Feature Channels: Crime and Forensic Science

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A University of Adelaide forensic pathologist is warning that potentially harmful substances found in herbal medicines may be playing a bigger role in deaths of ‘health tourists’ than previously thought.

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Fueled by political rhetoric evoking dangerous criminal immigrants, many white Americans assume low-status immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Syria, Somalia and other countries President Donald Trump labeled "shithole" nations have no legal right to be in the United States, new research in the journal American Sociological Review suggests.

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Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson will be the keynote speaker at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s annual Bridging the Gap symposium, which focuses on health issues in underrepresented minority communities. This year the conference will address gun violence.

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Ethnomusicologist Dr. Katherine Meizel helped young people nationwide to raise their voices against gun violence.

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Sextortion, the threatened distribution of explicit, intimate and embarrassing sexual images without consent, is the fastest-growing cyberthreat to children. This study is the first to examine the prevalence and effects of sextortion among teens, using data from 5,568 middle and high school students in the U.S. Findings show that more males than females participated in sextortion both as a victim and as an offender. Overall, sextortion occurred within the context of an existing friendship (romantic or otherwise).

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On Saturday afternoon, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court by a 50-48 vote in the Senate, almost strictly along party lines. Marked by allegations of sexual assault and sustained partisan acrimony

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Starting in the fall of 2018, UC San Diego Health will be the first health system in San Diego County to implement a policy ensuring that all mandatory reporters are responsible for reporting cases of suspected human trafficking. This policy will be a coordinated effort of administrative and professional staff at all points of entry into the health system.

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An FAU professor and a high school senior from MSD have published a study on homicide rates in Baltimore and New York City. They note marked differences between these “peer” cities according to 19 population-based characteristics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The root causes for these differences are complex and multifactorial, and raise several major clinical and contemporary medical policy issues. The vast majority of these U.S. homicides are attributable to firearms.

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With reports of discrimination and hate crimes on the rise, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals say they feel compelled to retool their practices as “safe spaces” where they can better attend to the needs of traumatized patients.

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Previous research has shown that violent crimes are associated with greater access to alcohol outlets. It is unclear, however, whether on-premise outlets such as bars, or off-premise outlets such as liquor stores, have a stronger association with violent crimes. This study used more precise measurement of outlet locations to examine associations between violent crimes and access to different types of alcohol outlets in Baltimore, Maryland.

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A new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) found that alcohol outlets in Baltimore that sell alcohol for off-premise consumption (such as liquor stores and beer and wine stores) have a stronger association with incidences of violent crimes, including homicides, aggravated assaults, sexual assaults, and robbery, than alcohol outlets in Baltimore where alcohol is bought and consumed on-site, such as bars and restaurants.

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In 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home and spent nine months in captivity. Her kidnapping became one of the most-followed child abduction cases in history. On Oct. 5, Smart is bringing her message of empowerment to Iowa State University.

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An international team led by scientists at the University of Washington reports that DNA test results of large ivory seizures made by law enforcement have linked multiple ivory shipments over the three-year period to the same network of dealers operating out of a handful of African ports.

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A new analysis of data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project's AmericasBarometer survey shows that immigration policies designed to deter economic migrants do not dissuade migrants fleeing crime from seeking asylum.