Local Police Forces Research Articles

The "Making a Murderer" Case: A Brief Description on How EDTA Is Measured in Blood.

In 2007, Steven Avery was sentenced to prison for the murder of Teresa Halbach. What made this case stand out was that Avery had recently been released from prison, after wrongfully spending 18 years incarcerated on a rape charge. Advances in DNA analysis were used to prove Avery's innocence, resulting in his release. Avery quickly filed a lawsuit against Manitowoc County and former officials, whom Avery believed had framed him. In the midst of these procedures, Avery was again arrested for murdering Halbach. His nephew, Brendan Dassey, was also arrested and convicted as an accomplice. The handling of the Halbach murder case was highly controversial. Steven Avery and his lawyers argued that they had he had once again been “set up” by his judicial adversaries. One central piece of evidence incriminating Avery was the presence of his blood at the crime scene. Avery's attorney's argued that the blood had been planted, arguing that the source was a test tube containing Avery's blood, which local police forces had access to. But how determine if the crime scene blood was from a sample tube? The Avery tube contained ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid (EDTA), which prevents blood coagulation and degradation. EDTA is not naturally present in human blood, and the defense argued that if EDTA was found in the crime scene blood, it would prove the blood was planted. The results of this analysis has generated vast discussion on social media and elsewhere, particularly following the documentary Making a Murderer1, which describes the life and trials of the Avery family. However, tools of forensics and chemical analysis are often “black boxes” to non-scientists, and perhaps early-stage science students as well. Even for the most curious and inquisitive, it can be difficult to learn more about these techniques, as they are mostly described in often-expensive scientific papers. Therefore, we would like to here describe the central technique used for determining EDTA in blood spots in the Avery case, namely liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We here attempt to describe it in relatively simple terms. Please note that we will not discuss the judicial aspects of the case, but merely describe a central scientific technique used in a trial that has captivated and concerned millions of people.

Report: Freedom of association in the United States

18 | International Union Rights | 23/3 REPORT | USA Freedom of association in the United States: When rights are needed most Observing that the US remains ‘an economic powerhouse, a military superpower, a global engine of technological development’, the Special Representative pointed to the historical foundations of the country’s present crisis: ‘on land stolen from its indigenous Native Americans… on race-based slavery against people of African descent; and successive waves of immigrants [who] have faced discrimination, harassment or worse’... The right to freedom of association includes the right of workers to form associations, including unions, and the right to strike. During this mission, I met with a number of workers and organisations that represent workers who described the challenges they face in asserting their right to freedom of association. I also met with representatives from the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. The overarching concern expressed by workers was the lack of robust protections of their labour rights. This was corroborated in discussions with State interlocutors who spoke to the neutrality that the State maintains in labour disputes between employers and employees; the limited resources provided for the monitoring and enforcement of labour standards; and a general lack of political will to strengthen these standards and penalties. International human rights law explicitly sets out the rights of workers, including the right to organise and the right to strike, and is equally clear about the State’s duties not only to respect these rights but also to protect and actively facilitate their enjoyment. I would like to touch on three issues that raised particular concerns in this context – the rights of migrant workers to organise, the ability to establish unions and the right to strike. Migrant workers From my discussions with various groups, I learned that the situation of migrant workers throughout the United States is characterised by the precariousness and exploitation of their employment situation, retaliation for drawing attention to adverse working conditions and a fear of taking action to seek improvement of the violations. A broad range of workers are affected – documented and undocumented, skilled and ‘unskilled’, seasonal and or long-term. Migrant workers, of whom I met many in Arizona and Louisiana, are routinely subjected to harassment, intimidation, physical, sexual and psychological abuse, with those attempting to form or belonging to unions and organisations such as the Congress of Day Laborers being targeted for reprisals. Compounding these challenges, many of these workers cannot return home voluntarily because of the debts they incur in order to cater for migration and settlement expenses, plus fees charged by recruitment agencies to find them work. Migrant workers’ rights are violated by multiple actors who are motivated by perverse incentives that often converge to the detriment of migrant workers, including private sector employers, recruitment agencies, union-busting firms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, local police forces and sheriffs’ offices, and private detention facilities. Undocumented migrants face tremendous challenges in exercising their right to freedom of association. I would like to emphasise that under international law all workers are entitled to their human rights, including the right to freedom of association. Crossing national borders – whether legally or otherwise – does not take away these rights. As such, the testimonies of undocumented workers subjected to raids, random stops and searches – especially based on racial profiling – and arrests were particularly troubling. In the context of my mandate, the harsh treatment in immigration detention centres, many of them run by private companies who slash services to boost profits, is also unacceptable. This is particularly concerning given that many employers threaten to (and do) report migrant workers to ICE if they attempt to organise. I heard incredibly disturbing reports about these detention centres, where migrants can face solitary confinement, physical abuse, and denial of medical attention. Documented workers fare no better. I met teachers from the Philippines who were brought into the United States on H-1B visas by a recruitment agency in circumstances that a court determined amounted to human trafficking. The recruitment agency provided the teachers false information about the terms and conditions of work, financially exploited them, restricted their freedom of association and movement, and threatened them with deportation and loss of...

Tout ce qu'on ne te dira pas, Mongo by Dany Laferrière

of Ukrainians when the Soviets confiscated their crops; and wholesale murders of Ukrainians by their fellow countrymen who were co-opted by the German-controlled local police force. Khemlin’s story allows us to feel the ways in which these tragedies cast a permanent shadow on the place and reverberate in the psyche of its people. Misha is a midlevel police officer in the town of Chernigov (also Khemlin’s hometown ) investigating the apparent murder of Lilia V., a single woman in her mid-thirties. Lilia’s murder and the later suicide of Misha’s best friend turn out to be linked, and Misha shuttles back and forth between Chernigov and its neighboring villages in search of clues and a cache of gold that seems somehow connected to the murder. All the while a nosy neighbor of Lilia V.’s, Laevskaya, manages to constantly be in Misha’s way and even finds the presumed murder weapon, exposing Misha to her relentless ridicule of his shoddy investigative work. The novel’s irrational tone and twisty plot owe a debt to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karmazov in featuring a cast of high-strung villagers whose absurd actions and exaggerated reactions obfuscate resolution of the murder. Khemlin’s Misha is a memorable character, distasteful in his anti-Semitism, sexism, and misplaced arrogance but playfully drawn to reveal aspects of his humanity and warmth. In fact, the majority of characters in The Investigator are imbued with moral ambiguity not only regarding possible connections to Lilia V.’s murder but also their families’ roles in Ukraine’s recent past, a blurring of the distinctions between perpetrators and victims . Misha gives his account of the murder investigation in a resigned voice punctuated with sardonic wit. It is a sensibility that feels authentically Ukrainian, and we all are poorer for prematurely losing such a fun and gifted storyteller as Khemlin. Lori Feathers Dallas, Texas Dany Laferrière. Tout ce qu’on ne te dira pas, Mongo. Montreal. Mémoire d’encrier. 2015. 299 pages. Tout ce qu’on ne te dira pas, Mongo (Everything they won’t tell you, Mongo) is Dany Laferrière’s first new book since his induction into the Académie Française. An immigrant to Montreal born in Haiti, Laferrière is the only writer in history from either of these countries to have joined the Immortals. In keeping with his now-consecrated place in francophone literature and with the tone of his last two books, Laferrière’s alter-ego narrator in Mongo is no longer the enfant terrible of his earlier works but a jaded sage dispensing advice to the younger generation. Here the narrator (which in classic Laferrière style both is and is not the author himself) bestows his knowledge and experience upon the fictitious Mongo, a recent immigrant to Montreal from Cameroon. Hodgepodge in structure, the first half of Mongo intersperses observations from the narrator’s notebook, transcripts from his Sunday-morning cultural commentary radio program, and scenes from café life in which he chats with Mongo and his Li Ang The Lost Garden Trans. Sylvia Li-chun Lin & Howard Goldblatt Columbia University Press Spanning generations of political struggles in Taiwan, a place that has seen much strife and political uncertainty, The Lost Garden recounts this history as related to one family and the complicated love story between Zhu Yingyong from an old, established family and Lin Xigeng, who has made his own fortune. The lush, descriptive narrative immerses the reader in the humid garden of the title that sits at the core of the novel, standing for history, desire, and family. Jonathan Levi Septimania The Overlook Press Jonathan Levi takes us on a rollicking journey through European and Near Eastern culture with this dizzying story of an organ tuner who discovers an unexpected heritage while searching for his lost love. This novel, Levi’s second in nearly twenty-five years, stretches the boundaries of the possible while never losing its focus on the frailties and triumphs of the human heart. Nota Bene WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 95 white Quebecoise girlfriend. While the café scenes bring Laferrière closer to the fiction he used to write, the majority...

Militaire actoren en accenten in de veiligheidszorg in twintigste-eeuws België

Since mid-January 2015, nearly 300 soldiers were mobilized by the Belgian government to ensure the safety of public places in Liege, Brussels, Antwerp and Verviers, providing assistance to local and federal police forces. This provoked intense political and public debate about the issue of the provision of security in a democratic society, raising questions such as: which are the goals of security policies and what kind of risks are they supposed to address? Which control instances should be responsible for the provision of security and how should they operate? The central issue, here, is whether either civilian or military actors and practices are the most appropriate for surveillance and policing tasks. As a matter of fact, this discussion goes back to the Belgian independence and has marked the entire history of the Belgian police system, since at the heart of it, there has long been a military police force, the gendarmerie. In this contribution, we examine how the militarization of security and policing tasks evolved across the twentieth century in Belgium, which socio-political conditions shaped these evolutions, and what kind of arguments pro or contra military approaches have been advanced in this process.

Prześladowania Żydów w Holandii, Francji i Belgii, 1940–1945 w ujęciu porównawczym: podobieństwa, różnice, przyczyny

At the beginning of the occupation, France, Holland and Belgium found themselves in a similar situation. But when we look at the ratio of victims and survivors during the Holocaust in Western Europe, France and Holland are polar opposites: in France 25 percent of around 320,000 Jews did not survive the persecutions, whereas the ratio in Holland was 75 percent of 140,000. Belgium lies in the middle of the scale – 40 percent dead out of 66,000 Jews. In order to understand the source of these differences, the authors compare the methods applied by the occupation authorities and their anti-Jewish policies, the involvement and the size of the local police forces and German police, as well as the jurisdictional disputes between these formations.

Didactic Sudden Death: Children, Police, and Teaching Citizenship in the Age of Automobility

This article explores the use of sudden death narratives to teach children lessons of safety and citizenship in mid-twentieth century North America. Police departments deployed images of public child death to warn viewers that accidents, while shocking, were the predictable outcome of the mixing of inexperienced, unskilled children and modern automobile-centric culture. As a linchpin between children and modern street life, officers made their way into North American schools, narrowed the gap between themselves and children, and played a principal role in the mid-twentieth century safety movement. Delivering a powerful message to elementary and high school students in the decades after World War II—that accidents may happen but children could prevent them—local police forces turned to necropedagogy and resituated law enforcement as friend and teacher rather than antagonist to youth.

Unwanted Medication Collection Events: The Importance of Proper Disposal

The objective of this service-learning research project was to discover current practices and barriers related to proper medication disposal while protecting the safety of the public and the integrity of the environment. Collection and analysis of unused medications followed by environmentally friendly disposal is a current vision found in the Healthy People 2020 initiative and coincides with this objective. Since 2012, medication collection events have been conducted in multiple locations in the Lafayette and West Lafayette areas. Students from the Student National Pharmaceutical Association, professors from Purdue University's College of Pharmacy, members of local police forces, and organizations throughout the community such as Lafayette's Meals on Wheels and the Tippecanoe Drug Free Coalition have all played a major role in the success of these projects. Medications were collected from residents locally and surveys inquiring about current practices and barriers relating to medication disposal were offered to these individuals. Data collected include: category of drug returned, quantity of drug returned, expiration date, automatic refill status, origin of medication, past disposal methods, reason for turning in medication, payment for disposal, knowledge of proper disposal, gender, age, and education. Disposal was anonymous and no identifying factors were collected from members of the public. The results of our medication collection events and data exemplify the need for routine collections and proper education on medication disposal. Additionally, results suggest that student pharmacists can play a key role in collecting unused, expired, or unwanted medications while delivering education to the public concerning proper disposal.

UK public sector weak on security

New research by security firm Sophos into the state of IT security in the UK's public sector found that nearly half of workers in local government and police forces were doubtful of their organisations' ability to defend against today's cyber-threats. And most of the rest had no idea.

Will McMahon introduces this issue of cjm

In the last year, the USA has been shaken by the deaths of a number of black people at the hands of local police forces. A social movement has grown up around these deaths that has adopted the slog...

Defeating the Islamic State: A Financial-Military Strategy

ABSTRACT: Through oil smuggling, kidnapping, human trafficking and extortion, ISIL is one best funded militant groups United States has Avoiding a protracted conflict with ISIS requires a more integrated financial and military strategy to undermine group's territorial control and reach. ********** Overshadowed by debate over whether Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) constitutes a state, Islamic or otherwise, and discussion of strategy to degrade and destroy is pivotal role criminality plays in its rise to power. ISIL includes criminals in its ranks and participates in a range of criminal activities to maintain and expand its territory. ISIL's ranks are swollen with criminals released by Syrian President Bashar Assad; its membership includes Sunni ex-convicts freed from prisons when ISIL captured Iraqi towns and cities. (1) In addition, ISIL participates in a number of criminal activities to generate illicit profit. Rather than relying solely on support from wealthy donors in Gulf countries, ISIL generates bulk of its money from criminal activities such as extortion, robbery, kidnapping, trafficking and smuggling. (2) According to one report, it netted $8 million in extortion rackets even prior to group's capture of Mosul. (3) Meanwhile, group generated between $1 million to $2 million per day in profit from oil fields it captured. (4) With massing of such wealth, US Treasury Department believes, but for the important exception of some state-sponsored terrorist organizations, ISIL is probably best-funded terrorist organization we have confronted. (5) By relying on criminal enterprises, ISIL has made itself into a highly adaptable and resilient organization not easily swept from battlefield. By perpetrating criminal acts, ISIL easily earns money for weapons, training, and recruitment and does not depend on significant sponsorship by an external state. It is not reliant on moving illicit money across international borders through established financial institutions, thus insulating itself from many traditional financial countermeasures such as economic sanctions, asset seizures, and clamping down on sympathetic charities. Such insulation means ISIL can use illicit schemes to fund its current operations and potentially extend its fight into other regions. (6) Due to significant role that crime plays in ISIL's power, Unites States requires a more integrated financial and military strategy to undermine group's territorial control and reach. ISIL and Crime Management Like other insurgent and terrorist organizations, ISIL has had to determine its relationship to crime in territory it controls. Crime management is essential to remain both a viable fighting force and a plausible alternative authority structure. Other insurgent groups such as FARC, Sendero Luminoso, Taliban and United Wa State Army that have gained territory have managed their relationship with crime through a mixture of confrontation, cooptation and cooperation. ISIL is proving no different. In its expansion, ISIL has followed a number of steps to confront criminality in territory it has acquired. First, it removed local police force and judiciary by killing some of them while forcing any remaining Sunni to swear obedience to group. Second, ISIL announced harshest form of sharia law is enshrined code of conduct. After completion of these steps, ISIL's final move has been to demonstrate its authority by having newly vetted police and courts mete out lashings, amputations and executions depending on severity of crime.' Other militant groups like IRA and FLN have sought to confront crime by assassinating police and establishing underground legal codes in areas where they operated, while other groups like FARC and Taliban have sought to impose new institutional frameworks for law enforcement and judiciary directly. …

New approaches to Central American organised crime

The adoption of new security policies integrating civilian and military approaches to tackle transnational criminal groups is symptomatic of the limitations of local police forces, as well as the drawbacks of relying too heavily on military interventions.

Above and below: measuring crime risk in and around underground mass transit systems

This paper explores crime risk within and around major transit systems, specifically by investigating theft of personal property offences on the London Underground. The majority of studies to date have examined theft above ground, predominantly at transit stations, although some studies have compared this with theft in nearby surrounding areas. This study is unique and extends this analysis to theft during transit journeys below ground. The location of such offences is often unknown, only discovered by the victim sometime after the event. A new technique termed Interstitial Crime Analysis is used to better measure the location of below ground theft offences; these are compared with above ground thefts using Spearman’s Rank tests for association. Key findings are: below ground theft offences are concentrated at particular stations; risk is highest during morning and late afternoon peak travel periods; at these peak times there is an elevated risk of theft at both high risk stations and in their surrounding environs; and that this relationship is not evident during the inter-peak and late night time periods. The findings suggest offenders who operate below ground may also operate above ground on major transit systems. This has clear policy implications for policing these settings and highlights the importance of joint operations and information sharing between transit agencies and local police forces operating near major transit systems.

A FEW CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE SPECIFIC LEGISLATION DEALT WITH BY THE LOCAL POLICE OFFICER

The Local Police have extensive powers and function at the level of each locality where thereare Local Police forces. The Local Police Law1 transferred the powers that should be held bythe local communities in order for them to better carry out their work and be closer tocitizens, in terms of the protection of goods, protection of physical integrity, as well as themanagement of road traffic on public thoroughfares, especially in the inner cities, includingcar parkings and car lifting.

La matanza de colonos nacionales de Loncoche. Lucha social por el dominio de la propiedad de la tierra al interior del sistema de colonización en el sur de Chile (1910)

This article revolves around the emblematic scenario that sprung to life due to the social outrage that ended up with the killing of over 50 national settlers by the local police force in the outskirts of the rural locality of Loncoche on the 15th of February in the year 1910. Our hypothesis suggests that this event would break through this national scenario as one of the crudest and tense contradictions manifested by the process of colonisation in the south of Chile during the early 20th century. This is all backed up by existing documents and local newspapers (El Correo de Valdivia, La Aurora, La Voz de Loncoche, El Mercurio), bulletins from the National Congress, Archives from the Intendencia de Valdivia- caused by the tragic events ocurred in Loncoche.

From here to Recovery: One Service User’s Journey through a Mental Health Crisis: Some Reflections on Experience, Policy and Practice

This article documents the experiences of a service user through a mental health crisis, the experience of detention under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act, admission to hospital and eventual recovery. It gives a unique first person account of the experience of a psychotic episode together with a reflective commentary based upon the service user's auto-ethnographic analysis of both the event itself and her medical records, which were obtained post-recovery, as well as interviews with professional practitioners. The reflective commentary considers the practice of various professionals encountered during the service user's illness, treatment and recovery. The service user, whilst critical of some of the treatment she received, has engaged in a positive way with her local police force, involving herself in training sessions for officers about good practice under the Mental Health Act.

Who cares who protects us? The relationship between type of police coverage and citizen satisfaction with the police

The current political and economic climate in the USA has rekindled interest in the consolidation of police services. The current study explores the relationship between type of police coverage (local, consolidated, State Police) and citizen satisfaction with the police by analyzing a sample of adult residents from four distinct regions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Findings indicate that respondents with State Police-provided coverage are less satisfied with the police, compared to respondents in municipalities with local and consolidated police forces. In contrast, respondents with consolidated police forces exhibited similar, or even higher, levels of satisfaction with the police. Implications of this research suggest that municipal policy-makers more strongly consider the consolidation of local police services while cautioning against the use of State Police coverage.

‘Public’ Security and Patron–Client Exchanges in Latin America

Notwithstanding the democratization processes that have taken place since the 1980s, clientelism continues to be an important political practice throughout contemporary Latin America. By offering an analysis of the changing patterns of patron–client exchanges in Mexico City, this article demonstrates how the repercussions of the local democratization process expanded clientelist practices to the realm of public security provision. This expansion, it is argued, is related to efforts of the local government to regain previous levels of political control over the local police forces that had been undermined by the fragmentation of long-standing national patron–client structures under authoritarian rule. Additionally, it is demonstrated that in an increasingly insecure urban environment, local politicians and brokers realized the political gains to be derived from expanding clientelist exchanges to the realm of security provision.

Police and Crime Commissioners: The Changing Landscape of Police Governance in England and Wales: Their Potential Impact on Local Accountability, Police Service Delivery and Community Safety

This article considers the potential impact of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) on the governance and accountability of the police in England and Wales. The article assesses the powers and responsibilities of PCCs and their future responsibility for developing local police strategies. It considers the potential impact of the direct election of PCCs and the relationship between elected PCCs and the chief constable, where future election success may depend on the extent to which the local police force has achieved the objectives set for it by the PCC. The article goes on to consider the changing nature of local electoral politics and the need for local political party infrastructure to sustain an election campaign within individual (and often large) police force areas. The article thereafter considers the potential threat that PCCs as budget holders may represent to existing Community Safety Partnerships, along with the undoubted and continuing benefits that arise from police partnerships with local authorities.

Friend or foe? The Cyprus Police Force and the EOKA insurgency

This article examines the ambiguous role played by the Cyprus Police Force during the Greek Cypriot insurgency against Britain between 1955 and 1959. A multiethnic force policing a multiethnic society, the CPF struggled to fulfill its duties. Greek Cypriot officers became ineffective as sympathy for, or fear of insurgents undermined their ability to function. Some collaborated, others resigned. Those who stayed became targets of their own people. Turkish Cypriot officers, recruited in greater numbers to compensate for a reduction in Greek Cypriot officers, worked to enforce the law, but exacerbated intercommunal relations in doing so. In spite of the peculiar conditions present in Cyprus, the case has valuable implications for contemporary policymakers on the vulnerabilities inherent in the use of local police forces to restore law and order in ethnically divided societies.

An environment-adjusted evaluation of citizen satisfaction with local police effectiveness: Evidence from a conditional Data Envelopment Analysis approach

Hard data alone are not sufficient to evaluate local police effectiveness in the new age of community policing. Citizens can provide useful feedback regarding strengths and weaknesses of police operations. However, citizen satisfaction indicators typically fail to accurately convey the multidimensional nature of local policing and account for characteristics that are non-controllable for the local police departments. In this paper, we construct a measure of perceived effectiveness of community oriented police forces that accounts for both multidimensional aspects of local policing and exogenous influences. In specific, this paper suggests the use of a multivariate conditional, robust order-m version of a non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis approach with no inputs. We show the potentiality of the method by constructing and analyzing perceived effectiveness indicators of local police forces in Belgium. The findings suggest that perceived police effectiveness is significantly conditioned by the demographic and socioeconomic environment.