Feature Channels: Crime and Forensic Science

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Hair fiber analysis, a forensic crime tool with a questionable past, could soon have a brighter future thanks to the development of a more refined scientific technique that could reveal much about a person’s lifestyle. Scientists say the new technique could potentially provide investigators with vital clues about a person’s age, sex, body mass, diet and exercise habits that could help them hone in on potential suspects.

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New research involving the University of Adelaide is helping to expose a myth about a significant Australian "prison tree", which researchers say has become a popular tourism attraction for the wrong reasons.

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Mothers play a central role in honour-based crime yet this is often unrecognised by police and other agencies, potentially leaving victims at risk, new research suggests.

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Eyewitnesses testimonies are extremely compelling forms of evidence. But, it’s not foolproof — just ask the 242 people mistakenly identified by eyewitnesses who served years in prison for crimes they did not commit until they were exonerated thanks to the introduction of DNA testing. A study gives new meaning to the notion of “guilt by association” and shows how memory in humans as well as police use of mugshots and subtle innuendo can contaminate eyewitness testimonies.

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Although counterfeit alcohol is a new phenomenon in most of the world, it has been a longstanding problem in Russia. In 2002, illegal commercial alcohol products totaled more than half of the alcohol retail turnover in that country. More recently, an economic recession has reactivated illicit markets in Russia. While the demand for lower-priced counterfeit alcohol is often linked to economic disadvantages, this research examined whether the problem is more complicated.

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Hiring more black police officers is not a viable strategy for reducing police-involved homicides of black citizens in most cities, according to new Indiana University research that is the first in-depth study of this increasingly urgent public policy question.

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Irvine, Calif., Feb. 14, 2017 – Researchers at the University of California, Irvine project double-digit reductions in both violent and property crimes across much of Southern California for 2017. Violent crime is estimated to drop by 21 percent in 82 percent of cities, and property crime is expected to decrease by 11 percent in 79 percent of cities.

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Political discussions about immigrants often include the claim that there is a relationship between immigration patterns and increased crime. However, results of a University at Buffalo-led study find no links between the two. In fact, immigration actually appears to be linked to reductions in some types of crimes.

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Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago has an innovative care coordination model to keep young people from being incarcerated.

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Officers who weren’t as stressed showed a steep and steady, or regular, increase in cortisol from baseline. However, officers with a moderate and high major stress index had a blunted response over time.

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Adolescents who are violent toward their romantic partners are also more likely to think about or attempt suicide, carry a weapon, threaten others with a weapon and use drugs or alcohol than peers in non-violent relationships, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

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A Northwestern University study has found that economic insecurity is related to the rate of gun violence at K-12 and postsecondary schools in the United States. When it becomes more difficult for people coming out of school to find jobs, the rate of gun violence at schools increases. The study reveals a persistent connection over time between unemployment and the occurrence of school shootings in the country as a whole, across various regions of the country and within affected cities.

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There is a push to expand the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in policing. Yet, limited research and only anecdotal evidence suggests that the public supports using them in law enforcement. Results of a new study describes general public perceptions of BWCs with some unexpected results.

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Click here to go directly to the Physics News Source Sponsored by AIP.

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“Tolerance and Violence in the Mind of God" explores the connection between religion and violence, solidarity, peacebuilding, and combating terrorism.

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In light of the U.S. investigation into Russian hacking, DePaul University faculty experts are available to provide insight and commentary on cybersecurity and cyberhacking. Political scientists also can discuss how the controversy could impact the relationship between the United States and Russia.

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It's something many of us say in anger, but don't mean. However, for a small percentage of people homicidal thoughts are very real. Iowa State's Matt DeLisi says identifying offenders with homicidal thoughts could change how we sentence the most serious offenders.

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Each year U.S. News & World Report releases rankings of colleges/universities and their programs. This year, 3 NSU online programs were ranked among America's best.

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WCS reports that a poaching gang recently arrested for shooting wildlife in a well-known tiger reserve consisted of software engineers, environmental consultants, wealthy coffee planters, and a leading member of the Rifle Association of Karnataka State. Conservationists say the incident is particularly disturbing because the group consisted mostly of affluent and well-educated men.

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Youth who commit crimes for the first time are more likely to re-offend if their mothers don’t participate in their legal process. Unfortunately, mothers are widely unfamiliar with the juvenile justice system – and those who know the least about the system also participate the least.

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A new study from the University of Iowa found that teenagers who participated in volunteer activities on their own had 11 percent fewer illegal behaviors between the ages of 18 and 28 than teenagers who did not volunteer. They also had 31 percent fewer arrests and 39 percent fewer convictions.

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Funding and publication of gun violence research are disproportionately low compared to other leading causes of death in the United States, according to new research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published online today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

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Inmates at notorious maximum-security prison dig into stories behind the images being archived by Sac State professor.

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New research finds a host of factors that are associated with subsequent risk of adults with mental illness becoming victims or perpetrators of violence. The work highlights the importance of interventions to treat mental-health problems in order to reduce community violence.

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A new study of U.S. adolescents provides some of the best evidence to date of how violence spreads like a contagious disease. Researchers found that adolescents were up to 183 percent more likely to carry out some acts of violence if one of their friends had also committed the same act.

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An estimated 1,900 people died in the United States during arrest or while in police custody June 2015 through May 2016, according to a new report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and RTI International.

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Cure Violence is ranked 12th in NGO Advisor’s 2017 report of the Top 500 NGOs in the world, one of the definitive international rankings of non-governmental organizations. Cure Violence has been among the top 20 NGOs for four consecutive years and moved up two places from last year.

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Defendants charged with murder in North Carolina from 1990 to 2009 were more than twice as likely to receive the death penalty if the victims were white, Michigan State University researchers have found.

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Dr. Michael Hallett, criminology professor at the University of North Florida, has drawn from three years of on-site research at America's largest maximum-security prison in his new book,” The Angola Prison Seminary: Effects of Faith-Based Ministry on Identity, Transformation, Desistance and Rehabilitation.”

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Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice researchers, lead by Dean Thomas Blomberg complete a full report on elder fraud and how to combat it.

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For the latest research and experts on Terrorism go to the Terrorism News Source

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The study uses fMRI data to compare brain development between children who experience pervasive, continuing trauma and those with “normal” development.

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The number of ISIS-related charges issued in the United States since March 2014 increased from 109 to 111, according to updated research from the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

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The evolution of how prisoners in substance-abuse programs communicate is a good indicator of whether they’ll return to crime, new research has found.

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The latest research and features on cybersecurity in the Cybersecurity News Source

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