicons only (90 ± 5X). Amplicon coverage was decreased with prolonged
heating. At 72% strand balance, reads were well balanced between forward and
reverse strands. Using a coverage threshold of ten reads per SNP, complete sequences
were recovered in all samples and resolved kinship and, haplogroup relations. Additionally,
the HV1 and HV2 regions of the reference and 240-min heat-treated samples (n = 10)
were Sanger-sequenced for concordance. Overall, this study demonstrates the efficacy
of
a novel forensic Panel that recovers high quality mitochondrial sequences from degraded
DNA samples.
Publishing information:
Mark Barash. "Performance of the Early Access AmpliSeqTM Mitochondrial Panel with degraded DNA samples using the Ion TorrentTM platform" Electrophoresis (2018).
2017
Forensic science: current state and perspective by a group of early career researchers
Author(s):
Marie Morelato, Mark Barash, Lucas Blanes, Scott Chadwick, Jessirie Dilag, Unnikrishnan Kuzhiumparambil, Katie D Nizio, Xanthe Spindler, Sebastien Moret
Forensic science and its influence on policing and the criminal justice system have increased since the beginning of the twentieth century. While the philosophies of the forensic science pioneers remain the pillar of modern practice, rapid advances in technology and the underpinning sciences have seen an explosion in the number of disciplines and tools. Consequently, the way in which we exploit and interpret the remnant of criminal activity are adapting to this changing environment. In order to best exploit the trace, an interdisciplinary approach to both research and investigation is required. In this paper, nine postdoctoral research fellows from a multidisciplinary team discuss their vision for the future of forensic science at the crime scene, in the laboratory and beyond. This paper does not pretend to be exhaustive of all fields of forensic science, but describes a portion of the postdoctoral fellows’ interests and skills.
Publishing information:
Morelato, M., Barash, M., Blanes, L. et al. Forensic Science: Current State and Perspective by a Group of Early Career Researchers. Found Sci 22, 799–825 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-016-9500-0
VALIDATION OF THE SUREID (R) COMPASS HUMAN DNA IDENTIFICATION KIT
Author(s):
Samara Garrett-Rickman, Peter Gunn, Mark Barash
Publishing information:
Garrett-Rickman, Samara, Peter Gunn, and Mark Barash. "VALIDATION OF THE SUREID (R) COMPASS HUMAN DNA IDENTIFICATION KIT." FORENSIC SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL. Vol. 277. ELSEVIER HOUSE, BROOKVALE PLAZA, EAST PARK SHANNON, CO, CLARE, 00000, IRELAND: ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD, 2017.
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Seeing the forest through the trees: Identifying key players in online child sexual exploitation distribution networks.
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D. and Richard Frank, Ph.D.
The ever-increasing prevalence of child sexual exploitation material (CEM) in cyberspace requires that an interdisciplinary approach be adopted to improve combat efforts. Central to this is the incorporation of technologies that can reduce the physical, mental, and resource strain experienced by law enforcement, including intelligently automating some of the detection process, minimizing visual contact with CEM, and prioritizing targets. To maximize the impact of law enforcement activities against online CEM distribution, combat strategies need to be identified that allow social control agencies to see the 'forest through the trees' to target key players within the massive distribution chain. This paper focuses on identifying key players (i.e., public websites) within online CEM distribution networks, through the adaptation of a composite measure known as Network Capital (NC). We use a custom-designed webcrawler tool to automatically scan and collect information on websites with known CEM. We then incorporate quantity and quality of CEM material being distributed, network connectivity, geographical location and website operator information to create a formula to identify targets, sensitive to jurisdictional constraints. We also show how NC is malleable to the requirements of the researcher or social control agencies to emphasize specific combat priorities.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B.G., & Frank, R. (2017). Seeing the forest through the trees: Identifying key players in online child sexual exploitation distribution networks. In T. Holt (Ed.), Interdisciplinary research on cybercrime (pp.189-209). New York: Routledge.
Neoliberal Confinements: Social Suffering in the Shadows of the Carceral State. (special issue of Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order).
Author(s):
Alessandro De Giorgi, Ph.D.
This special issue aims to provide a cartography of some of the forms of social suffering experienced by marginalized and oppressed populations in the US carceral state. The contributors extend their gaze beyond the prison and its ancillary institutions to include spaces of confinement produced at the crossroads of racialized carceral regimes, hyper-policed neighborhoods, and widening zones of social abandonment.
Publishing information:
De Giorgi, A. – Fleury-Steiner, Ben (eds.) (2017) Neoliberal Confinements: Social Suffering in the Shadows of the Carceral State. (special issue of Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order).
Neighborhood context, street efficacy, and fear of crime. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
Author(s):
Yuan "Wilson" Yuan, Ph.D., Beidi Dong, Ph.D., and Chris Melde, Ph.D.
Drawing on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, the current study investigates the relationship between individuals’ perceived self-efficacy of avoiding unsafe situations and fear of violence in a neighborhood context. Specifically, it is hypothesized that adolescents who report higher levels of street efficacy are less likely to exhibit fear of violence than adolescents who report lower levels of street efficacy. Using panel data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, the authors estimate a series of multilevel ordinal logistic regression models to explain the relationship between street efficacy and fear of violence controlling for both individual-level and neighborhoodlevel covariates. The results confirm the hypothesis that adolescents’ prior street efficacy is negatively associated with subsequent fear of violence. The current study suggests that a social cognitive perspective should be incorporated into the fear of crime literature. Policy implications of the findings are discussed, along with suggestions for future research. Keywords fear
Publishing information:
Yuan, Y., Beidi, D., & Melde, C. (2017). Neighborhood context, street efficacy, and fear of crime. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 15 (2), 119–137
A multilevel examination of the code of the street’s relationship with fear of crime
Author(s):
Yue "Wilson" Yuan, Ph.D. and Susan McNeeley, Ph.D.
Research suggests that youths adopt the code of the street to reduce potential victimization, but it may increase actual risk of victimization. Because of this contradiction, the relationship between the code of the street and fear of crime may be an important component; however, fear of crime is an understudied component in the code of the street literature. This study conducts multilevel models to examine whether the code of the street is associated with perceived risk of victimization and emotional fear of crime. Individual belief in the code of the street was positively related to emotional fear of violent crime. At the neighborhood level, the code of the street was associated with higher perceived risk.
Publishing information:
McNeeley, S., & Yuan, Y. (2017). A multilevel examination of the code of the street’s relationship with fear of crime. Crime and Delinquency, 63 (9), 1146–1167
Context, network, and adolescent perceived risk
Author(s):
Yue "Wilson" Yuan, Ph.D. and Weihuia An, Ph.D.
Prior research has identified a list of individual attributes, along with neighborhood, school, and network characteristics, as potential factors affecting perceived risk. However, prior research has rarely investigated the simultaneous effects of these factors on perceived risk. This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth), supplemented with the 1990 census data, to examine the associations of neighborhood, school, and network characteristics and perceived risk among adolescents. To account for the overlaps between school districts and neighborhoods, we use crossclassified multilevel modeling (CCMM). Our analyses lead to two main findings. First, perceived risk appears to be context-specific. Perceived risk at school is mostly affected by school characteristics but not by neighborhood characteristics. Perceived risk in neighborhood is mostly affected by neighborhood characteristics but not by school characteristics. Second, network characteristics matter for both types of perceived risk and more so for perceived risk at school than in neighborhood. We find that, while having more friends is associated with a lower level of perceived risk, having more friends with delinquent and violent behaviors is associated with a higher level of perceived risk among adolescents.
Publishing information:
Yuan, Y., & Weihua, A. (2017) Context, network, and adolescent perceived risk. Social Science Research, 62, 378-393
How obvious is it: The content of child sexual exploitation websites.
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D, Martin Bouchard, Ph.D., and Ashleigh Girodat
Those who distribute child sexual exploitation (CE) material in the public Internet potentially face greater risks of detection. While public distribution is prevalent, little is known about the structure of these websites. We investigate whether websites take steps to hide their purpose, and, if so, what steps are taken? We analyze 634 websites directly or indirectly, via hyperlinks, connected to websites hosting known CE material, and compare our findings to an automated examination of the same websites. We determine whether the initial visual representation is congruent with the underlying structure and content identified in the automated data collection. Implications for understanding cybercriminal processes are discussed.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B.G., Bouchard, M., & Girodat, A. (2017). How obvious is it: The content of child sexual exploitation websites. Deviant Behavior, 38(3), pp. 282-293. doi: 10.1080/01639625.2016.1197001.
Assessing the validity of automated webcrawlers as data collection tools to investigate online child sexual exploitation.
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D, Martin Bouchard, Ph.D., and Richard Frank, Ph.D.
The distribution of child sexual exploitation (CE) material has been aided by the growth of the Internet. The graphic nature and prevalence of the material has made researching and combating difficult. Although used to study online CE distribution, automated data collection tools (e.g., webcrawlers) have yet to be shown effective at targeting only relevant data. Using CE-related image and keyword criteria, we compare networks starting from CE websites to those from similar non-CE sexuality websites and dissimilar sports websites. Our results provide evidence that (a) webcrawlers have the potential to provide valid CE data, if the appropriate criterion is selected; (b) CE distribution is still heavily image-based suggesting images as an effective criterion; (c) CE-seeded networks are more hub-based and differ from non-CE-seeded networks on several website characteristics. Recommendations for improvements to reliable criteria selection are discussed.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B.G., Bouchard, M., & Frank, R. (2017). Assessing the validity of automated webcrawlers as data collection tools to investigate online child sexual exploitation. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 29(7), 685-708. DOI: 10.1177/1079063215616818.
Erasing the mark of a criminal past: Ex-Offenders’ expectations and experiences with record clearance.
Author(s):
Ericka Adams, Ph.D., Elsa Y. Chen, Ph.D., and Rosella Chapman
Through the process of record clearance, ex-offenders can have certain minor convictions removed from their criminal record or designated as expunged. This study analyzes data gathered from semi-structured interviews with 40 past offenders to examine the expectations of individuals who seek record clearance and the extent to which completion of the process facilitates efforts to reintegrate into society and desist from crime. The analysis finds that record clearance benefits ex-offenders through external effects, such as the reduction of barriers to employment, and internal processes, such as the facilitation of cognitive transformation and the affirmation of a new identity. These benefits accrue from both the outcomes of the record clearance process and from the process itself. Increased availability of inexpensive or free opportunities for expungement can contribute to more successful reintegration of ex-offenders into the workforce, families, and communities. Not only would this improve quality of life for the ex-offenders, but it could also increase public safety and reduce public spending.
Publishing information:
Adams, E. B., Chen, E. Y., and Chapman, R. (2017). Erasing the mark of a criminal past: Ex-Offenders’ expectations and experiences with record clearance. Punishment & Society 19:1, 23 – 52.doi: 10.1177/1462474516645688
Seeing the forest through the trees: Identifying key players in online child sexual exploitation distribution networks
Author(s):
Bryce Westlake, Ph.D. and Richard Frank, Ph.D.
Publishing information:
Westlake, B.G., & Frank, R. (2017). Seeing the forest through the trees: Identifying key players in online child sexual exploitation distribution networks. In T. Holt (Ed.), Interdisciplinary research on cybercrime (pp.189-209). New York: Routledge.
Social ties, collective efficacy, and crime-specific fear in Seattle neighborhoods
Author(s):
Yue "Wilson" Yuan, Ph.D. and Susan McNeeley, Ph.D.
While research suggests that individuals’ interactions with their communities— such as their social integration into the community and perceptions of collective efficacy—impact their perceived risk of victimization, only a handful of studies have examined the influence of these characteristics on crime-specific, emotional fear. Using the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey, we conduct multilevel models to examine whether social ties and collective efficacy are associated with perceived risk and emotional fear of violence and burglary. The results show that individuals’ social ties to the community are negatively associated with perceived risk, but not emotional fear of violence or burglary, while perceived collective efficacy is negatively related to both cognitive and emotional fear. Moreover, the results suggest that individuals’ social integration into the community functions through perceptions of collective efficacy to predict perceived risk; however, this process does not extend to emotional fear of either violence or burglary.
Publishing information:
Yuan, Y., & McNeeley, S. (2017). Social ties, collective efficacy, and crime-specific fear in Seattle neighborhoods. Victims & Offenders, 12(1), 90-112.
Managing Rehabilitation: Negotiating Performance Accountability at the Frontlines of Reentry Service Provision
Author(s):
John Halushka, Ph.D.
Based on a three-year ethnographic study of two prisoner reentry agencies, this article explores how frontline service providers negotiate the contradictory demands of performance accountability. Performance accountability systems—collectively known as the New Public Management (NPM)—force service providers to make difficult trade-offs between these managerial goals and the substantive goals of rehabilitation. However, we know little about how frontline service providers negotiate these competing demands. I show how, despite efforts to develop distinct organizational brands, both organizations I studied responded to performance pressures and resource constraints according to a set of practices I call “defensive institutionalism.” This involved strategies designed to protect organizational resources from high risk clients by (1) filtering the client pool and (2) responsibilizing clients. While these practices allowed these organizations to reconcile managerial and substantive goals in situ, they did not resolve the underlying contradictions of New Public Management. New Public Management incentivizes service providers to pursue short-term, individuated approaches to rehabilitation, and it induces isomorphism rather than innovation. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for current efforts to implement “evidence-based” criminal justice policies.
Publishing information:
Halushka, J. (2017) Managing Rehabilitation: Negotiating Performance Accountability at the Frontlines of Reentry Service Provision. Punishment and Society 19(4): 482-502
The human trafficking debate: Implication for Social Work Practice
Author(s):
Yoko Baba, Ph.D. and S. Sen
Human trafficking is one of the most challenging social problems of our time. The causes and consequences are intricately woven together and no easy solutions are readily available. Typically, efforts to reduce trafficking have focused on the consequences rather than the causes of the problem. In addition, these interventions have targeted either the trafficked individuals or the structures that perpetuate the problem. Literature also identified a lack of research on the needs of service providers and a need for developing cross-cultural problem solving strategies. In this paper, we argued that in order to better serve their clients social service providers need to be: a) attentive of historical and geopolitical contexts of their clients, b) cognizant of their own positionality and values and how these shape their perception of issues surrounding human trafficking, and c) able to promote mutual respect between their clients and themselves in order to arrive at solutions that ultimately empower the clients.
Publishing information:
Sen, S. & Baba, Y. (2017). The Human trafficking debate: Implication for Social Work Practice. Social Work and Society 15, 1, 1-16.
