Breaking Silos of Legal and Regulatory Risks to Outperform Traditional Compliance Approaches

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research - The ever-evolving legal and regulatory landscape and resulting pressure on organizations to adapt and comply is just one of many factors that have...     

A mixed DNA profile controversy revisited

Semaan et al. (J Forensic Res, 2020, 11, 453) discuss a mock case “where eight different individuals [P₁ through P₈] could not be excluded in a mixed DNA analysis. Even though … expert DNA mixture analysis software was used.” Two of these are the true donors. The LRs reported are incorrect due to the incorrect entry of propositions into LRmix Studio. This forced the software to account for most of the alleles as drop-in, resulting in LRs 60–70 orders of magnitude larger than expected. P₁, P₂, P₄, P₅, and P₈ can be manually excluded using peak heights. This has relevance when using LRmix which does not use peak heights. We extend the work using the same two reference genotypes who were the true contributors as Semaan et al. (J Forensic Res, 2020, 11, 453). We simulate three two-donor mixtures with peak heights using these two genotypes and analyze using STRmix?. For the simulated 1:1 mixture, one of the non-donors’ LRs supported him being a contributor when no conditioning was used. When considered in combination with any other potential donors (i.e., with conditioning), this non-donor was correctly eliminated. For the 3:1 mixture, all results correctly supported that the non-donors were not contributors. The low-template 4:1 mixture LRs with no conditioning showed support for all eight profiles as donors. However, the results from pair-wise conditioning showed that only the two ground truth donors had LRs supporting that they were contributors to the mixture. We recommend the use of peak heights and conditioning profiles, as this allows better sensitivity and specificity even when the persons share many alleles.     

Metric forensic anthropology decisions: Reliability and biasability of sectioning-point-based sex estimates

Subjective decisions make human cognitive processes more susceptible to bias and error. Specifically, research indicates that additional context biases forensic anthropologists’ morphological analyses. To address whether metric analyses are also subject to bias, we conducted a pilot study in which 52 experienced osteologists measured a difficult-to-classify human femur, with or without additional contextual information. Using a metric sectioning-point sex-estimation method, participants provided a sex estimate for individual skeletal element(s) and, when given multiple elements, the combined skeletal assemblage. Control group participants (n = 24) measured only the femur. In addition to the femur, bias group participants (n = 28) either measured a female humerus and viewed a female-biasing photograph (n = 14) or measured a male humerus and viewed a male-biasing photograph (n = 14). We explored whether the experts in the different groups would differ in: (1) femoral measurements; (2) femoral sex-estimation conclusions; and (3) final sex-estimation conclusions for the skeletal assemblage. Although the femoral measurements and femoral sex estimates were comparable across groups, the overall sex estimates in the female-biased group were impacted by contextual information—differing from both the control and male-biased groups (p < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that cognitive bias can occur even in metric sex-estimation conclusions. Specifically, this occurred when the metric data and single-element sex estimates were synthesized into an overall estimate. Thus, our results suggest that metric methods are most vulnerable to bias when data are synthesized into an overall conclusion, highlighting the need for bias countermeasures and comprehensive statistical frameworks for synthesizing metric data to mitigate the effects of cognitive bias.     

论税收法定原则的司法化

税收法定原则的司法化是“全面落实税收法定原则”的必然要求,而传统理论疏漏了其中的司法内涵,导致税收法定原则出现了作为基本原则却难以直接指导和适用于税收司法的悖论。鉴于税收法定原则与罪刑法定原则的亲缘性,发展相对成熟的罪刑法定原则可以为完善税收法定原则的内涵构成提供三点启示。同时,结合税收法定原则的固有内容,税收法定原则的司法化应当在适用范畴上向司法原则扩围,价值层次上向实质正义升华,法定程度上向相对法定适当松动。据此,三路并进,税收法定原则的司法内涵得以全面、系统的补漏。税收法定原则司法内涵的完善将有助于打破税收法定原则司法化的理论困局,助推“全面落实税收法定原则”法治图景的实现。     

Lethal small bowel obstruction due to pica

Up to 25% of institutionalized patients with cognitive deficiencies display pica-like behavior, with an estimated annual incidence of small bowel obstruction of 2%. We present a case based on the forensic autopsy of a 41-year-old woman who died as a result of a missed diagnosis of small bowel obstruction after ingesting a foreign body. The case underlines the importance of precaution when treating patients with cognitive deficiency and/or language deficits and gastrointestinal symptoms. In such cases, it is important to employ a liberal threshold for radiological investigations and, if possible, obtain a medical history from a person close to the patient.     

Observer determination of the make,model, and year of questioned vehicles

Often, criminal acts involving a vehicle are caught on digital video surveillance systems. While potentially useful for an investigation, the recording conditions are typically less than optimal for the extraction of key information for the identification of the perpetrator, such as a license plate. Providing the make, model and year of a questioned vehicle is a common request for examiners, to narrow the field of potential suspect vehicles. This study seeks to compare the performance of a nonpeer-reviewed make, model, and year determination between two separate groups, specifically, trained forensic image examiners and nontrained individuals. Results show that even with varied image capture conditions and quality, the trained forensic image examiners more correctly and completely identified the test group of questioned vehicles make, model, and year.     

冒用他人蚂蚁花呗构成盗窃罪

【裁判要旨】蚂蚁花呗的发行机构并非商业银行(含邮政金融机构),因此,蚂蚁花呗不属于刑法意义上的信用卡,冒用他人蚂蚁花呗的行为不构成信用卡诈骗罪。蚂蚁花呗具备信用卡的表观功能,根据花呗用户服务合同约定,冒用他人蚂蚁花呗购物或套现的行为,无需重新签订合同,责任由账户本人负担。     

需求分析视角下《警察公共关系》课程体系优化路径探析

基于需求分析视角，通过调查问卷方式对警察公共关系课程的课程设置现状与需求情况进行了调查研究，目的是了解在校学生对该课程的认知与需求情况，以期构建持续优化的警察公共关系课程体系，更好的服务警察公共关系理论研究与教学研究，从而实现新形势下警务人才培养的目标。     

Harming America: Corporate Crime in a Context of Deregulation

ABSTRACT

Like many Republican presidential candidates before him, Donald J. Trump campaigned on a pro-business, anti-regulation platform, and since his election in November 2016, he has directed his administration to move forward with deregulation in many arenas, including consumer financial protections, environmental controls, and workplace safety among others. Past efforts to roll back regulations governing certain industries, such as the savings and loan and the mortgage industries, have had harmful consequences for the general public or for specific interest groups. In this study, we review what the Trump administration has accomplished with regard to deregulation to date. Then, based on past deregulatory fiascos, we theorize the harmful collateral consequences that may result from this most recent swing of the regulatory-deregulatory pendulum.