Let's say you are a defense attorney assigned a criminal case that has nothing to do with sex. A garden-variety case of robbery and murder. No rape, no pedophilia, nothing sexual at all.You might want to think about sex, anyway.In a case out of Missouri, the high court ruled that it was reversible error for the defense attorney not to have checked out the child pornography on the murder victim's computer.What relevance does that have to murder, you might ask?Not much. The defendant, Mark Gill, and a buddy kidnapped Ralph Lape from his home in 2002, bound him with plastic ties and duct tape, ...
A group of violent thugs? A social club? Troubled, homeless losers who are "hard to love"?And what is gang membership? Is it a fixed identity, or something fluid, which urban youngsters claim or don't claim according to external circumstances and the flow of their lives?How can we explain why, even in the roughest neighborhoods, at most 10 percent of youths belong to street gangs? Who are the other nine out of ten, and how do they negotiate survival without affiliation?For answers to these complex questions, and more, I recommend a new book from New York University Press, Who You Claim, ...
Book describes harmful effects of labeling and treatment In the past 30 years, a vast cottage industry has sprung up to treat and warehouse juvenile sex offenders. Whereas in 1982 the United States had 20 programs to treat such youths, by 2002 that number had skyrocketed to upwards of 1,300 specialized programs, most of them private, for-profit residential centers. What is especially startling about the continuing expansion of this fledgling industry is that rates of serious offending, including sex offending, by juveniles is staying steady or even declining.In The Perversion of Youth, ...
California's Department of Mental Health has just announced an exciting training featuring several prominent psychologists in the sex offender field. The two-day training, March 9-10 in beautiful Seaside (by Monterey), features:Dr. Robert Prentky, a psychology professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey and a leading researcher and practitioner in the field of sex offender riskDr. Howard Barbaree, Clinical Director of the Law and Mental Health Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, a pioneer in the study of the mitigating effects of aging and treatment ...
Can you believe that the War on Drugs has been raging for more than 40 years, ever since President Richard M. Nixon launched it way back in 1969? Talk about a war without end! And talk about casualties -- a massive prison industry that shoulders at least some of the blame for the current economic crisis here, where 46 out of 50 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy.Now, says Hugh O'Shaughnessy in an insightful article in the Independent of UK, the War on Drugs is quietly "being buried in the same fashion as it was born -- amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and scandal."The article, ...
Thirty-six years ago, on September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet ascended to power in Chile in a military coup. Within days, thousands of citizens were arrested, tortured and summarily executed. A Chilean folk singer named Victor Jara, was held prisoner in Santiago’s soccer stadium, a place used as a detention and torture center.
According to the testimony of the army conscript Jose Paredes, a sub-lieutenant fired a bullet into the singer’s head while playing Russian roulette and then he and another soldier were ordered to “finish the job by firing into Jara’s body.
Jara’s wife, British ...
Real CSI work
I want to congratulate a number of people who have been responsible for an outstanding job. A group of agents from the Royan Canadian Mounted Police, Toronto Police Services, Belfast Police Department, Maine State Police, and the New York Office of the FBI were able to rescue a couple of girls after a painstaking investigation.
A well deserved thank you for a job well done to all these anonymous people.
Here’s the story, from the FBI website:
TWO SISTERS RESCUED
Through a Unique Set of Clues
The pornographic images spotted online by Canadian authorities in 2007 were ...
This Blog is pleased to offer congratulations to all our Fall 2009 graduates!! Press here for more information
Also, we would like to wish everyone who visits the site a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Forensic Science Blog Team.
May everyione enjoy the festivities and have a great ...
Memory, eyewitnesses and facial recognition: the underlying complexity of memory as a cognitive process.
There are many forms of memory and our memory plays tricks on us. Memory is an organism’s ability to store, retain, and recall information. But… how do we remember? What are the major reasons why we forget? How do people recognize faces?
There are three major processes involved in memory: encoding, storage and retrieval. Memory is frequently changed by what people previously knew or experienced. An event or initial perception comes into the sensory memory where it is stored for up ...
DNA technology is probably one of the most exciting things in forensic science today. DNA studies have focused on vertebrates, plants and microbes. However, DNA based technologies in the entomological field have become a key area of research in the recent years.
Forensic entomology is the application of insect science to legal and criminal proceedings. Genotyping procedures have been mostly directed to the identification of forensically important specimens, most often used to estimate the time of death (PMI), or in some cases, to determine the general location of a murder. Insects can be ...
Forensic PsychologyJust added a prison psychology information page to the main forensic psychology website. See following link.Prison PsychologyPlease share this Forensic Psychology Blog Post with others by adding it to your social bookmarks.www.all-about-forensic-psychology.comA Free & Comprehensive Guide to The World of Forensic PsychologyPrison Psychology
...
Forensic PsychologyThe aim of Inside the Criminal Mind: A Forensic Psychology eBook Collection Special is to showcase all the major articles written by members of the Behavioral Science Units, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, at the FBI Academy.Criminal Profiling From Crime Scene Analysis by John E. Douglas, Robert K Ressler, Ann W Burgess & Carol R Hartman is the third article in this collection. Originally published in 1986 this was a seminal publication in the history of FBI profiling. Topics addressed include.The history of criminal profilingThe profiling of murderersThe ...
Forensic PsychologyDr. Maurice Godwin, Psychological and Geographical Profiler will be the guest on Talk Forensics Radio on Sunday 15th November at 4PM EST.Dr. Godwin received his Master’s Degree from Indiana State University, and his doctorate in investigative psychology from The University of Liverpool in England. He is a certified board member of United States Association of Professional Investigators (USAPI).He is the author of numerous books and journal articles on psychological profiling, serial murder, and geographical profiling. He has worked as a consultant to police and victims’ ...
Forensic PsychologyTLC Consultancies and ProActive ReSolutions Canada in conjunction with Professor Stephen Hart will be providing certificated and registered training in risk assessment tools at The Mansion House, Wokefield Park, Reading, Berkshire, UK from the 7th-11th December 2009. Professor Hart is an international expert in the development, implementation, and evaluation of threat assessment and management procedures. The scheduled risk assessment training on offer is as follows:7-8th December: Assessment of Psychopathic Personality Disorder (PCL-R/PCL:SV)The Psychopathy Checklist ...
Forensic PsychologyI've just started putting together an eBook collection on Interrogation.This collection is derived from the 2006 National Defense Intelligence College Press publication "Educing Information - Interrogation: Science and Art". Key information and scientific papers from "Educing Information" will be made available as a series of PDF documents which you can read and download for free via the following link.InterrogationYou can read and download a growing collection of forensic psychology eBooks for free via the following link.Forensic Psychology eBook Collection.Please share ...
Haitians are still in Hell. Understandably frustrated with the slowness of relief efforts to bring desperately needed food, water and medical care, some are turning to violence to vent their rage. Looting, so far minimal, is on the rise. Roving bands of young men with machetes are taking what they want: not money, TV's or jewelry, but basic survival supplies, candles, rum, and toothpaste they smear under their noses to cloak the omnipresent stench of death. The government is in complete shambles and silent. The still infernal situation is perilously approaching every man for himself. "It is ...
What are the psychological effects of massive disasters like the recent Haiti earthquake? The cyclone in Myanmar (Burma) that claimed as many as 100,000 victims? The 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in which more than 200,000 perished? Hurricane Katrina? For many of those who barely survive such events, cheating death, the symptoms of acute stress disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder will likely be present, requiring some therapeutic intervention. What are the psychological, theological and philosophical issues victims of such tragedies struggle with? And what about the rest ...
In my previous post (Part One), I suggested that we live in two worlds: the inner world and the outer world. That we participate in two different but equally legitimate realities: subjective and objective reality. And that these integrally related realities constantly interface and influence each other. But just how does that happen? What is the relationship between inner, subjective reality and outer, objective reality? Can what happens in the inner world of subjectivity affect, for better or worse, concrete events in the outer world? These are profound and crucial questions for the practice ...
The Zen teacher Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke, he wondered, "Am I a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I really a butterfly who now dreams about being a man?"
The fundamental question regarding the nature of reality is partly philosophical, partly spiritual, part psychological, and partly scientific in nature. But it is not merely academic. For how we perceive, understand, experience, interpret and respond to reality has concrete and practical repercussions in both our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships, for the practice of psychotherapy, as well as ...
Forensic psychologists and psychiatrists routinely interview and evaluate criminal defendants. Some are charged with minor non-violent crimes, and others with major violent crimes such as assault, armed robbery, rape, murder or attempted murder. On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to murder almost three-hundred people. He was the alleged would-be suicide bomber on Northwest Airlines flight 253. (See Part One.) What transforms someone from mild-mannered, studious, ambitious, amiable, spiritually-oriented mechanical engineer to a suspected cold-blooded, homicidal, suicide ...
It's halfway through first period, and 10th-grade students at Frances Perkins Academy in Brooklyn are in science class--not in school, but on a specially outfitted bus parked outside. [More]
...
NEW YORK--Almost a year since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which earmarked some $19 billion to get electronic health records off the ground, most of the country's medical and research institutions are still primarily pushing paper. [More]
...
By Matt KaplanThe burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil releases carbon dioxide that alters the balance of carbon isotopes naturally found in the environment--an effect that is now being found in food, reveals a US study.Modern methods for tracking the origins of processed foods use isotopes--atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. [More]
...
By Geoff BrumfielIn an effort to put the world's largest scientific experiment back on track after delays and cost overruns, Europe is shaking up the agency overseeing its portion of the multinational ITER reactor.On February 16, Frank Briscoe, a British fusion scientist, will take the reins as interim director of Fusion for Energy (F4E), the agency in Barcelona, Spain, that manages Europe's ITER contribution--the largest of any partner's. [More]
...
NASA launch managers this morning cleared space shuttle Endeavour to lift off before dawn Sunday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, one of the five remaining flights before the shuttle program concludes this year or early next. The planned launch comes less than a week after the future of human spaceflight in the U.S. was shaken by President Obama, whose budget request for fiscal year 2011, released Monday, would cancel Constellation , the planned successor to the shuttle. [More]
...
"IN HIS ORIGINAL TRIAL, SKINNER WAS REPRESENTED BY A FORMER DISTRICT ATTORNEY WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY PROSECUTED HIM FOR THEFT AND ASSAULT. HE WAS CONVICTED PRIMARILY ON THE BASIS OF TESTIMONY FROM HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND, WHICH SHE RECANTED IN 1997, AND ON CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. SKINNER HAS VIGOROUSLY MAINTAINED HIS INNOCENCE. TO DATE, THE STATE OF TEXAS HAS REFUSED TO TEST OR RELEASE ALL OF THE DNA EVIDENCE THAT WAS COLLECTED FROM THE CRIME SCENE, INCLUDING CRUCIAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE THAT COULD POSSIBLY EXONERATE SKINNER."TEXAS COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH ...
"THE DECISION ENDED DANIEL PLATA’S 12-YEAR STAY ON TEXAS’ DEATH ROW. IT MIGHT ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF GEORGE DENKOWSKI’S CAREER AS A LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST. JUDGE ELLIS’ DECISION EMBOLDENED ONE OF DENKOWSKI’S COLLEAGUES, JEROME BROWN OF BELLAIRE, TO FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS OF PSYCHOLOGISTS. IF DENKOWSKI LOSES HIS LICENSE, THE CASES OF 17 OTHER TEXAS MEN ON DEATH ROW—MEN HE DETERMINED WERE NOT MENTALLY RETARDED—COULD BE RE-EXAMINED. AND TEXAS’ STATUS AS A NATIONAL OUTLIER IN CASES INVOLVING MENTAL RETARDATION COULD BE CHANGED FOR GOOD. BROWN WORKED AS AN EXPERT ...
"HE IS ASKING FOR DNA TESTING OF EVIDENCE THAT WAS FOUND AT THE CRIME SCENE BUT NEVER TESTED. HE CLAIMS THESE TESTS WOULD ESTABLISH THAT SOMEONE ELSE COMMITTED THE CRIME FOR WHICH HE IS SLATED TO BE PUT TO DEATH. THE STATE, OF COURSE, IS OPPOSING THE TESTS. BUT, WHY? THE COST OF ALLOWING THE TESTING WOULD BE A FEW EXTRA MONTHS FOR A MAN WHO HAS ALREADY BEEN ON DEATH ROW FOR ALMOST 15 YEARS. THE BENEFIT WOULD BE GUARANTEEING THAT THE STATE DOES NOT EXECUTE SOMEONE WHO IS ACTUALLY INNOCENT. DON’T THE BENEFITS OUTWEIGH THE COSTS IN THIS CASE? IS IT EVEN CLOSE?"EDITORIAL: AMNESTY ...
"50% INVOLVED UNVALIDATED OR IMPROPER FORENSIC SCIENCE".........."THESE DNA EXONERATIONS SHOW US HOW THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS FLAWED AND HOW IT CAN BE FIXED," SAID PETER NEUFELD, CO-DIRECTOR OF THE INNOCENCE PROJECT. "DNA EXONERATIONS HAVE HELPED TRANSFORM THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, LEADING TO REFORMS IN VIRTUALLY EVERY STATE, BUT THERE IS STILL A GREAT DEAL OF WORK TO DO TO MAKE OUR SYSTEM OF JUSTICE MORE FAIR, ACCURATE AND RELIABLE."THE INNOCENCE PROJECT;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------"A Rochester, New York, man who was wrongfully ...
"IN HOUSTON, WE'RE NOW PAYING A HIGH COST FOR TRYING TOO HARD TO SAVE MONEY ON FORENSICS: SO FAR, CITY COUNCIL HAS ALLOCATED MORE THAN $7 MILLION FOR CONTRACTORS TO ATTACK OUR VARIOUS BACKLOGS. BUT WORSE, THE POLICE DEPARTMENT'S SLOW, OFTEN SHODDY LAB WORK HAS MADE US ALL LESS SAFE. DANGEROUS GUNS — AND THE PEOPLE WHO SHOOT THEM — STAY ON THE STREET. RAPISTS AREN'T APPREHENDED. AND THE INNOCENT CAN LANGUISH, STUCK IN OUR OVERCROWDED JAILS."EDITORIAL: THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE;(WIKIPEDIA NOTES THAT THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE IS THE LARGEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN ...
