Crime Details Research Articles

Data Visualization on Crime Against Women

Visualization ensures the modern expectation of all forms of data. It is important to understand the data and its statistical variance graphically. Visualization on crime data would be supportive to analyze and prevent the threats in society. According to recent surveys and records, India has undergone many crime issues which occur on women. In order to prevent and analyze the crime issues against women, Data visualization is a useful approach to deal with it. The current data technologies available are appropriate to accomplish the task of visualization for women safety. Efficient visualization with effective machine learning algorithm and its performance finds the response for data related requests in the field of data science. This paper clarifies the details of crime against women through a graphical approach and illustrates about how to notify the unsafe levels by alert to safeguard the women

The memory‐impairing effects of simulated amnesia for a mock crime

SummaryThe present study examined whether mock offenders, who were instructed to falsely deny crime details or to simulate amnesia, would consequently experience impaired memory. Ninety‐three university students were first asked to commit a mock crime and were then assigned to three different conditions (i.e., false denial, simulated amnesia, and truth telling) and then received the first memory test. The following day, participants completed a second memory test. Results showed that the memory impairment was not observed in participants in the false denial condition. However, in the simulated amnesia group, memory about being interviewed in the first session was impaired. The simulated amnesia group also had lower recollection and belief ratings in the occurrence of true details for the mock event. Findings suggest that after simulating amnesia, offenders can forget details related to the interview and exhibit diminished ratings for the recollection of and belief in their memory for experienced events.

Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime – A Question of Social Responsibility

The phenomenon of copycat crime, especially copycat murder, is nothing new. One would think that, because it has been around for so long, somehow the problem would have been addressed. Unfortunately, that is not the case, as we continue to see important details of horrible and violent crimes being reported by mass media without reflection on, or consideration of, how this type of information could be used by some in planning their own crimes, imitating the crime reported. This article discusses both the media and the law enforcement aspect of the copycat problem and concludes with the authors’ own recommendations. It is essential that both mass media and police make important changes in their approach to releasing information about crime to the public. It is naïve to believe that only law-abiding people are consumers of mass media, or that important details about the commission of violent crimes that are reported by media are never going to be used by anybody for an illegal purpose.

PROTECTING TAXPAYERS AND CRIME VICTIMS: THE CASE FOR RESTRICTING UTAH’S PRELIMINARY HEARINGS TO FELONY OFFENSES

When prosecutors file serious criminal charges in Utah, the defendant is entitled to a preliminary hearing. At this hearing, witnesses will testify and be cross-examined to determine if the defendant should be bound over to face trial. For many decades, however, Utah has held such hearings only for felony offenses, not misdemeanors. In this respect, Utah practice tracked that of the vast majority of other states, which limit the use of preliminary hearings to more serious felony crimes. The reasons for limiting preliminary hearings to more serious felony cases are easy to understand. Preliminary hearings are costly and time consuming. They can also burden victims of crime with the need to testify and be cross-examined about the details of crimes committed against them. These clear costs are not outweighed by the very limited value that preliminary hearings provide, namely allowing judicial review of a prosecutor’s evidence. For misdemeanor prosecutions, a judge can easily decide the question of probable cause based on the information recounted in the charging document without holding an evidentiary hearing. Recently Utah suddenly became the only state in the nation to interpret its constitution to require preliminary hearings for certain classes of misdemeanors. In State v. Hernandez , the Utah Supreme Court held that for “Class A” misdemeanors (misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail), article I, section 13 of the Utah Constitution required preliminary hearings. Article I, section 13 provides for preliminary hearings for “[o]ffenses heretofore required to be prosecuted by indictment.” The court concluded that the phrase “offenses heretofore required to be prosecuted by indictment” referred not only to felony offenses but under Utah’s modern classification of offenses, to Class A misdemeanors as well. The court’s analytical approach was quite properly historical. The court noted that the decisive question when interpreting the state constitution is “to ascertain the drafters’ intent.” Yet strong arguments suggest that the drafters did not truly intend to require preliminary hearings for Class A misdemeanors. Section 13 appears to refer to federal law that “heretofore” controlled the Territory of Utah. At the time the Utah Constitution was drafted, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution directed that capital and infamous crimes—felonies—be screened through the requirement of a grand jury indictment. [ The framers of the Utah Constitution, it can be argued, simply continued this approach and then authorized a new alternative method for screening such felony prosecutions—a preliminary hearing instead of a grand jury. This was the argument the state advanced in Hernandez , although the court ultimately found it unpersuasive. This Article does not debate the historical accuracy of the court’s decision. Rather, it asks whether the decision is sound public policy. This Article concludes that requiring preliminary hearings for Class A misdemeanors is undesirable for two simple reasons. First, the court’s decision will result in hundreds of additional preliminary hearings a year, thus imposing substantial costs on taxpayers and burdens on an already overwhelmed criminal justice system. Second, the decision will create substantial hardships for crime victims, who will now be twice subjected to cross-examination by defense attorneys—once at the preliminary hearing and again later at trial. And these costs will generate no significant benefit in return.

An Conventional Methodology for Brain Finger Printing

Brain fingerprinting is based on finding that the brain generates a unique brain wave pattern when a person encounters a familiar stimulus use of functional magnetic resonance imaging in lie detection derives from studies suggesting that persons asked to lie show different patterns of brain activity than they do when being truthful. Issues related to the use of such evidence in courts are discussed. In the field of criminology, a new lie detector has been developed in the United States of America.This invention is supposed to be the best lie detector available as on date and is said to detect even smooth criminals who pass the polygraph test (the conventional lie detector test) with ease. The new method employs brain waves which are, useful in detecting whether the person subjected to the test, remembers finer details of crime. According to the experts, even if the person willingly suppresses the necessary information, the brain wave is sure to trap him.

The Ambiguities of Retribution

The exhibition and shaming through the ordeal of public execution was a way of making public authority's control over wrongdoers. As Michel Foucault has noted, however, this was a process with the unintended potential of arousing admiration or sympathy in the spectator. In Spain the figure of the bandolero, despite crimes sufficient to take him to the gallows, was frequently presented in a positive light. The images in pliegos sueltos which commemorate bandoleros and other popular wrongdoers form part of a historical backcloth in which the bodies of those executed were exposed for the demonstration of the power that had brought them to justice. There are, however, elements in the sueltos which undermine the message of control conveyed by an execution. In the images at least, the most extreme forms of the suffering tend to be suppressed, although the details of crimes may be included with some detail. At the same time the text of the sueltos sometimes includes elements typical of a narrative of heroism that are strongly at odds with the images of wrongdoers brought to heel. Circumstantial details of the criminals may offset their depiction as worthy of condemnation, and—in more active mode—their bragging stands in dramatic tension with a containing text of authority. The whole brings into question the place of the sueltos in a dynamic of state and people, of control and response, of heroism of the person versus submission to the law. Examples discussed include the Vázquez brothers, Diego Corrientes, Juan de Serrallonga, Jaime el Barbudo, Carmelo Ausejo Alacot and Juan Portela.

CMIS: Crime Map Information System for Safety Environment

Crime Map is an online web based geographical information system that assists the public and users to visualize crime activities geographically. It acts as a platform for the public communities to share crime activities they encountered. Crime and violence plague the communities we are living in. As part of the community, crime prevention is everyone's responsibility. The purpose of Crime Map is to provide insights of the crimes occurring around Malaysia and raise the public's awareness on crime activities in their neighbourhood. For that, Crime Map visualizes crime activities on a geographical heat maps, generated based on geospatial data. Crime Map analyse data obtained from crime reports to generate useful information on crime trends. At the end of the development, users should be able to make use of the system to access to details of crime reported, crime analysis and report crimes activities. The development of Crime Map also enable the public to obtain insights about crime activities in their area. Thus, enabling the public to work together with the law enforcer to prevent and fight crime.

The excess of life and death in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 and Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Senselessness

This paper examines two novels, both published in 2004 and later translated into English: 2666 by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño and Senselessness by Honduran-Salvadoran writer Horacio Castellanos Moya. Bolaño and Castellanos Moya write death and dying as a global concern and place readers in the global North at the centre of events that happened, or are happening, in the South. This paper argues that 2666 and Senselessness express the human potential in desire for, and to create, excess, universalising guilt against a tendency to contextualise or localise events of mass murder in Central and South America. Both novels represent death and dying while expressing an uncanny excess of life at the level of form and content. Bolaño and Castellanos Moya bombard the reader with the details of crimes and harrowing witness testimonies in their novels, but deny the reader closure or the ability to mourn the dead. Instead, the excess of life traces a void that, according to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and others, is at the centre of the subject of desire. It is at the level of desire that we can locate ourselves in both novels and understand our part in the events of mass murder their writers narrate.

The Legal Historian as Detective

Legal history is often depicted through evoking the metaphor of the magic mirror. This essay examines two series of detective novels by British author Sarah Caudwell and Israeli author Batya Gur which focus upon protagonists who themselves are legal historians and who deploy legal historical method. Caudwell’s sleuth, an Oxford scholar, seeks to uncover the details of crimes by using textual analysis. Gur’s detective, on the other hand, places homicides in their context and solves these murders by detecting those social norms which are so critical to a closed society that their violation might lead to violence. By using these novels themselves as a mirror it is possible to probe the promise and limitations of legal historical method. If, as the metaphor of the magic mirror suggests, law mirrors society, legal history serves as a looking glass for legal norms, and the fictional cosmos constructed by Caudwell and Gur reflects in its glass legal historical method, what can we learn about legal history as a narrative technology? And what happens when—as is the case in the last novels of both mystery series--the methods collapse, and neither the technic of text nor context adequately captures the complexity of the past?

“Blind” interviewing: Is ignorance bliss?

ABSTRACTCurrent investigative interviewing guidelines [e.g., Technical Working Group: Eyewitness evidence. (1999). Eyewitness evidence: A guide for law enforcement. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/178240.pdf] suggest that interviewers review available case information prior to conducting a witness interview. The present study investigated the effect of interviewers’ pre-interview awareness of crime details on eyewitnesses’ memory and interviewer behaviour shortly after a mock crime or a week later. Results indicate that blind interviewers with no knowledge about the crime elicited more correct information than those who were correctly informed about the crime. Differences in interviewer behaviour emerged only in the very first question of the interview: Blind interviewers were more likely to begin the interview with a non-suggestive question than the informed interviewers. Blind interviewers also recalled more details than the informed interviewers when asked to generate a report after the witness interview documenting the witness’ account.

Risk factors for homicide victimization in post-genocide Rwanda: a population -based case- control study.

BackgroundHomicide is one of the leading causes of mortality in the World. Homicide risk factors vary significantly between countries and regions. In Rwanda, data on homicide victimization is unreliable because no standardized surveillance system exists. This study was undertaken to identify the risk factors for homicide victimization in Rwanda with particular attention on the latent effects of the 1994 genocide.MethodsA population-based matched case–control study was conducted, with subjects enrolled prospectively from May 2011 to May 2013. Cases of homicide victimization were identified via police reports, and crime details were provided by law enforcement agencies. Three controls were matched to each case by sex, 5-year age group and village of residence. Socioeconomic and personal background data, including genocide exposure, were provided via interview of a family member or through village administrators. Conditional logistic regression, stratified by gender status, was used to identify risk factors for homicide victimization.ResultsDuring the study period, 156 homicide victims were enrolled, of which 57 % were male and 43 % were female. The most common mechanisms of death were wounds inflicted by sharp instruments (knives or machetes; 41 %) followed by blunt force injuries (36.5 %). Final models indicated that risk of homicide victimhood increased with victim alcohol drinking patterns. There was a dose response noted for alcohol use: for minimal drinking versus none, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 3.1, 95%CI: 1,3–7.9; for moderate drinking versus none, aOR = 10.1, 95%CI: 3.7–24.9; and for heavy drinking versus none, aOR = 11.5, 95%CI: 3.6–36.8. Additionally, having no surviving parent (aOR = 2.7, 95%CI: 1.1–6.1), previous physical and/or sexual abuse (aOR = 28.1, 95%CI: 5.1–28.3) and drinking illicit brew and/or drug use (aOR = 7.7, 95%CI: 2.4–18.6) were associated with a higher risk of being killed. The test of interaction revealed that the variables that were significantly associated with a higher risk of homicide victimhood, did not exhibit any difference according to sex of the victim. However, the effect of belonging to a religion differed between women and men, but was significantly protective for both (aOR = 0.002, 95%CI: 0.001–0.054 and aOR = 0.20, 95%CI: 0.052–0.509, respectively).ConclusionHomicide victims in Rwanda are relatively young and the proportion of female victims is one of the highest globally. Contrary to the initial study considerations, genocide exposure (either as a survivor or perpetrator) was not a significant predictor of homicide victimization. Rather, risk factors were similar to those described in other countries, regardless of gender status. Sensitizing communities against alcohol heavy drinking, and illicit brew drinking and/or drug abuse and physical or sexual violence could reduce the homicide rate in Rwanda.

Alcohol Intoxication Impairs Memory and Increases Suggestibility for a Mock Crime: A Field Study

SummaryDefendants and witnesses are often intoxicated by alcohol. We investigated whether memory and resistance to suggestive cues are undermined at blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) that were (close to) zero (MBAC = 0.01%), moderate (MBAC = 0.06%), or high (MBAC = 0.16%). Participants (N = 67) were approached in bars and instructed to commit a mock crime. Immediately after this, their memory and susceptibility to suggestive questions were tested, and these were re‐tested during a sober follow‐up 3–5 days later. Compared with sober participants, moderate and severe intoxication was associated with lower levels of correctly recalled crime details during both test sessions (i.e. intoxicated and sober). Also, during both sessions, severely intoxicated participants displayed a greater tendency to go along with suggestive cues compared with sober participants. Thus, intoxication impaired memory and increased suggestibility during an immediate interview, and both effects persisted when sober again. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Retroactive memory interference: A potential countermeasure technique against psychophysiological knowledge detection methods

The concealed information test is designed to detect concealed knowledge through differential physiological responses elicited by the concealed items. This study was designed to examine the role of retroactive interference (RI) as a potential countermeasure that may weaken memory traces of the concealed items and attenuate the physiological responses elicited by them. A total of 120 participants committed a mock crime and were randomly assigned to either an interference condition, where they learned and retrieved an alternative mock crime, or a control condition. Further, each group was randomly assigned to one of three “time-delay” conditions. The results revealed that both memory for the mock crime details and the skin conductance responses (SCRs) to these details were attenuated under the memory-interference condition. Time of testing affected recall, but had no effect on the SCRs. In addition, the memory-interference manipulation had no effect on the respiration measure. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

What’s on Your Mind?

Lie detectors can be applied in a wide variety of settings. But this advantage comes with a considerable cost: False positives. The applicability of the Concealed Information Test (CIT) is more limited, yet when it can be applied, the risk of false accusations can be set a priori at a very low level. The CIT assesses the recognition of critical information that is known only by the examiners and the culprit, for example, the face of an accomplice. Large effects are obtained with the CIT, whether combined with peripheral, brain, or motor responses. We see three important challenges for the CIT. First, the false negative rate of the CIT can be substantial, particularly under realistic circumstances. A possible solution seems to restrict the CIT to highly salient details. Second, there exist effective faking strategies. Future research will tell whether faking can be detected or even prevented (e.g., using covert measures). Third, recognition of critical crime details does not necessarily result from criminal activity. It is therefore important to properly embed the CIT in the investigative process, while taking care when drawing conclusions from the test outcome (recognition, not guilt).

A new method for detecting deception in Event Related Potentials using individual-specific weight templates

A new method called the weight template (WT) is proposed for classifying Event related potentials (ERPs) into deceiving and non-deceiving. In this study, EEG data from two P300-based lie detection experiments were analyzed to demonstrate the efficiency of the WT method in detecting deception. A comparison was made with a common method used to measure P300 presence, called Peak-to-Peak, which is believed to be more accurate than other methods in measuring P300 amplitudes [1, 2]. One experiment consisted of presenting participants with birth date stimuli and 12 participants were instructed to lie about their own birthday. The other experiment consisted of 15 participants who were instructed to lie about their first names [3]. Using simulated EEG data [4], Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves were also generated to examine the efficiency of the proposed method in detecting deception in low signal-to-noise ERPs. Typically, P300-based lie detection systems employ the P300 component to detect concealed information. They present three stimulus types: Probes (P), which represent concealed information or crime details and can be recognized only by the guilty person; Irrelevants (I), which are frequent and task (crime)-irrelevant, and Targets (T), which are irrelevant items, but participants are asked to do a task whenever they see a Target. For practical lie detection, the key comparison is between Probe and Irrelevant ERPs, since, for the nondeceiver, the former would be an Irrelevant. Importantly, the Probe for a deceiver typically generates a P300 ERP component, which is absent for the Irrelevant. The principle underlying the WT method is that as the Target stimulus is task-relevant, it will evoke a robust P300 pattern for each subject, which we hypothesize is characteristic in form and polarity of that individual's P300. Accordingly, this TERP can serve as an individual-specific template, with which to search for the Probe P300. Specifically, the difference between Tand IERPs was used as a template (i.e. effectively as a kernel) and this template was applied to Pand IERPs. Using such a template, with some pre-processing steps, we found that the WT achieved significantly better detection performance in comparison to Peak-to-Peak. In the names lie detection, the WT was able to detect deception for 93% in the guilty group compared with 80% by Peak-to peak. The false alarm rates using WT and Peak-to-Peak were 2% and 8% respectively. In the birthdays lie detection, hit rates were 50% using WT and 33% using Peak-to-Peak. The false alarm rates of both methods were 5%. ROC curve analysis also showed that in ERPs with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), both methods could detect deception successfully and almost equally. However, the WT performed better in ERPs with low SNR. We thus conclude that the WT is simple and very effective for detecting deception, even in ERPs with low SNR.

Fixations and eye-blinks allow for detecting concealed crime related memories

The Concealed Information Test (CIT) is a method of forensic psychophysiology that allows for revealing concealed crime related knowledge. Such detection is usually based on autonomic responses but there is a huge interest in other measures that can be acquired unobtrusively. Eye movements and blinks might be such measures but their validity is unclear. Using a mock crime procedure with a manipulation of the arousal during the crime as well as the delay between crime and CIT, we tested whether eye tracking measures allow for detecting concealed knowledge. Guilty participants showed fewer but longer fixations on central crime details and this effect was even present after stimulus offset and accompanied by a reduced blink rate. These ocular measures were partly sensitive for induction of emotional arousal and time of testing. Validity estimates were moderate but indicate that a significant differentiation between guilty and innocent subjects is possible. Future research should further investigate validity differences between gaze measures during a CIT and explore the underlying mechanisms.

Police-induced confessions: an empirical analysis of their content and impact

Confessions have a greater impact on juries than other types of evidence, sometimes in the face of contradictory evidence. Twenty false confessions were content-analyzed to determine the substance of false confessions and perhaps help to explain why judges, juries, and others are prone to believe these statements. Our analysis indicated that most false confessions contained references to specific visual and auditory details concerning the crime and victim(s) as well as references to the confessor's thoughts, feelings, and motives during and after committing the crime. In a second study, mock jurors read confessions that were varied in terms of the presence of crime details, motive statements, and apologies, to determine the impact of these common aspects of confessions on a mock jury. Although a simple admission of guilt was often sufficient for conviction, more elaborate narrative confessions in which the defendant recounted how and why he committed the crime further increased confidence in these guilty verdicts.

Children and Young Persons as Offenders and Victims of Offences and Crime Prevention at School in the Slovak Republic

The article deals with the problem of juvenile delinquency and crime as well as with the problem of crime against juveniles. The author presents official statistics since 2006, on the numbers of offences committed by juveniles in the Slovak Republic, as well as on the numbers of convicted young persons serving their sentence and the term of their sentence. It also gives details of crime against juveniles in the Slovak Republic. The article is an interim output of the project VEGA No. 1/0168/12 Professionalization of Prevention of Socio-pathological Behaviour in School in the SR from the aspect of the profession of social pedagogue – the current state, problems and comparison with foreign countries.

A functional analysis of deception detection of a mock crime using infrared thermal imaging and the Concealed Information Test

The purpose of this study was to utilize thermal imaging and the Concealed Information Test to detect deception in participants who committed a mock crime. A functional analysis using a functional ANOVA and a functional discriminant analysis was conducted to decrease the variation in the physiological data collected through the thermal imaging camera. Participants chose between a non-crime mission (Innocent Condition: IC), or a mock crime (Guilty Condition: GC) of stealing a wallet in a computer lab. Temperature in the periorbital region of the face was measured while questioning participants regarding mock crime details. Results revealed that the GC showed significantly higher temperatures when responding to crime relevant items compared to irrelevant items, while the IC did not. The functional ANOVA supported the initial results that facial temperatures of the GC elevated when responding to crime relevant items, demonstrating an interaction between group (guilty/innocent) and relevance (relevant/irrelevant). The functional discriminant analysis revealed that answering crime relevant items can be used to discriminate guilty from innocent participants. These results suggest that measuring facial temperatures in the periorbital region while conducting the Concealed Information Test is able to differentiate the GC from the IC.

Current Research and Potential Applications of the Concealed Information Test: An Overview

Research interest in psychophysiological detection of deception has significantly increased since the September 11 terror attack in the USA. In particular, the concealed information test (CIT), designed to detect memory traces that can connect suspects to a certain crime, has been extensively studied. In this paper I will briefly review several psychophysiological detection paradigms that have been studied, with a focus on the CIT. The theoretical background of the CIT, its strength and weaknesses, its potential applications as well as research finings related to its validity (based on a recent meta-analytic study), will be discussed. Several novel research directions, with a focus on factors that may affect CIT detection in realistic settings (e.g., memory for crime details; the effect of emotional stress during crime execution) will be described. Additionally, research focusing on mal-intentions and attempts to detect terror networks using information gathered from groups of suspects using both the standard CIT and the searching CIT will be reviewed. Finally, implications of current research to the actual application of the CIT will be discussed and several recommendations that can enhance the use of the CIT will be made.