Crime Scenarios Research Articles

Mr Big Little Lies: Targeted Undercover Investigations and the Presumption of Innocence

The use of the Crime Scenario Undercover Technique (Mr Big Operations) in New Zealand has not been regarded as a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The criminal procedure rights offended by Mr Big Operations are prima facie limited to circumstances following arrest, detention, or charge, and are not engaged. The Supreme Court in R v Wichman held that the rights were not material to the admissibility of confession evidence obtained by Mr Big Operations. The author argues that a purposive interpretation of the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty in s 25(c) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 would extend the scope of the right to encompass Mr Big Operations. Should such an interpretation be permitted Mr Big Operations would constitute a limit on the right in s 25(c). Under the approach in Moonen v Film and Literature Board of Review, the limitation on the right in s 25(c) would not constitute a justified limitation in a free and democratic society. The author recommends that Mr Big Operations are regulated to constitute a lesser limitation on the right in s 25(c) and reduce the risk of eliciting false confessions.

Individual characteristics of footprints among Malaysian Indians for person identification in forensic perspective

It is an undeniable fact that very keen examination of footprint would provide key information for individual identification. Foot print can yield more information than finger print. The present study is aimed to analyse and highlight the individual characteristics of footprints in 500 adult Malaysian Chinese. From the footprints, various characteristics features like phalange marks, humps, flat foot condition and crease marks were examined and presented their frequencies and percentages. Even a small portion of the sole print found in a crime scene is sufficient for person identification. This result findings can be applied in real crime scenarios identification.

Deployment of free Wi-Fi voice communications to report crime incidents in Botswana

The research explored the current scenario of crime in Botswana, and the current measures employed to help combat it, including usage of crime prevention clusters. Through usage of the quantitative approach, with the aid of questionnaire and interviews, the research found that, there is an increasin

The Pervasive and the Digital

This paper discusses two immersive story worlds between two distinct interactive artworks. Blast Theory's A Machine to See With (2010) is a pervasive fictional experience that enables users, through the technology of their mobile phone, to become immersed within a fictional crime scenario across a real geographical setting. Dennis Del Favero's art project, Scenario (2011), by contrast, is an interactive and immersive story that takes place in a 360-degree digital cinematic space called an AVIE (Advanced Visualization and Interaction Environment). This immersive world is a mixed reality environment, a meeting place where five real users and ten digital screen characters converge and interact through the technology of motion sensing. Participants are virtually wired into the immersive world through the performance of their movement. This paper will explore both of these artworks through original interviews the author has conducted with each of the artists.

Hate Crimes Against Trans People: Assessing Emotions, Behaviors, and Attitudes Toward Criminal Justice Agencies.

Based on a survey of 593 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom, this study shows that direct anti-LGBT hate crimes (measured by direct experiences of victimization) and indirect anti-LGBT hate crimes (measured by personally knowing other victims of hate crime) are highly prolific and frequent experiences for LGBT people. Our findings show that trans people are particularly susceptible to hate crimes, both in terms of prevalence and frequency. This article additionally highlights the negative emotional and (intended) behavioral reactions that were correlated with an imagined hate crime scenario, showing that trans people are more likely to experience heightened levels of threat, vulnerability, and anxiety compared with non-trans LGB people. The study found that trans people are also more likely to feel unsupported by family, friends, and society for being LGBT, which was correlated with the frequency of direct (verbal) abuse they had previously endured. The final part of this study explores trans people's confidence levels in the Government, the police, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in relation to addressing hate crime. In general, trans people felt that the police are not effective at policing anti-LGBT hate crime, and they are not respectful toward them as victims; this was especially true where individuals had previous contact with the police. Respondents were also less confident in the CPS to prosecute anti-LGBT hate crimes, though the level of confidence was slightly higher when respondents had direct experience with the CPS. The empirical evidence presented here supports the assertion that all LGBT people, but particularly trans individuals, continue to be denied equal participation in society due to individual, social, and structural experiences of prejudice. The article concludes by arguing for a renewed policy focus that must address this issue as a public health problem.

Rapid identification information and its influence on the perceived clues at a crime scene: An experimental study

Crime scenes can always be explained in multiple ways. Traces alone do not provide enough information to infer a whole series of events that has taken place; they only provide clues for these inferences. CSIs need additional information to be able to interpret observed traces. In the near future, a new source of information that could help to interpret a crime scene and testing hypotheses will become available with the advent of rapid identification techniques. A previous study with CSIs demonstrated that this information had an influence on the interpretation of the crime scene, yet it is still unknown what exact information was used for this interpretation and for the construction of their scenario. The present study builds on this study and gains more insight into (1) the exact investigative and forensic information that was used by CSIs to construct their scenario, (2) the inferences drawn from this information, and (3) the kind of evidence that was selected at the crime scene to (dis)prove this scenario. We asked 48 CSIs to investigate a potential murder crime scene on the computer and explicate what information they used to construct a scenario and to select traces for analysis. The results show that the introduction of rapid ID information at the start of an investigation contributes to the recognition of different clues at the crime scene, but also to different interpretations of identical information, depending on the kind of information available and the scenario one has in mind. Furthermore, not all relevant traces were recognized, showing that important information can be missed during the investigation. In this study, accurate crime scenarios where mainly build with forensic information, but we should be aware of the fact that crime scenes are always contaminated with unrelated traces and thus be cautious of the power of rapid ID at the crime scene.

Evaluating juvenile detainees' Miranda misconceptions: The discriminant validity of the Juvenile Miranda Quiz.

Most juvenile arrestees in custodial settings waive their Miranda rights almost immediately, and many then provide incriminating statements, if not outright confessions. Forensic practitioners are then asked to provide retrospective determinations regarding whether these waivers were effectuated knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. At present, the forensic assessment instrument for juvenile Miranda issues consists of the Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI)-which as its name implies-focuses mostly on Miranda comprehension with a de-emphasis of Miranda reasoning. In partially addressing this gap, the current study investigated the clinical utility of the Juvenile Miranda Quiz (JMQ) for evaluating key Miranda misconceptions, a critically important component of Miranda reasoning. Using data from 201 juvenile detainees, we evaluated the JMQ's discriminability with regards to cognitive variables and MRCI scales. Many moderate effect sizes in the predicted direction were found for the JMQ Primary Total and Juvenile Total scores. Finally, these detainees were tested using a mock crime scenario with a representative Miranda warning plus a brief interrogation to evaluate whether they would waive their rights, and if so, whether they would confess. Using Miranda measures to predict problematic outcomes (i.e., impaired waivers followed by confessions), the JMQ Juvenile Total proved the most successful. These findings are discussed within the context of the "intelligent" prong of Miranda waivers. (PsycINFO Database Record

Subject-based discriminative sparse representation model for detection of concealed information

Background and objectivesThe use of machine learning approaches in concealed information test (CIT) plays a key role in the progress of this neurophysiological field. In this paper, we presented a new machine learning method for CIT in which each subject is considered independent of the others. The main goal of this study is to adapt the discriminative sparse models to be applicable for subject-based concealed information test. MethodsIn order to provide sufficient discriminability between guilty and innocent subjects, we introduced a novel discriminative sparse representation model and its appropriate learning methods. For evaluation of the method forty-four subjects participated in a mock crime scenario and their EEG data were recorded. As the model input, in this study the recurrence plot features were extracted from single trial data of different stimuli. Then the extracted feature vectors were reduced using statistical dependency method. The reduced feature vector went through the proposed subject-based sparse model in which the discrimination power of sparse code and reconstruction error were applied simultaneously. ResultsExperimental results showed that the proposed approach achieved better performance than other competing discriminative sparse models. The classification accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the presented sparsity-based method were about 93%, 91% and 95% respectively. ConclusionsUsing the EEG data of a single subject in response to different stimuli types and with the aid of the proposed discriminative sparse representation model, one can distinguish guilty subjects from innocent ones. Indeed, this property eliminates the necessity of several subject EEG data in model learning and decision making for a specific subject.

Analysis on the Socio-economic and Victimization aspect of the Victims in Nepal

This article is based on the study carried out in order to gauge the present scenario of crime and victimization in relation to socio-economic status of the victims. The purpose of this study was to analyze the victimization as well as socio-economic aspect of the victims of Nepal. The present scenario is that the crime and victimization are two sides of a coin and socio-economic condition of the society is one of the major factors on which it depends. The society with sound socio-economy has fewer criminal activities and fewer records of victimization. The study was based on primary data collected from the field survey. The crime victims, dependents of the victims and some key persons were the real respondents of this study. In depth interview, key informant’s interview, group discussion and published and unpublished documents were also used in this study. To make it more relevant, the data were analyzed by using interpretation, explanation and analysis. The result of the study shows that victimization mostly takes place in the society where people are long time inhabitant, uneducated, having large family size with gender discrimination as well as traditional farming and unemployment resulting in poor economic condition. Vulnerability of victims and their dependent is the outcome of their poor socio-economic status.

Cyber crime: the legislative enactments and the interpretation of the judiciary with special reference to India.

This research paper seeks to probe into the various facets of Cybercrime and threats posed by them to Computer and Internet as such is one grey area, which has given rise to the menace of cyber crimes. The advancement of Information Technology has brought about radical changes in the modern human society, experiencing with it some unforeseen problems, taking advantage of which the law breakers explore new techniques to perpetrate their criminal activities. In fact, technology generated crimes not only affect the individuals but to the nation and also have a widespread ramification throughout the world. The paper highlights the Cyber crime scenario in India and the challenges faced by the Law Enforcement Agencies in tackling with these kinds of crimes in cyberspace especially due to the absence of territorial boundaries and also because of its transitional nature. The paper aims at identifying the problems emanating from the expanding dimensions of Cyber crimes and its impact as a whole; and also extent the role of Comprehensive Legislation, Judiciary to combat and tackle these crimes in the e-world to the best of its capacities with special reference to India. Efforts are made to elucidate that, there is a dire need for international Cyber crime Legislation and a Global Cyber Law to be uniformly accepted by all the countries to tackle the ambivalence threat of Cyber crime.

I Don't Like the Cut of your Jib: Perceived Facial Masculinity as a Cue to Criminality

Previous research has established that the appearance of criminal suspects and defendants can affect subsequent legal decisions. Specifically, researchers have proposed that (1) masculine suspects are believed to commit more stereotypically male crimes (e.g., burglary), (2) masculine suspects are believed to commit more violent crimes (e.g., assault), and (3) masculinity is a general cue for committing crime. The current study sought to test these competing hypotheses regarding masculine appearance and perceived criminality. Across three studies, participants read a brief crime scenario and were asked to select out of a lineup the suspect they believed had committed the crime. Suspect masculinity and type of crime were manipulated to determine whether the degree of masculinity influenced whether participants believed they had committed the crime. Results showed that participants consistently associated masculinity with committing violent crime and showed some evidence for the general criminality hypothesis on secondary measures. These findings have important implications regarding law enforcement, eyewitness and juror bias, and legal decisions.

Forensic investigation framework for the document store NoSQL DBMS: MongoDB as a case study

The NoSQL DBMS provides an efficient means of storing and accessing big data because its servers are more easily horizontally scalable and replicable than relational DBMSs. Its data model lacks a fixed schema, so that users can easily dynamically change the data model of applications. These characteristics of the NoSQL DBMS mean that it is increasingly used in real-time analysis, web services such as SNS, mobile apps and the storage of machine generated data such as logs and IoT (Internet of Things) data. Although the increased usage of the NoSQL DBMS increases the possibility of it becoming a target of crime, there are few papers about forensic investigation of NoSQL DBMS.In this paper, we propose a forensic investigation framework for the document store NoSQL DBMS. It is difficult to cover all of the NoSQL DBMS, as 'NoSQL' includes several distinct architectures; our forensic investigation framework, however, is focused on the document store NoSQL DBMS. In order to conduct an evaluative case study, we need to apply it to MongoDB, which is, a widely used document store NoSQL DBMS. For this case study, a crime scenario is created in an experimental environment, and then we propose in detail a forensic procedure and technical methods for MongoDB. We suggested many substantial technical investigation methods for MongoDB, including identifying real servers storing evidences in a distributed environment and transaction reconstruction method, using log analysis and recovering deleted data from the MongoDB data file structure.

Hippocampal size is related to short-term true and false memory, and right fusiform size is related to long-term true and false memory.

There is a keen interest in identifying specific brain regions that are related to individual differences in true and false memories. Previous functional neuroimaging studies showed that activities in the hippocampus, right fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus were associated with true and false memories, but no study thus far has examined whether the structures of these brain regions are associated with short-term and long-term true and false memories. To address that question, the current study analyzed data from 205 healthy young adults, who had valid data from both structural brain imaging and a misinformation task. In the misinformation task, subjects saw the crime scenarios, received misinformation, and took memory tests about the crimes an hour later and again after 1.5years. Results showed that bilateral hippocampal volume was associated with short-term true and false memories, whereas right fusiform gyrus volume and surface area were associated with long-term true and false memories. This study provides the first evidence for the structural neural bases of individual differences in short-term and long-term true and false memories.

Investigating expectation effects using multiple physiological measures.

The study aimed at experimentally investigating whether the human body can anticipate future events under improved methodological conditions. Previous studies have reported contradictory results for the phenomenon typically called presentiment. If the positive findings are accurate, they call into doubt our views about human perception, and if they are inaccurate, a plausible conventional explanation might be based on the experimental design of the previous studies, in which expectation due to item sequences was misinterpreted as presentiment. To address these points, we opted to collect several physiological variables, to test different randomization types and to manipulate subjective significance individually. For the latter, we combined a mock crime scenario, in which participants had to steal specific items, with a concealed information test (CIT), in which the participants had to conceal their knowledge when interrogated about items they had stolen or not stolen. We measured electrodermal activity, respiration, finger pulse, heart rate (HR), and reaction times. The participants (n = 154) were assigned randomly to four different groups. Items presented in the CIT were either drawn with replacement (full) or without replacement (pseudo) and were either presented category-wise (cat) or regardless of categories (nocat). To understand how these item sequences influence expectation and modulate physiological reactions, we compared the groups with respect to effect sizes for stolen vs. not stolen items. Group pseudo_cat yielded the highest effect sizes, and pseudo_nocat yielded the lowest. We could not find any evidence of presentiment but did find evidence of physiological correlates of expectation. Due to the design differing fundamentally from previous studies, these findings do not allow for conclusions on the question whether the expectation bias is being confounded with presentiment.

Can someone fabricate verifiable details when planning in advance? It all depends on the crime scenario

In the current study we examined the effect of having the opportunity to plan an alibi in advance on the suitability of the verifiability approach in two crime scenarios that differed in their opportunity to carry out innocent activities at the time of the crime. One hundred and two participants imagined being involved in stealing money either from a café at a time when it was open (allows innocent activities) or from a bank at a time when it was closed (does not allow innocent activities). We asked participants about their strategies and difficulties in preparing a verifiable alibi in advance, and to write down their prepared alibis. The participants in both groups found this task difficult and did not differ in the difficulties they experienced, however they differed in their strategies (plans to include true witnesses) and actual success in the task. Participants in the Café scenario provided 30% more verifiable details than the participants in the Bank scenario. Strategies and difficulties mentioned by the participants are presented in the paper, and the implications of the study's results on the application of the verifiability approach are discussed.

Violent Street Crime Versus Harmful White-Collar Crime: A Comparison of Perceived Seriousness and Punitiveness

Recent studies have challenged traditional wisdom regarding public apathy about white-collar crime by revealing equal or greater perceived seriousness of these offenses among respondents relative to traditional crime. Nevertheless, subjects in those studies were generally asked to contrast white-collar crime scenarios with a non-violent street crime baseline vignette. Perhaps a violent street crime would have invited lower perceived seriousness for the white-collar offenses. Participants in the present study were asked to (1) read vignettes describing violent street crimes and physically harmful white-collar crimes, (2) compare their seriousness, and (3) determine appropriate sanctions. Subjects perceived the violent crime scenarios presented to them to be more serious than the harmful white-collar crime vignettes. Further, they were less punitive toward white-collar offenders compared with street criminals. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Single-trial lie detection using a combined fNIRS-polygraph system.

Deception is a human behavior that many people experience in daily life. It involves complex neuronal activities in addition to several physiological changes in the body. A polygraph, which can measure some of the physiological responses from the body, has been widely employed in lie-detection. Many researchers, however, believe that lie detection can become more precise if the neuronal changes that occur in the process of deception can be isolated and measured. In this study, we combine both measures (i.e., physiological and neuronal changes) for enhanced lie-detection. Specifically, to investigate the deception-related hemodynamic response, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is applied at the prefrontal cortex besides a commercially available polygraph system. A mock crime scenario with a single-trial stimulus is set up as a deception protocol. The acquired data are classified into “true” and “lie” classes based on the fNIRS-based hemoglobin-concentration changes and polygraph-based physiological signal changes. Linear discriminant analysis is utilized as a classifier. The results indicate that the combined fNIRS-polygraph system delivers much higher classification accuracy than that of a singular system. This study demonstrates a plausible solution toward single-trial lie-detection by combining fNIRS and the polygraph.

Do Police Officers' Beliefs About Emotional Witnesses Influence the Questions They Ask?

SummaryHigh emotional arousal associated with witnessing a crime promotes memory error. Police are trained to use open‐ended questioning (i.e., Cognitive Interview) to guard against contaminating fragile witness memory, but do they follow this protocol? We investigated whether officers' belief about arousal's impact on crime scene memory influenced their questioning procedures. Officers read crime scenarios describing the witness/victim as either emotionally distraught or calm, and then they chose among open‐ended and close‐ended question options for witness interviews. Results showed that emotionally aroused witnesses were asked more closed questions by officers who believed arousal did not hurt memory, while officers who believed arousal negatively impacted memory accuracy asked more open‐ended questions. This relationship was not influenced by police experience. Results suggest that regardless of training and empirical findings, beliefs about the arousal–memory relationship may guide the questioning technique that officers employ, potentially contaminating already vulnerable witness memory. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Crime Mapping of Rajasthan (2013): A District-level Analysis

Crime in the present day India has been on a swift increase for the last decade. The traditional crime recording methods are not so useful these days. The application of GIS and graphical tool as well as some important statistics in crime mapping is the need of the hour, which is applied for the state of Rajastahn for a district level analysis of crime scenario. The study is primarily based on the Crime in Rajasthan report, 2013, published by State Crime Records Bureau, Rajasthan. The study presesnts, vulnerability of all districts of Rajsathan in terms of incidences of crime and public safety measures. Purpose is to come out with crime mapping of Rjasthan in terms of vulnerability to crimes and availability of police services, which can be useful in policy framing for reducing crime rate and increasing the efficient delivery of police services in accordance. The study also suggests a strategic shift in policing to reduce crime levels in the society. The purpose is also, to convey to citizens and tourists which districts are the safest and in which districts they have to be alert and attentive to avert any danger, for instance the eastern districts, Capital and surrounding districts are far more dangerous than the western and southern districts of the state.

The impact of prior knowledge from participant instructions in a mock crime P300 Concealed Information Test

In P300-Concealed Information Tests used with mock crime scenarios, the amount of detail revealed to a participant prior to the commission of the mock crime can have a serious impact on a study's validity. We predicted that exposure to crime details through instructions would bias detection rates toward enhanced sensitivity. In a 2×2 factorial design, participants were either informed (through mock crime instructions) or naïve as to the identity of a to-be-stolen item, and then either committed (guilty) or did not commit (innocent) the crime. Results showed that prior knowledge of the stolen item was sufficient to cause 69% of innocent–informed participants to be incorrectly classified as guilty. Further, we found a trend toward enhanced detection rate for guilty–informed participants over guilty–naïve participants. Results suggest that revealing details to participants through instructions biases detection rates in the P300-CIT toward enhanced sensitivity.