Regulating forensic genetic genealogy.

Maryland 's new law provides a model for others.

Gravely Disabled: The Vestigial Prong of 5150 Designations.

Effective July 1, 1972, California's Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act) set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the U.S. named after its authors, State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman and State Senators Nicholas C. Petris and Alan Short, the LPS Act sought to "end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of persons with mental health disorder"; to "provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with mental health disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism"; and to "guarantee and protect public safety." Despite citing to these articles of intent, the LPS Act violates its own legislative intent through its inclusion of "gravely disabled" in its enforcement of involuntary psychiatric hold designations (also known as "5150 designations"). First, police officers are not required to make a medical diagnosis of a mental health disorder at the time of a 5150 designation; the broad scope of "gravely disabled" increases the number of persons police officers can involuntarily transport, increasing the likelihood of inappropriate and involuntary commitment of persons with mental health disorders. Second, the broad scope of "gravely disabled" produces an onslaught of 5150-designated persons (whether improperly designated or not) being sent to LPS-designated hospitals with limited resources (e.g., lack of beds and psychiatric staff); this results in patients waiting for an inordinate amount of time for a psychiatric evaluation and/or a hospital bed. Third, it is unclear whether the LPS Act sought to provide protection for the mentally ill or to provide protection from the mentally ill in its guarantee of protecting "public safety"; the inclusion of "gravely disabled" in 5150 designations indicates that the LPS Act provided the public with a duplicitous means of removing the mentally ill, impoverished, and houseless from the streets under the guise of "public safety." This Paper suggests the following to help remedy the effects of implementing the broadly defined "gravely disabled" in 5150 designations: (1) Remove "gravely disabled" from the 5150 criteria; (2) integrate the community with mental health advocacy efforts by creating outreach and education programs; and (3) implement a client-centric approach to interacting with persons with mental health disorders through restorative policing and the establishment of a restorative court.

The Right Time and Place: A New Approach for Prioritizing Alcohol Enforcement and Prevention Efforts by Combining the Prevalence and the Success Rate for Minors Purchasing Alcohol Themselves.

OBJECTIVE: In the Netherlands, enforcement of the alcohol age limit is low and inconsistent because of limited resources. A solution is to optimize the efforts of enforcement officers by prioritizing ways in which they regulate commercial alcohol availability. This could increase compliance by sellers, curbing commercial availability. The objective of this study is to present the development of a commercial alcohol availability estimate (CAAE) for all vendor types selling alcohol and to propose a priority ranking. METHOD: A multi-method design was used, combining data (collected in 2015) from national studies reporting behavior of minors purchasing alcohol themselves and the success rate (noncompliance) of alcohol vendors (interviewing 510 minors by telephone and conducting 1,373 purchase attempts of alcohol by minors, respectively). Descriptive data and the development of the CAAE are presented. RESULTS: Compared with other vendor types (e.g., sports bars or supermarkets), bars/cafes/discos scored highest on the CAAE, indicating that 7.7% of 16- to 17-year-olds in the survey reported successfully purchasing their own alcohol at this vendor type. CONCLUSIONS: To control commercial alcohol availability efficiently for minors in the Netherlands, our estimates suggest that enforcement and prevention efforts should prioritize bars/cafes/discos. However, local authorities should also consider local circumstances and maintain a base amount of attention for all vendor types. Ultimately, the CAAE has the potential to improve enforcer capacity and efficiency in policing commercial alcohol regulation, and prevention workers could align their interventions or campaigns to high-ranked vendor types.

COVID-19 instigates resurgence of 'needless autopsies' issue in India.

COVID-19 has swamped the entire world and turned into a pandemic. Its high contagiousness compelled authorities to categorize all autopsies as 'high risk' considering the risk of exposure to the healthcare workers. In India, the Criminal Procedure Code authorizes investigating police officer to hold an inquest into suspicious deaths. The present article draw attention towards the 'needless autopsies' in times of COVID-19 and emphasizes on causes and recommendations.

Ormrod Lecture October 2019: Police restraint - causes of death.

This paper describes the content of the 2019 British Academy of Forensic Sciences (BAFS) biennial Ormrod Lecture, which took place at Guy's Hospital Tower, London, on 17 October 2019. This lecture is traditionally given by the outgoing President of BAFS, on this occasion Dr Meng Aw-Yong, who presented issues relating to acute behavioural disturbance and deaths in police custody.

Examining the community consequences of arrests for low-level criminal activity.

This study was designed to examine the effects of arrests for low-level criminal activity on key features of police-community relations and the capacity of the neighborhood to regulate behavior of residents. Multilevel mixed-effects modeling was used with residents (N = 826) living in police beats (N = 51) in Chicago to test the hypotheses that higher arrest rates were associated with less police legitimacy, less willingness to work with the police and less neighborhood informal social control. The results indicated that more aggressive enforcement was associated with less capacity for informal social control. The findings also suggested that higher arrest rates were directly related to more legitimacy and indirectly related to less legitimacy through residents' negative experiences with police. For residents affected by crime and disorder but not burdened by aggressive enforcement, the use of arrests to reduce incivilities may be viewed positively and related to stronger beliefs about legitimacy. In contrast, trust and confidence in police may be reduced for those residents who experience the costs associated with low-level arrests. Regardless of the short-term effects, if aggressive low-level policing undermines the effectiveness of social control systems in the neighborhood, communities will be less safe in the long term.

Should Australia's police-imposed public area banning powers be subject to independent oversight and review?

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: Jurisdictions across Australia have implemented policies to tackle problems associated with alcohol consumption in and around licensed premises. Patron banning is one measure which has become increasingly popular. Discretionary police-imposed bans can exclude recipients from expansive public areas for extended periods of time. Concern has been expressed regarding the potential for bans to be imposed inappropriately or unfairly and their capacity to undermine due process. This article examines an aspect of police-imposed banning that has received little attention, the general absence of options for independent or judicial review of the imposition of a ban. DESIGN AND METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Magistrates in Victoria. Key themes are examined with reference to Victoria's published police banning data, parliamentary debates and other relevant literature. RESULTS: The findings draw attention to issues of procedural fairness, the risk of misuse and consequential effects for police legitimacy arising from the operation of discretionary police-imposed bans. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The Victorian Parliament dismissed the option of an independent post-hoc appeal process for police-imposed bans. The discretionary nature of police bans, the absence of meaningful oversight and the attendant potential for their misuse point to the need for the legislation covering police bans to be revised to introduce an independent process of review. This issue extends beyond Victoria, as six of the eight Australian jurisdictions do not permit any independent review of a police decision to impose a public area ban.

Coroners court and directions to juries in Article 2 inquests.

Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) protects the Right to Life that is invoked in an inquest where the diseased has expired in circumstances of custody or control by an agency of state. The High Court in 2012 ordered the second inquest in the Hillsborough case where the correct directions to the jury were read as to when there is a breach of such a duty. The inquest findings resulted in criminal charges being brought against two former senior police officers, who were indicted linked to the disaster. This paper examines the inquest process where there is a jury and considers the framework of the Coroners Court in the context of Article 2 where death has occurred under circumstances of duress.

Sharing Violent Thoughts on the Internet.

The anonymity of the Internet enables people to explore and share certain thoughts they may not feel comfortable sharing through traditional means. This is true for socially unacceptable thoughts, including violent and sexually sadistic fantasies. Despite one's relative freedom to explore virtually any subject anonymously, some Internet activities can attract unwanted attention from the media and law enforcement authorities. The case of former New York City police officer Gilberto Valle is illustrative of the problems that can be generated by online activities. This article discusses the case of United States v. Valle, 807 F.3d 508 (2nd Cir. 2015) and the tension between First Amendment protections and criminal activity. Forensic mental health experts may be well suited to educate the trier of fact about violent fantasies and their associated risks.

Coercive Control: Update and Review.

This article reviews the background, introduction, and critical response to new criminal offenses of coercive control in England/Wales and Scotland. How the new Scottish offense is implemented will determine whether it can overcome the shortcomings of the English law. We then review new evidence on four dimensions of coercive control: the relationship between "control" and "violence," coercive control in same-sex couples, measuring coercive control, and children's experience of coercive control. Coercive control is not a type of violence. Indeed, level of control predicts a range of negative outcomes heretofore associated with physical abuse, including post-separation violence and sexual assault; important differences in coercive control dynamics distinguish male homosexual from lesbian couples; measuring coercive control requires innovative ways of aggregating and categorizing data; and how children experience coercive control is a problem area that offers enormous promise for the years ahead.

The effects of body-worn camera footage and eyewitness race on jurors' perceptions of police use of force.

Police use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) is increasingly common in the USA. This article reports the results of one of the first experimental examinations of the effects of three BWC status conditions (absent, transcribed, viewed) and eyewitness race (Black, White) on mock jurors' case judgments, in a case in which a community member (defendant) was charged with resisting arrest but where the officer's use of force in conducting the arrest was controversial. Results provide evidence of significant main effects of both eyewitness race and BWC status. When the eyewitness supporting the defendant was White, mock jurors were less likely to vote the defendant guilty of resisting arrest, as well as more likely to consider the defendant credible and the officer culpable for the incident. In addition, when BWC footage of the arrest was viewed, compared with transcribed or absent, participants were less likely to vote the defendant guilty of resisting arrest, and also rated the officer's use of force less justifiable, and the officer more culpable and less credible. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that these relationships between BWC condition and case judgments were all mediated by moral outrage toward the officer.

Police violence among people who inject drugs in Baltimore, Maryland.

BACKGROUND: Police violence is a deleterious public health and criminal justice issue that disproportionately affects people who inject drugs (PWID). Studies documenting the prevalence and correlates of physical police violence in this population are rare. The aim of this study was to examine the correlates of past year physical police violence among an urban sample of PWID. METHODS: PWID participating in the 2015 wave of the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) system in Baltimore City, Maryland, completed a socio-behavioral survey. Multivariable logistic regression was used to detect the socio-demographic, place-based, law-enforcement and health behavior correlates of exposure to police violence as well as knowledge of violence directed towards other PWID. RESULTS: Enrolled PWID (N = 570) were mostly male (72%), non-Hispanic Black (77%) and daily heroin injectors (86%). Seven percent had experienced past year physical police violence (Respondent-Driven Sampling [RDS] weighted estimate: 4%), and a quarter (24%) knew someone who had experienced physical police violence in the past year (RDS-weighted estimate: 17%). Male gender, homelessness, arrest, drug paraphernalia confiscation, and receptive syringe sharing were independently associated with police violence. Knowing someone who had experienced police violence was independently correlated with selling drugs, arrest, and attending a syringe services program. CONCLUSION: Population differences in the extent of police violence exposure indicate that experiences of police violence are not uniform among PWID. Violent encounters with police were associated with disruptions in harm reduction strategies that can prevent HIV and HCV transmission. This study adds to the small body of public health literature on police violence and highlights the importance of monitoring and addressing this critical issue.

Making Judgments: How Blame Mediates the Influence of Rape Myth Acceptance in Police Response to Sexual Assault.

As research continues to describe negative experiences and high case attrition within sexual assault cases reported to the police, it is important to better understand the role of first-responding police officers. This study surveyed a sample of sworn police officers ( N = 174) from one department in a midsized city in the Great Lakes region to examine the effect of individual police officer characteristics, rape myth acceptance (RMA), attributions of blame, and case characteristics from a hypothetical vignette, on officer perceptions of a "good" case and behavioral intentions. Results found that although RMA predicts both perceptions of the case and behavioral intentions to respond in ways indicative of perceived seriousness, RMA is mediated by attributions of suspect blame. Victim alcohol use was found to decrease an officer's likelihood of responding more vigorously, showing less likelihood of calling a detective or arresting the suspect, if identified. Future research should begin to connect not only case characteristics but also individual police officer characteristics, attitudes, and attributions of blame, with real case outcomes, in addition to hypothetical scenarios.

Eye injury from electrical weapon probes: Mechanisms and treatment.

PURPOSE: While generally reducing morbidity and mortality, TASER® electrical weapons have risks associated with their usage, including burn injuries and head and cervical trauma associated with uncontrolled falls. The primary non-fatal complications appear to be significant eye injury but no analysis of the mechanisms or suggested treatments has been published. METHODS: We used a biomechanical model to predict the risk of eye injury as a function of distance from the weapon muzzle to the eye. We compared our model results to recently published epidemiological findings. We also describe the typical presentation and suggest treatment options. RESULTS: The globe rupture model predicted that a globe rupture can be expected (50% risk) when the eye is within 6 m of the muzzle and decreases rapidly beyond that. This critical distance is 9 m for lens and retinal damage which is approximately the range of the most common probe cartridges. Beyond 9 m, hyphema is expected along with a perforation by the dart portion of the probe. Our prediction of globe rupture out to 6 m (out of a typical range of 9 m) is consistent with the published risk of enucleation or unilateral blindness being 69 ±â€¯18%, with an eye penetration. CONCLUSIONS: Significant eye injury is expected from a penetration by an electrical weapon probe at close range. The risk decreases rapidly at extended distances from the muzzle. Not all penetrating globe injuries from electrical weapon probes will result in blindness.

Should police have access to genetic genealogy databases? Capturing the Golden State Killer and other criminals using a controversial new forensic technique.

On April 24, 2018, a suspect in California's notorious Golden State Killer cases was arrested after decades of eluding the police. Using a novel forensic approach, investigators identified the suspect by first identifying his relatives using a free, online genetic database populated by individuals researching their family trees. In the wake of the case, media outlets reported privacy concerns with police access to personal genetic data generated by or shared with genealogy services. Recent data from 1,587 survey respondents, however, provide preliminary reason to question whether such concerns have been overstated. Still, limitations on police access to genetic genealogy databases in particular may be desirable for reasons other than current public demand for them.