Mass Tragedies Research Articles

Supporting Children and Adolescents Impacted by Human-Made Mass Tragedies: Considerations for Conversations about Violence, Grief, and Loss

Supporting Children and Adolescents Impacted by Human-Made Mass Tragedies: Considerations for Conversations about Violence, Grief, and Loss

Computed Tomographic Evaluation of Mandibular Ramus for Gender Identification

Background: The ability to identify sex is essential for identification and plays a significant role in forensic medicine and medico legal investigations. Identification's first purpose is sex determination, which is followed by estimations of age, size, and ethnic population, all of which are influenced by the gender. When identifying morphologic characteristics for gender determination, gender analysis and estimate are carried out with almost 90% to 100% accuracy using a whole skeleton. On the other hand, partial or fragmented bones and badly injured bodies, such as in the case of a mass tragedy, might be challenging to analyse. The skull is the second-best marker for gender identification after the pelvis. However, as the mandible is the biggest bone of the skull, it may be crucial in circumstances when a whole skull is not recovered for gender identification. Objectives: To ascertain how computed tomography can be utilised to know a person's gender with the help of mandibular measurements. Methods: The study was done with the Siemens Somatom 16 slice CT machine. Patients who match the inclusion criteria and have received CT for a wide range of reasons will be considered. Various measurements such as Condylar height, Maximum ramus breadth, Minimum ramus breadth projective height of ramus, Coronoid height shall be measured. Data analysis must be done with SPSS 20. For comparisons between the right and left sides, the student t-test shall be applied. Results: 58 individuals between the ages of 18 and 35 (29 females, mean age, 26.3, 29 males, men age, 26.9 & overall mean for both sexes was 26.6 years). In the present study, mean score of five distinct mandibular parameters were calculated. All mandibular ramus variables on CT models were discovered to exhibit a statistically significant gender difference (p = 0.001). It was discovered that the mean condylar height was 64.5 mm in men and 59.56 mm in women, which was a significant (P = 0.001). It was noteworthy (P = 0.001) that whereas the mean maximal ramus width was 35.0 mm in females and 38.0 mm in men. Males and females had different mean values for the minimum ramus width, which were 31.3 mm and 28.8 mm, respectively (P = 0.001). Males and females had mean ramus projection height measurements of 52.38 mm and 47.91 mm, respectively. This difference was significant (P = 0.004). The mean coronoid height was 63.42 mm in men and 56.80 mm in women, which was significant (P = 0.001). 27 out of 29 female mandibular measures correctly identified the gender, with a prediction rate of 96.4%, and 27 out of 29 male mandibular measurements correctly identified the gender, with a prediction rate of 96.4%. The threshold for determining a per- son's sex. As a cut-off for predicting male sex, values over 62.8 mm for condylar height, 36.9 mm for maximum ramus height, 30.0 mm for lowest ramus height, 50.4 mm for projective ramus height, and 61.3 mm for coronoid height can be used. Conclusion: In forensic medicine, the assessment of mandible, particularly the ramus area, plays a crucial factor in determining gender. Future research should evaluate gender determination recommendations using various criteria in bigger sample sizes and across a range of age groups. Although there are differences in ramus measurements between both the genders, there are variations in measures between societies. Therefore, to accurately identify gender from skeletal remains, criteria that are unique to each population must be developed. We think the results of this study will be helpful to radiologists making diagnoses and surgeons working on the mandible and facial area. Keywords: Mandible, Determination of gender, Paranasal sinuses

Value of Maxillary Sinus Morphology in Identification of Gender by Using Digital Radiography

Background: Human being recognition is significant for a variety of purposes, including for the humanitarian and sentimental needs for others, for relatives as well as for the court before rendering a decision. In forensic radiology, the radiographic tests and procedures that are relevant to the law or the courts are performed, interpreted, and then reported. Comparing radiography to three-dimensional (3D) cone beam computed tomography, radiography has the benefits of being more widely available, having a lower radiation dose, and having a lower cast. The systemic change in size or shape between individuals of varying sexes belonging to the same species is known as sexual dimorphism. Sexual dimorphism is reflected by different species' maxillary sinuses. The first paranasal sinus to develop in utero at the age of 10 weeks are the maxillary sinuses, which are two air-filled cavities found in the maxillary bone. They are the largest of the paranasal sinuses. Bones like the pelvis, skull, and femur are used in radiology to identify gender. Maxillary sinuses can be utilized for identification in mass tragedies like aero plane accidents, war, explosions, burnt, decomposing remains, and other calamities. In these situations, all the bones suffer severe damage, but the sinuses are left undamaged. Aim and objective: This research used digital radiography to identify gender based on the morphology of the maxillary sinus. Materials and Methods: From the radiographs (A.P view) of 128 subjects ( 64 males and 64 females), the morphometric characteristics of the maxillary sinus were assessed using microdicom software. Results: The right maxillary sinus average height and width in males was 28.15mm and 25.04mm whereas, in females it 22.39mm and 22.54mm respectively and was found statistically highly significant. Likewise, the left maxillary sinus average height and width in males was 28.91mm and 25.33mm and in females it was 22.39mm and 20.81mm respectively and was statistically highly significant. Conclusion: It was concluded from my study that the anteroposterior (AP) view of digital radiographs can be used to detect the gender based on the height and width of the maxillary sinuses. Keywords: Forensic radiography, maxillary sinus, sexual dimorphism, gender determination mass disaster.

A “Stretchier” Kind of Witnessing

The article compiles the events marking the precarity of disabled peoples’ lives during the Second World War in Germany through an examination of the transition of Nazi psychiatric killing centers into memorials during the long twentieth century. As Judith Butler points out in Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?, recognizing the conditions of vulnerability calls us to a responsibility to alter abuse, suffering, and violence; yet it may also be true that “the apprehension of precariousness leads to a heightening of violence, [as] an insight into the physical vulnerability of some set of others […] and incites the desire to destroy them” (2). Such is the case with the medical mass murder of 300,000+ psychiatric patients in Nazi Germany as this preliminary medical mass murder made possible the post-1941 Holocaust genocide of 5.4 million Jewish people in death camp gas chambers. Thus, the article attempts to answer some critical questions by using Nazi medical mass murder as its historical foundation: How does one witness a violent mass tragedy when no witnesses survived? What meaning can be derived from the memorialization of disability history in our own contemporary moment? What do these public acts of recognition mean to disabled people as a group and/or disability scholars as part of the preservation of disability history? Why do these medical mass killings that pre-date and lead to the Holocaust still sit primarily unrecognized and forgotten? Finally, what do today’s memorialization practices tell us about contemporary attitudes toward disability as this largely unaffiliated subpopulation lives in the aftermath of this murderous history? When and how do disabled lives become grievable? How might we devise an alternative model to Holocaust studies’ pivotal reliance on direct witnesses that are not available in the Aktion T4 psychiatric killings?

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM IN THE TERRITORY OF TRANSCARPATHIA (1944–1946)

As noted, Transcarpathia is an administrative-territorial unit created in historical Hungary in 1919, consisting of Uzhan, Berez, Ugochan, and Maramoros counties. In the first half of the 20th century, it was part of several states: in 1919, it became part of Czechoslovakia; in 1938–1939, it returned to Hungary, and in the fall of 1944, after the Soviet occupation, it was incorporated by the Soviet Union. The authors investigated that frequent changes of power due to the peripherality of the region took place without considering the local population's opinion – as a result of the political decisions of the great states, so Transcarpathians always had to adapt to new political systems. Among the historical twists of fate for the residents, joining the Soviet Union had the most tragic consequences: until 1944, the region was a part of Central Europe, in particular the Carpathian Basin, in the social, economic, and cultural sense, but after, it became part of a dictatorial empire based on a class approach and social injustice. It was analyzed and concluded that the incorporation of Transcarpathia, with a total area of 20,000 km2, was of geostrategic importance for the Soviet authorities since, due to its geographical location, it bordered several states that were part of the Soviet bloc, and railway routes ran through it, which simplified the logistics of the USSR with them. The incorporation of the region by the Soviet Union was not legitimate at all, but the almighty Soviet leader Stalin, who influenced the politics of states in this part of Europe, made sure to maintain the appearance of legitimacy during the occupation and subsequent annexation. As a result of the political regime change, a new administrative system was implemented, the names of settlements were revised, and the ethnic composition of the region also changed. As an undoubted fact stated that for various ethnic groups living in Transcarpathia, the Soviet annexation brought a series of individual and mass tragedies, as the change of power meant not only the onset of lawlessness but also ethnic cleansing and physical destruction for tens of thousands of people.

Orthopantomography and use of Mandibular Indices for the Evaluation of Gender Distribution in Navi Mumbai Population - A Retrospective, Single Blind Study

Introduction: The study of forensic sciences often leaves the forensic expert to draw conclusions from any and every material available in determining the identity of the deceased. The initial step in identifying a person is to determine their gender based on their adult skeleton. The human skeleton displays sexual dimorphism, of which the skull is most dimorphic providing an accurateness of 92%. However, in certain situations where the skull may not be found intact, the mandible plays a vital role. The mandible's thick covering of compact bone helps keep it from exploding during a mass tragedy. Dimorphism in the mandible is gender specific and is mainly reflected in its shape and size. The mandible is also easily radiographed and specific linear measurements of the mandibular rami as seen on an OPG are useful indices for gender determination. 
 Aims: To examine the efficacy of mandibular rami measures such as maximum ramus breadth, maximum ramus height, minimum ramus breadth, condylar height, coronoid height, mandibular body length and gonial angles on the right and left side of an OPG in determining gender.
 Materials and methods: 110 digital OPG’s (55 males, 55 females) of a Navi Mumbai population were obtained retrospectively from a reputed dental college and hospital. The OPG’s were taken using Xtropan 2000 OPG machine, 10x12 PSP plates, exposure parameters of 75 Kvp, 8 mas, 13 sec, and KODAK CR 7400 digitizer. Master View 3.0 software was used on the desktop computer to measure the mandibular ramus's width and thickness. Maximum ramus breadth, Maximum Ramus height and lowest ramus breadth of the mandibular rami, as well as the height of the condyle and the coronoid bone, and the length of the mandibular body and gonial angles on the right and left sides of the mouth, were all measured. Using a statistical formula, the measurements were substituted and gender was estimated.
 Result: We used the IBM SPSS v 21.0 statistical software for social sciences to do our statistical study. p0.05 was deemed statistically significant, with a 5% margin of error and a 20% margin of error, giving the study an 80 percent power. In the study group, 51 of the 55 men were expected to be males, while 49 of the 55 females were anticipated to be females, while 6 of the 55 females were predicted to be males.
 Conclusion: This research shows that the mandibular ramus is a useful tool for determining gender, and digital panoramic imaging yielded the best accurate linear measures. There was considerable sexual dimorphism in the mandibular ramus in the chosen Navi – Mumbai subpopulation, and the combination of 8 factors demonstrated an accuracy of 91.81 percent and was helpful for gender determination.

Forensic Odontological Parameters as Biometric Tool: A Review.

Human identification by virtue of dental identification is on the increase in the past few years and has served as a major adjunct in the identification process. The science associated with the dealing of evidences from dental, oral, and paraoral structures—Forensic Odontology, is a boon in itself. It has been seen that the role of forensic odontology has increased as most of the times teeth and other orally associated structures remain the only means of identification in the worst of scenarios where the conventional biometrics such as fingerprint, iris scan, palm print, etc., may be lost and are therefore not reliable enough to resolve the purpose of identification. There are various important aspects in forensic odontology which are associated with the study of tooth prints, i.e., ameloglyphics, radiographs, the study of palatal rugae patterns, i.e., rugoscopy, cheiloscopy, i.e., the study of lip patterns, tongue prints which can serve as an important biometric tool to aid in the human identification process. Dental biometrics helps to determine several parameters that serve in the interest of forensics such as type of specimen, population affinity, sex, age, stature, race, and various other individualization factors. So, comparative dental identifications with the help of a biometric recognition system will play a major role in identifying deceased individuals in disasters, crimes, or any other mass tragedies.How to cite this article: Kaul B, Vaid V, Gupta S, et al. Forensic Odontological Parameters as Biometric Tool: A Review. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2021;14(3):416–419.

The social cohesion investment: Communities that invested in integration programmes are showing greater social cohesion in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social cohesion can rise in the aftermath of natural disasters or mass tragedies, but this ‘coming together’ is often short‐lived. The early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic witnessed marked increases in kindness and social connection, but as months passed social tensions re‐emerged or grew anew. Thus local authorities faced persistent and evolving challenges. A cross‐sectional survey (N = 2,924) examined perceptions of social cohesion while Britain was slowly emerging from its first national lockdown in June 2020 in six English local authorities that have prioritised investment in social cohesion over the last two years (including five ‘integration areas’) compared with three other areas that have not. We expected that social cohesion programmes would better equip people to tackle the various challenges of the COVID‐19 pandemic. We found a greater sense of social cohesion in the six local authorities (at the micro, meso and macro levels) than in other areas. This was manifested as higher levels of reported social activism, interpersonal trust and closer personal relationships, greater political trust and more positive attitudes towards immigrants. Findings are consistent with the proposition that investing in social cohesion underpins stronger and more connected and open communities, better able to cope with crisis situations.

Against memory-as-remedy to the traumatic aftermaths of Nigeria-Biafra war past: whither justice?

ABSTRACT This article examines recent scholarship proposing the use of memory practice to remedy the traumatic aftermaths of Nigeria-Biafra War past. The assumption sustained in this scholarship is that through certain cultural memory practices such as truth commissions and commemorative rituals some form of appeasement might be reached regarding the extent of subsistence of that traumatic past. We fault these scholarly claims proposing memory as panacea to mass injustices and tragedies. In addition to the problematic proposals for using memory to remedy past atrocities in Nigeria, we observe that the question of justice is either absent or construed sometimes vaguely as one and the same with memorialisation. Accordingly, this paper further explores the place of justice in (and its implications for) this recent scholarship on Nigeria-Biafra War past. By inserting and centralising questions of justice in the discourse of that war, we seek to rethink the assumptions of memory practice as a remedy to past atrocities in Nigeria. The underlying argument of our discussion is that not only does the emphasis on memory diminish the political nature of the conflict but also that resort to memory indicates a continued reluctance to address the fundamental questions of political in/justice in Nigeria.

Fear or Anxiety: Reactions to Mass Tragedies, Violence and Trauma

Fear or Anxiety: Reactions to Mass Tragedies, Violence and Trauma

Traversing Mass Tragedies: Material Religion Between the 9/11 and Newtown Memorials

In keeping with recent anthropologists and scholars of religion who are re-imagining the phenomenon of pilgrimage as including more than just journeys to traditional “religious” sites, this article focuses on visitation to multiple sites of remembrance associated with mass tragedies. At the same time, my interest lies not only in the human actors who move between different memory sites, but also in the things that journey alongside or independent of them. In this article, I trace the movement of one particular object—an angel statue—that was initially created to memorialize individuals killed in the September 11 attacks and was later gifted to St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, Connecticut, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. Drawing upon recent scholarship in the fields of pilgrimage studies and material religion, I elucidate how objects like this statue can inform the lifeworlds around them, including lifeworlds that have been touched with grief. This mode of analysis reveals that memory objects like the angel statue are constantly being shaped and re-shaped as they mediate relationships between individuals and their deceased loved ones as well as relationships between various communities that have been touched by tragedy. I also take seriously the claims by scholars such as Latour (2005) and Lynch (2010) that objects themselves have a degree of agency in the intersubjective relationships that constitute our lived reality. Ultimately, my analysis shows that the angel statue and other physical objects that traverse multiple sites of remembrance can be understood as palimpsests of grief that attempt to facilitate forms of trans-situational bonding in our contemporary world.

A test by the arbitrariness in 1937-1938

Mass political repressions of the 1920s-1950s had serious negative consequences for the life of society and the state. Accurate statistics of political repression in the USSR does not exist, although their scale is extremely large. The authors paper is dedicated to the victims of repression as well as it gives a description of the initiators, participants and executors of the operation on repression. One of the orders of the NKVD № 00447 of July 30, 1937 contained this word combination. The author considers events related to the repression of 1937-1939 in the Orenburg Region, where the first arrests began in the second half of 1936. The author shows how the established command and administrative system, monstrous judicial arbitrariness, creation of extrajudicial bodies for repressions implementation, the triumph of lawlessness, the state of lawlessness and much more led to mass tragedies. The focus of the researcher is the destruction of the best party and people, industry captains, thousands of honest workers. The author in addition to documents extracted from the Orenburg archives, attracts memories of victims of arbitrariness, as well as materials from personal correspondence with their relatives. The Russian state condemned the long terror and mass persecution of its people as incompatible with the idea of law and justice.

Mrena [The Cataract] by Milica Micić Dimovska

Reviewed by: Mrena [The Cataract] by Milica Micić Dimovska Milica Mihajlović Milica Micić Dimovska. Mrena [The Cataract], translated by Sibelan Forrester. Media, PA: Parnilis Media, 2016, pp. 306. ISBN 978-1-53502-757-1 Named for both the literal medical condition suffered by a main character and a figurative blindness affecting the other characters, Micić Dimovska's novel examines the societal blindness and complacency in Serbia that contributed to the most recent mass tragedy of former Yugoslavia: the NATO bombardment of Serbia from March 24 to June 10, 1999. To say that the story focuses on the bombardment would be false. The Western threat is barely in the background of the characters' minds—yet that is precisely the point Micić Dimovska is making. Preoccupied with their local political and economic happenings, the characters are largely unaware of the larger crisis facing the country. When the situation in Kosovo is mentioned, it is brushed off as an empty threat or disregarded because Bill Clinton's sex scandal had come to light just the previous year. Not to mention, the novel is set in Novi Sad, located in northern Serbia; the southern positon of Kosovo is quite literally far from their minds. The characters of the novel span three generations, but all are interconnected by their position as the intellectual elite of the city. The middle generation make up the largest percentage of the characters, and the majority of those are directly involved with the central cultural institution of the novel, the Serbian Forum. These are the people that are in charge of the production of culture and art in Serbia. Yet they are all too preoccupied with blossoming relationships, personal career advancements, failing marriages, leadership changes, resistance movements, and their own conflicting political ideologies to notice the large-scale happenings—namely those exacted under the rule of Slobodan Milošević—and the reactions from the rest of the world. Some members of the Serbian Forum want to use their positions to actively further their political agendas. Other characters, such as children and in-laws of the members, represent the complacency that also allowed for such horrors to happen. [End Page 175] Micić Dimovska's personal stance against nationalism and its manipulation of art as propaganda is evident, and her long history at Matica srpska (what is assumed to be the inspiration for the Serbian Forum) in Novi Sad attributes to her a level of expertise. The individual voices of her characters offer a realistic, albeit fictional, snapshot of life in the middle of crisis. While it may be fair to say that hindsight is 20/20 and that leaders are only human, Micić Dimovska does not mean to criticize plain humanity. It is the deliberate behaviors that contribute to the overall blindness, the ones that form the cataract, so to speak, over society's eyes. It is the behaviors of those such as Jovan Žarković and his family, who didn't want to go to the bomb shelter of their building on the ninth day of the bombardment because "they were bothered by the lack of discretion of the gathered residents, the atmosphere of confidentiality and cooperation under the motto 'misfortune has brought us together'" (265). This novel examines a small section of the Serbian case, but it is an example to all of the mechanisms which we allow ourselves to be blinded by daily. [End Page 176] Milica Mihajlović Indiana University mmihajlo@umail.iu.edu Copyright © 2018 Serbian Studies

Materializing humanity: memorial collecting after Pulse

ABSTRACTOn 12 June 2016, Orlando’s Pulse nightclub became the site of the largest single-shooter massacre in US history: 49 clubgoers lost their lives while celebrating Latin Night at a club popular with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community of Central Florida. In the days that followed the curators and collections staff of the Orange County Regional History Center found themselves affected both as community members and as museum professionals. This brief account addresses the complexities of facing a mass tragedy in real time at the human and museological level, describes the process of moving onto an active footing in the collection and preservation of memorial sites, and offers insight into what, unfortunately, has only become a more common challenge in both our communities and in our professional field.

A Review of: The Virginia Tech Massacre: Strategies and Challenges for Improving Mental Health Policy on Campus and Beyond, edited by Aradhana Bela Sood and Robert Cohen

[Author Affiliation]Jeffrey I. Hunt. Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.ISBN: 978-0-19-539249-4. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 265 pages.Address correspondence to: Jeffrey I. Hunt, MD, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, E-mail: Jeffrey_hunt@brown.eduOur current healthcare system is not in the business of planting but it should be. This was a statement made late in the book, The Virginia Tech Massacre: Strategies and Challenges for Improving Mental Health Policy on Campus and Beyond in response to the limited focus of the policy response in Virginia after the tragedy. Thirty-three people died as a result of Seung-Hui Ho's actions on April 16, 2007. In the year that followed, the Virginia General Assembly aggressively responded by enacting more sweeping reforms in mental health than had occurred in the previous 30 years combined. More than100 bills were introduced during the 2008 session and ∼$42,000,000 was appropriated for mental health care services. Unfortunately, the desired changes in mental health services did not come to fruition. The bills were limited to crisis stabilization rather than prevention, and the money allocated in 2008 was cut in 2009 as the recession deepened. There was a lack of policy makers who understood the complexities of the mental health system and the need to fund primary prevention and early intervention services in order to develop systems with the potential to avert future mass tragedies. Unfortunately, as the authors point out, policy makers' careers do not last long enough to see the planted trees bear fruit.This book was undertaken to examine the mental health systems in university settings and, more broadly, in the United States. The intended audience was broad, but the book will be of most interest to policy makers, those working in college mental health, and all mental health practitioners who are faced with threat assessment in their daily clinical work. The initial chapters focus on the numerous failures of the system, specifically relating to lost opportunities to prevent Seung-Hui Cho's actions. The later sections discuss contemporary college mental health care services and identify successful approaches as well as barriers to providing care. A global review of how mental healthcare is delivered in the United States and in other developed countries reveals that there are few, if any, model systems. The final and most sobering section discusses the challenges facing policy makers to ensure that well thought out, evidenced- based mental health programs that also emphasize prevention are in place and -most importantly - that they are adequately funded.The lead authors/editors are well suited for their identified goals. Dr. Sood is a senior child and adolescent psychiatrist who was appointed to an expert panel by the governor of Virginia at the time, Thomas Kaine. The panel included eight members from different professional backgrounds who were tasked with reviewing both how and why Seung-Hiu Cho committed the murders, and the response of the Virginia commonwealth to the shootings. The panel was also to make recommendations to improve laws, policies, procedures, systems, and operations of agencies including those for mental health. Dr. Sood was intimately involved in all aspects of the panel and, in particular, had personal access to Cho's family members and the involved faculty and administrators at Virginia Tech. (Cho's family authorized the release of their son's health and education records, and they willingly participated in multiple interviews by the Virginia Tech Panel). The co-editor of the book, Dr. Cohen, is an expert in policy and program development.Although much of the story about Seung-Hui Cho's progression from a fragile, solitary, and silent young man who inspired sympathy to the dark, ruminative, and rageful murderer he became has been reported in the press, the book provides greater insight into the failings of the mental health system prior to and during his time as a college student at Virginia Tech. …

Dental Biometrics as an Aid in the Determination of Human Identity

Dental biometrics involves the use of features unique to the human dentition as an aid to personal identification and is widely accepted within the forensic field. Teeth, with their physiologic variations, pathoses and effects of therapy, record information that remains throughout life and beyond. The teeth constitute a scientific method in forensic identification, principally due to the great resistance to the agents which provoke the destruction of the soft tissues in the corpses (putrefaction, traumatic, physical and chemical agents) and to the high morphological variability of the human teeth. Dental biometrics allow to determine several parameters of forensic interest: specimen, population affinity, sex, age, stature and individualization's factors. Comparative dental identifications play a major role in identifying the victims of violence, disaster or other mass tragedies. The comparison of antemortem and postmortem dental records to determine human identity has long been established. Based on an appropriate knowledge of the available methods, dentists can choose the most appropriate one since the validity of identity estimation crucially depends on the method used and its proper application. The dental professionals have a major role to play in keeping accurate dental records and providing all necessary information so that legal authorities may recognize malpractice, negligence, fraud or abuse, and identify unknown humans.

Social Solidarity and the Fear of Risk: Examining Worries about the Recurrence of a Mass Tragedy in a Small Community

In November 2007, the Jokela community experienced the first large-scale school shooting in Finland. The paper examines how local residents perceive the risk of school shootings, as an extreme crisis, reoccurring. We are particularly interested in how social solidarity associates with the fear of this type of risk. We use a natural experimental design to see if recurrence of a potential mass tragedy changes the relationship between solidarity and the perception of different types or risks. Our data are derived from two separate mail surveys of Jokela adults in 2008 (n = 330) and 2009 (n = 278), respectively. The strength of our data is that the second large-scale school shooting in Finland, which took place in the fall of 2008, occurred between the collections of the two data sets. We find that once extreme tragedies become more common, the protective functions of social solidarity tends to diminish as a source of protective factor for social communities.

The Comfort of Melancholy: Understanding the Experience of Absence at American Memorials

There's comfort in melancholyWhen there's no need to explainIt's just as natural as the weatherIn this moody sky today....Well I looked at the granite markersThose tributes to finality to eternityAnd then I looked at myself hereChicken scratching for my immortalityJoni Mitchell, Hejira, 1976The battle of Gettysburg and the 9/11 terror attacks, 150 years apart, produced memorials that share a common theme: each expresses absence as its memorial theme. The dead cannot be seen, even in sculptural form: they have vanished into abstraction. At Gettysburg, the dead and numbered in the thousands. Survivors saw their colleagues vaporized (Faust 128). The damage and poisonous stench after the three days of battle in 1863 created a discourse about death of the magnitude that circulated in the aftermath of 9/ 11. The title of the winning design for the 9/11 memorial-''Reflecting Absence-made explicit a theme that has implicitly made its way into public spaces of mourning in America since Gettysburg's response to its tragedy provided the visual vocabulary of absence: relying on combinations of earth, stone, water, and names, rejecting the figurai, they establish a memorial vernacular of the missing. Gettysburg, the 9/11 Memorial, and two others that express this visual trope-the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial-are all among America's most prominent memorial sites, and all evoke the comfort of melancholy.From Gettysburg to 9/11 : The Visual Language of Absence at American MemorialsGettysburg's Civil War burials were the result of America's first experience with mass mourning. The 9/11 Memorial shares with Gettysburg features that in 1863 were unprecedented: a shared community of mourners, still reeling from the enormity of the event, produced a message of equality and absence combined (Faust 69, 100-01; Haas 49; Wills 29-30). At Gettysburg's National Soldiers' Cemetery, the flat markers are identical in shape and typeface, and all are embedded in the soil. Unknown appears interspersed with names and ranks. The dead are indistinguishable from one another, the absent equally absent. Conveying the message of missing in turn relies on abstraction: its lines are rectilinear and nonfigural, inviting looking inward or imagining beyond. Precluding hero worship, Gettysburg relies on evenly spaced semicircles of headstones to convey its message. The first American memorial commemorating violent mass deaths evokes absence through abstraction.This same visual message is found at America's memorials to imponderable mass tragedies that occurred after Gettysburg: the attack on Pearl Harbor, represented by the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; and the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The U.S.S. Arizona visitors' center is a simple rectangular box built on the waters above the sunken ship Rising bubbles from the ship's leaking oil tanks, visible in an open well inside, and the round armament that once housed one of the ship's turrets are the only surface signs of the graveyard of the ship's rusting hulk below. The memorial structure does not touch the ship (Delgado 77). The bodies of the dead remain out of sight and out of reach. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial lists the names of the dead in order of their deaths on a planished wall embedded in soil. From the northwest approach, the nestled wall is invisible. The first memorial to mark a long war, rather than a single event, with the message of absence, the wall of names represents a variation on Gettysburg's heritage: the community marked the tragedy both of the deaths and of their political ambiguity (Haas 16).Other memorials to the lengthy process of war and their dead do not speak the language of absence. Memorials to the dead of World War II and the Korean War are exemplars of figurai presence, that to the Korean War Memorial literally, and that to World War II implicitly. …

What Has APA Done for You Lately?

Back to table of contents Previous article ViewpointsFull AccessWhat Has APA Done for You Lately?Maria Oquendo, M.D.Maria OquendoSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:10 Sep 2013https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2013.9b24I was nothing short of astonished by my experience at the APA Board of Trustees (BOT) meeting in July in Arlington, Va. I certainly anticipated that the BOT would sit indoors for long hours reviewing reams of material. Having prepared for the meeting by reading those reams beforehand alerted me to that. There was debate, sometimes passionate, and lots of humor. That too was expected since I knew several, though not all, of the BOT members. Close attention was paid to parliamentary rules, ensuring that procedure was followed. None of that was terribly surprising, either. What was surprising is just how much work APA does not only for its members, but for our patients—as well as those who may someday need our care.For example, I had not been fully cognizant of the work that APA is doing to ensure that parity laws are implemented in a way that is truly fair and equitable for our patients. I learned that APA is aggressively pursuing an arduous fight to improve access to care in a strategic and sophisticated manner. APA staff described to the BOT how hundreds of members have voiced complaints regarding implementation of the new CPT codes in ways that potentially violate parity. In response, APA has been addressing each complaint with the insurers and other payers, some of who immediately changed their ways. As might be expected where money is involved, not all payers have agreed to make the changes that will increase coverage for mental conditions to the same level as other medical illnesses. Indeed, some payers remain defiantly out of line with the intent of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. I was pleased—no, relieved—that APA is in the fray to safeguard our patients’ right to be treated fairly. It is the humane thing to do. Another issue that the APA BOT addressed is the terrible problem that firearms present for our country. During the meeting, we discussed how the dominant rhetoric in the media relates to understandable concerns that arise when mass tragedies occur. What most of the public does not know is that most gun deaths are due to suicide and murder. Indeed, the suicide rate is up, and in 2010, there were 38,364 suicides in the United States, on average about 105 each day (http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicide-datasheet-a.PDF). APA is working hard to engage in the public debate on guns to underscore the frequency of suicide as a heartbreaking consequence of having them easily available.I am pleased that not only does APA concern itself with helping its members and our patients, but also many other constituencies as well—including juveniles in the penitentiary system, many of whom would benefit from mental health care. Amazingly enough, several states have statutes on the books that permit juveniles to be tried and sentenced by adult courts without judicial review of the individual case or assessment of mental or neurodevelopmental issues that may be essential to a full understanding of the situation. Recognizing that neurodevelopmental disorders and mental illness may play a significant role in criminal behavior in children and adolescents, the BOT addressed the fact that many youngsters incarcerated in this country lack access to appropriate and desperately needed mental health care and approved a position statement advocating for these youth. They certainly need all the help and support they can get to ensure the system gives them a fair shake.I encourage you to get involved with APA, whether at the district branch level or at the national level. There is a lot of work to be done, and we could most definitely use your help and energy. After all, APA is active in addressing issues of critical importance to us! ■A summary of the actions taken by the Board of Trustees at its July meeting is posted at http://www.psychiatry.org/network/board-of-trustees/governance-meeting-archives.Maria Oquendo, M.D., is APA’s secretary and a member of the Board of Trustees. ISSUES NewArchived

Local responses to collective and personal crime after school shootings

This study examines how community members respond to collective and personal crime after unexpected violent, mass tragedies. Our main interest is in whether or not responses to personal and collective crime are similar in two local communities. Furthermore, we assess how socio-demographic and experiential factors and social solidarity associate with the fear of crime. Empirical analysis is based on cross-sectional data. Postal surveys were collected from the Finnish localities of Jokela (n = 330) and Kauhajoki (n = 319) 6 months after the respective school shooting tragedies. Descriptive analysis and multiple linear regressions are used as analysis techniques. The results indicate that the fear of collective crime was associated with a low level of social solidarity in Jokela. In Kauhajoki, socio-demographic and experiential factors were associated with the fear of collective crime, but social solidarity was not. In particular, female respondents and those who knew a victim reported higher levels of fear of collective crime. As with personal crime, responses between Jokela and Kauhajoki were relatively similar. The results confirm findings of previous criminological studies demonstrating the association between weak social solidarity and fear of personal victimization.