Nearly half of HIV-positive respondents to a recently released survey on HIV criminalization say they believe they will not receive a fair hearing in the criminal justice system if they ever face charges for failing to disclose their status to sexual partners. The findings come from the preliminary results of a study released at the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC in late July. The results, researchers say, show HIV criminal laws have created a hostile legal environment for those living with HIV.
Those preliminary results included the responses of 2,076 people living with HIV in the U.S. The responses were collected online during June and July. The study found that 49 percent said they didn't "trust" they would get a fair hearing if they were charged in criminal court for failing to disclose their HIV-positive status to sex partners, while 30 percent said they were unsure if they would receive a fair hearing. Twenty-one percent of respondents said they trusted the system would provide a fair hearing.
"To me, that's shocking," says Laurel Sprague, lead researcher for the Sero Project, which sponsored the survey. The organization advocates against HIV criminal laws.
Read more here
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Overcrowding and staff shortages at Czech prisons
It is lunchtime at Prague's Pankrác Prison. While some inmates sit and eat in their musty cells, others mill around the corridor, bowls of soup in hand, chatting to staff. The time is 11 a.m., and these men have already been up for more than six hours. Dressed in gray slacks, they will spend most of their day staring at the prison's peeling white walls. Some are young, some are old, but they all share cells designed to hold far fewer people than their current occupancy levels. And these prisoners are among the luckier ones. Pankrác is overcapacity, but not by much.
If you cast the net nationwide, the picture looks bleaker: Czech jails are at their fullest since records began, with the number of prisoners rising yearly. Human rights campaigners blame judges for imposing harsh custodial sentences and ignoring alternative forms of punishment. Meanwhile, there are growing fears staff safety could be jeopardized. On average, the country's 36 prisons house 12 percent more inmates than they are designed to, according to official data from July 20. Put in real terms, they have space to hold up to 20,855 inmates when there are currently 23,369. The worst offender is Heřmanice Prison in Ostrava, whose capacity is teetering on the brink at 137 percent.
As jails are filled to bursting point, Prisons Service spokesman Robert Káčer says the cramped conditions have already led to violence and tension between inmates and staff.
Read more here
If you cast the net nationwide, the picture looks bleaker: Czech jails are at their fullest since records began, with the number of prisoners rising yearly. Human rights campaigners blame judges for imposing harsh custodial sentences and ignoring alternative forms of punishment. Meanwhile, there are growing fears staff safety could be jeopardized. On average, the country's 36 prisons house 12 percent more inmates than they are designed to, according to official data from July 20. Put in real terms, they have space to hold up to 20,855 inmates when there are currently 23,369. The worst offender is Heřmanice Prison in Ostrava, whose capacity is teetering on the brink at 137 percent.
As jails are filled to bursting point, Prisons Service spokesman Robert Káčer says the cramped conditions have already led to violence and tension between inmates and staff.
Read more here
Monday, August 27, 2012
Anders Breivik is guilty: the fine line between bad and mad
One of the most high profile court decisions on “madness” and crime has concluded. In a unanimous decision, the Oslo District Court in Norway has convicted Anders Behring Breivik of the murder of 77 people in the streets of central Oslo and on the island of Utoya in July 2011.
As is well-known, Breivik faced trial for multiple counts of murder, following gun and bomb attacks resulting in mass killing of adults and children. Since his apprehension, Breivik has admitted planning and carrying out the killings, and is on record as saying that they were necessary to start a revolution aimed at preventing Norway from accepting further numbers of immigrants.
Read more here
As is well-known, Breivik faced trial for multiple counts of murder, following gun and bomb attacks resulting in mass killing of adults and children. Since his apprehension, Breivik has admitted planning and carrying out the killings, and is on record as saying that they were necessary to start a revolution aimed at preventing Norway from accepting further numbers of immigrants.
Read more here
Friday, August 24, 2012
Overcrowded and Understaffed... what to do about the incarcerated mentally ill?
Overcrowded correctional facilities are a serious criminal justice issue that many states in our country faced. And, in times of sharp budget cuts that involve closing facilities, laying off workers or implementing hiring freezes, the problems of capacity are worsened by a lack of sufficient staffing. This is an issue that affects all inmates, but one group of inmates is being particularly affected: mentally ill inmates.
The Pilot Online recently took a look at the situation of mentally ill inmates in the Chesapeake Correctional Center and what they discovered isn’t just about overcrowding or ensuring adequate treatment (although those issues are important); also at stake is the safety of other inmates and staff who work with the mentally ill.
Currently at the Chesapeake Correctional Center, there are 300 mentally ill patients, of which an estimated 50 should really be in a mental health facility where adequate treatment would be available. And that number is only expected to grow. An outside consulting group estimated that by 2031, the jail will need 504 mental health beds. Those numbers far exceed the facility’s capacity for housing mentally ill inmates, which currently stands at 21 beds dedicated specifically for the mentally ill and another 21 for inmates with general medical problems, which are frequently used for mentally ill inmates.
Read more here
The Pilot Online recently took a look at the situation of mentally ill inmates in the Chesapeake Correctional Center and what they discovered isn’t just about overcrowding or ensuring adequate treatment (although those issues are important); also at stake is the safety of other inmates and staff who work with the mentally ill.
Currently at the Chesapeake Correctional Center, there are 300 mentally ill patients, of which an estimated 50 should really be in a mental health facility where adequate treatment would be available. And that number is only expected to grow. An outside consulting group estimated that by 2031, the jail will need 504 mental health beds. Those numbers far exceed the facility’s capacity for housing mentally ill inmates, which currently stands at 21 beds dedicated specifically for the mentally ill and another 21 for inmates with general medical problems, which are frequently used for mentally ill inmates.
Read more here
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Solving the case: Real-life crime investigations unlike television dramas
I will admit that I’m a fan of television shows such as “Law & Order,” “CSI” and “NCIS.” The stories and the characters are good, and the forensics they use to help solve crimes is always interesting, if a little gruesome. The heroes usually catch the bad guys in an hour and all is well. That’s all good television, but it’s not good real life. When you’re covering stories about murders and other assorted crimes, you quickly learn that solving them is going to take a lot longer than an hour, plus you don’t get any commercial breaks.
This fact was drilled home again Tuesday when two arrests were made in a murder case that started back in March 2011. The investigation kept going until two suspects were arraigned, and it’s still not really over. On television, the detective and the forensic examiners almost always find a crucial piece of evidence right away. They have that classic gut feeling that this paint chip or that drop of blood is important. Well, real-life detectives find lots of evidence, too, and get their gut feelings or suspicions, but not all of the evidence is something you can take to court for a warrant. Not everything is immediately obvious.
Read more here
This fact was drilled home again Tuesday when two arrests were made in a murder case that started back in March 2011. The investigation kept going until two suspects were arraigned, and it’s still not really over. On television, the detective and the forensic examiners almost always find a crucial piece of evidence right away. They have that classic gut feeling that this paint chip or that drop of blood is important. Well, real-life detectives find lots of evidence, too, and get their gut feelings or suspicions, but not all of the evidence is something you can take to court for a warrant. Not everything is immediately obvious.
Read more here
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The Skeptical Juror and the Texas Condemned Man
He is an unlikely watchdog over the criminal justice system, a 64-year-old former aerospace engineer from Southern California with no formal legal training. Yet his blog, The Skeptical Juror, has rapidly become must-reading for journalists, lawyers and lay persons interested in wrongful conviction cases that otherwise might escape attention.
Meet the man behind the blog, J. Bennett Allen, who stopped an injustice in its tracks as a juror in a 2007 child molestation trial. Allen, the foreperson, came to believe the defendant was innocent. The 11 other jurors thought otherwise. Using his training as an engineer, Allen skeptically questioned each piece of evidence until -- in a scene that reprised Henry Fonda's 12 Angry Men -- he converted all but two of the jurors. The judge declared a mistrial, the defendant was eventually freed and Allen morphed from a skeptical juror to The Skeptical Juror.
Read more here
Meet the man behind the blog, J. Bennett Allen, who stopped an injustice in its tracks as a juror in a 2007 child molestation trial. Allen, the foreperson, came to believe the defendant was innocent. The 11 other jurors thought otherwise. Using his training as an engineer, Allen skeptically questioned each piece of evidence until -- in a scene that reprised Henry Fonda's 12 Angry Men -- he converted all but two of the jurors. The judge declared a mistrial, the defendant was eventually freed and Allen morphed from a skeptical juror to The Skeptical Juror.
Read more here
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Swoyersville man sentenced for selling cigarettes, marijuana to inmates
Donald Lykon used to shake down inmates for contraband. On Monday, he was told to join them for selling it to them. Senior U.S. District Judge James M. Munley sentenced the former corrections officer at United States Penitentiary-Canaan to 18 months in federal prison for smuggling contraband into the high-security Wayne County prison and taking thousands of dollars in bribes. Joined by his wife, Kimberly, who was also sentenced for her role in the scheme, Lykon blamed his addiction to drugs for his lapse in judgement - surreptitiously hauling marijuana, cellphones, and cigarettes into the prison for inmates so he could line his pockets with cash.
"I am deeply sorry for what I have done," he told Munley before his sentence was handed down.
Munley offered a blunt assessment of what Lykon had done to the criminal justice system, as a corrections officer who is supposed to uphold the law.
"I just want you to know how low of a conduct this is," Munley bellowed. "There is no compassion."
Lykon's choice to smuggle contraband into a prison "eats away at the whole damn system" of law and order and puts other corrections officers at risk, the judge said.
Read more here
"I am deeply sorry for what I have done," he told Munley before his sentence was handed down.
Munley offered a blunt assessment of what Lykon had done to the criminal justice system, as a corrections officer who is supposed to uphold the law.
"I just want you to know how low of a conduct this is," Munley bellowed. "There is no compassion."
Lykon's choice to smuggle contraband into a prison "eats away at the whole damn system" of law and order and puts other corrections officers at risk, the judge said.
Read more here
Monday, August 20, 2012
Why psychopathy may not be the best defense
Should a diagnosis of psychopathy be reason to sentence a criminal lightly or extend time behind bars?
According to new research, judges are likely to add prison time to the sentences of psychopaths, who are known for a lack of empathy and poor impulse control. However, the tougher sentence is not quite as severe when the judges are given a biological explanation for the disorder.
In other words, the researchers write today (Aug. 16) in the journal Science, a psychopathy diagnosis is a "doubled-edged sword" — seen by the criminal justice system as both an aggravating and mitigating factor.
"It's interesting to us that the same piece of information could have very different implications for how we treat the defendant and judge what he would do in the future," study researcher Lisa Aspinwall, a social psychologist at the University of Utah, told LiveScience.
Read more here
According to new research, judges are likely to add prison time to the sentences of psychopaths, who are known for a lack of empathy and poor impulse control. However, the tougher sentence is not quite as severe when the judges are given a biological explanation for the disorder.
In other words, the researchers write today (Aug. 16) in the journal Science, a psychopathy diagnosis is a "doubled-edged sword" — seen by the criminal justice system as both an aggravating and mitigating factor.
"It's interesting to us that the same piece of information could have very different implications for how we treat the defendant and judge what he would do in the future," study researcher Lisa Aspinwall, a social psychologist at the University of Utah, told LiveScience.
Read more here
Friday, August 17, 2012
More Deaths Go Unchecked as Autopsy Rate Falls to “Miserably Low” Levels
Nearly 7,000 people die each day in the United States, and according to a new report, there remains a critical shortage of experts trained to determine their cause of death. The study, conducted by a research group working under the auspices of the Department of Justice, noted a “miserably low” national autopsy rate of 8.5 percent, with only about 4.3 percent of disease-caused deaths resulting in an autopsy. Autopsies are crucial because in instances of natural death, they enhance how medical experts understand disease, and can even help family members discover whether a relative died from an undiagnosed hereditary illness. In instances of homicide, they can provide crucial clues to investigators.
But the undersupply of medical examiners is far from the only challenge. As FRONTLINE’s Lowell Bergman reported last winter in the film Post Mortem, the nation’s approach to death investigation is one plagued by widespread dysfunction. There is no federal oversight of death investigators, and accreditation is voluntary. In more than 1,300 counties across the country, elected politicians are in charge of death investigation.
Read more here
But the undersupply of medical examiners is far from the only challenge. As FRONTLINE’s Lowell Bergman reported last winter in the film Post Mortem, the nation’s approach to death investigation is one plagued by widespread dysfunction. There is no federal oversight of death investigators, and accreditation is voluntary. In more than 1,300 counties across the country, elected politicians are in charge of death investigation.
Read more here
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Women at forefront of booming forensic science field
In the middle of a July heat wave, a circle of students knelt around a hole in the ground in a partly shaded grove at George Mason University, digging for dead bodies. While gnats clung to their sweat, Amanda Guszak and her classmates filled five-gallon drums with discarded soil. Their professors, former crime scene investigators in Prince William County, broke the tedium with stories about their days on the police force — the time one exhumed the soupy graveyard remains of a puppy mill or the homicide scenes they worked with vultures circling overhead.
Finally the students’ hand trowels hit two mounds. They heard the telltale buzzing of flies, inhaled the acrid whiff of rot. “It doesn’t smell that bad,” Guszak, 24, said hopefully, as they began digging to reveal what classmates had buried for the exercise. A theory emerged: double raccoon-icide. These are the graduate school days Guszak likes best, working on mock crime scenes that preview what a career as a death investigator working for a medical examiner might be like. So far, she’s optimistic. “It’s everything you see on TV and more,” she said.
Read more here
Finally the students’ hand trowels hit two mounds. They heard the telltale buzzing of flies, inhaled the acrid whiff of rot. “It doesn’t smell that bad,” Guszak, 24, said hopefully, as they began digging to reveal what classmates had buried for the exercise. A theory emerged: double raccoon-icide. These are the graduate school days Guszak likes best, working on mock crime scenes that preview what a career as a death investigator working for a medical examiner might be like. So far, she’s optimistic. “It’s everything you see on TV and more,” she said.
Read more here
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Nearly 3.4 Million Violent Crimes Per Year Went Unreported To Police From 2006 To 2010
More than half of the nation's violent crimes, or nearly 3.4 million violent victimizations per year, went unreported to the police between 2006 and 2010, according to a new report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Using data from BJS's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), this new report examines characteristics of unreported victimizations, the reasons victims did not report crimes and trends from 1994 to 2010 in the types of crime not reported to police.
The percentage of violent and property crimes that went unreported to police declined from 1994 to 2010. Across the 17-year period, victims most commonly did not report violent victimizations to the police because they dealt with the crime in another way, such as reporting it to another official or handling it privately. Among unreported violent victimizations, the percentage of victims who believed the police would not or could not help doubled, from 10 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2010.
Read more here
The percentage of violent and property crimes that went unreported to police declined from 1994 to 2010. Across the 17-year period, victims most commonly did not report violent victimizations to the police because they dealt with the crime in another way, such as reporting it to another official or handling it privately. Among unreported violent victimizations, the percentage of victims who believed the police would not or could not help doubled, from 10 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2010.
Read more here
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Times Square Shooting: This is Why Police Shoot to Kill
Police Officers don't shoot to wound.
At approximately 3 p.m. Saturday, police fired a dozen rounds at knife wielding, 51-year-old Darrius Kennedy, shooting him in the center of Times Square. And each shot had behind it good reason, good cause, and good training. The Daily News reports it wasn't seconds after the shots rang out that bystanders started voicing protest at the NYPD's use of force. In fact, Kennedy's parents have since come out against the NYPD, saying the officers in question did not show enough restraint.
Those two officers had never once fired a shot in the field. Not to mention, the NYPD altogether killed only 8 people in all of 2011. Kennedy had gone wild, and was blasted in the face no less than six times with pepper spray. He wiped it off, say police officers, and continued on his path, unperturbed by calls to cease and desist. It's at this point that officers fear for the lives and welfare of innocent bystanders. They also know they're dealing with an EMD, or emotionally disturbed person, likely to act even more unpredictably when confronted.
Read more here
Monday, August 13, 2012
The Textual Body; Or, The Birth of Criminal Forensics
Today, we all know more about pathology and criminal forensics than the greatest medical experts of the 19th century did in their day. CSI and modern crime fiction have educated all of us in the finer points of profiling, DNA, MO, blood-drop study, and trace analysis. We have an intensely scientific appreciation of investigation.
The first detectives, however, had no such useful knowledge. They were totally in the dark.
Before forensics, police work was little more than a cat-and-mouse game. A crime was committed, the criminal would vanish, and the detectives would have to search an entire city in hopes of catching their prey. It didn’t help that the police were often bound by rules and regulations, while the thieves and killers were obviously not. (For example, many crimes in Victorian London were timed to coincide with the period when police shifts relieved each other.)
Read more here
The first detectives, however, had no such useful knowledge. They were totally in the dark.
Before forensics, police work was little more than a cat-and-mouse game. A crime was committed, the criminal would vanish, and the detectives would have to search an entire city in hopes of catching their prey. It didn’t help that the police were often bound by rules and regulations, while the thieves and killers were obviously not. (For example, many crimes in Victorian London were timed to coincide with the period when police shifts relieved each other.)
Read more here
Friday, August 10, 2012
Panel seeks to clarify incarceration policies
San Francisco’s criminal justice community wants to lead the way in changing how California sentences criminals and how they are monitored when they are released from prisons. The reform push comes as The City begins to handle an influx of newly released inmates as a result of realignment — the process of freeing some nonviolent offenders due to overcrowding in state prisons. On Wednesday, the first meeting of San Francisco’s newly established Sentencing Commission started talks about a yearslong project to create new policies that will draw a distinction between offenders who deserve prison time and others who might benefit instead from restorative justice programs and services.
The discussion falls amid of an uptick in gun violence. On Tuesday, police Chief Greg Suhr expressed concern about some of the 400 inmates who have been freed since October to local jails and probation programs. Suhr suggested that although the released inmates served time for nonviolent offenses, many have records that include convictions for violent crimes as well. The chief’s comments came during a news conference with Mayor Ed Lee to discuss a decision to abandon a potential stop-and-frisk policy that has faced mounting controversy. Instead of randomly searching people police deem suspicious, Suhr said officers will simply have to be more vigilant monitoring parolees at risk of reoffending.
Read more here
The discussion falls amid of an uptick in gun violence. On Tuesday, police Chief Greg Suhr expressed concern about some of the 400 inmates who have been freed since October to local jails and probation programs. Suhr suggested that although the released inmates served time for nonviolent offenses, many have records that include convictions for violent crimes as well. The chief’s comments came during a news conference with Mayor Ed Lee to discuss a decision to abandon a potential stop-and-frisk policy that has faced mounting controversy. Instead of randomly searching people police deem suspicious, Suhr said officers will simply have to be more vigilant monitoring parolees at risk of reoffending.
Read more here
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Glowing Electrified Fingerprints Are the Future of Forensics
In the future, everything glows, and that includes the fingerprints left behind at the scene of future crimes.
Despite the fact that fingerprints are just about everywhere, they are notoriously hard to see. Tranditional methods of picking them out usually involve some sort of dust or powder, and can sometimes destroy the precious prints in the process of pointing them out. With a process called Electrochemiluminescence, researchers have been able to come up with a new way to see prints: coating them in chemicals and electrifying them until they glow.
The process, as explained over at PhysOrg, works by transferring a print to a sheet of stainless steel which serves as an electrode and coating it with a combination of a ruthenium complex and tripropylamine. Then, when you turn on the juice, the solution will begin to glow. The fatty, greasy matter that makes up the fingerprint blocks the solution from the electrode, so the result is a high-resolution, glowing negative of the fingerprint in question. If you don’t want a negative, you just need to whip up a version of the chemical solution that bonds to the fingerprints fatty residue instead of being repelled by it.
Read more here.
Despite the fact that fingerprints are just about everywhere, they are notoriously hard to see. Tranditional methods of picking them out usually involve some sort of dust or powder, and can sometimes destroy the precious prints in the process of pointing them out. With a process called Electrochemiluminescence, researchers have been able to come up with a new way to see prints: coating them in chemicals and electrifying them until they glow.
The process, as explained over at PhysOrg, works by transferring a print to a sheet of stainless steel which serves as an electrode and coating it with a combination of a ruthenium complex and tripropylamine. Then, when you turn on the juice, the solution will begin to glow. The fatty, greasy matter that makes up the fingerprint blocks the solution from the electrode, so the result is a high-resolution, glowing negative of the fingerprint in question. If you don’t want a negative, you just need to whip up a version of the chemical solution that bonds to the fingerprints fatty residue instead of being repelled by it.
Read more here.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Computer Forensics: Identifying, Recovering, Preserving, & Analyzing Digital Media
Computer Forensics is a branch of forensic science that involves the identification, aquisition, preservation, analysis, and reporting of digital forensic evidence on computer systems. When performing computer forensics, data recovery is performed in a forensically sound manner, following specific guidelines and techniques. The techniques and guidelines used in computer forensics are utilized so that any digital media or data collected is done so in a way in which it can be presented in court as legal evidence.
Although anybody can benefit from computer forensics, forensic specialists are typically hired by lawyers or other legal practitioners. With computers being a huge part of our everyday life, and a necessity to run most businesses, there is a massive amount of information stored on them. Everything from emails, personal information, pictures, sensitive documents, and more are stored on computers.
Read more here.
Although anybody can benefit from computer forensics, forensic specialists are typically hired by lawyers or other legal practitioners. With computers being a huge part of our everyday life, and a necessity to run most businesses, there is a massive amount of information stored on them. Everything from emails, personal information, pictures, sensitive documents, and more are stored on computers.
Read more here.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
FBI’s Facial Recognition is Coming to a State Near You .
Recently-released documents show that the FBI has been working since late 2011 with four states—Michigan, Hawaii, Maryland, and possibly Oregon—to ramp up the Next Generation Identification (NGI) Facial Recognition Program. When the program is fully deployed in 2014, the FBI expects its facial recognition database will contain at least 12 million “searchable frontal photos.”
The documents, which the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) obtained from a recent meeting of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Advisory Policy Board,1 shed new light on the FBI’s plans for NGI—the Bureau's massive biometrics database that combines fingerprints, iris scans, palm prints, facial recognition and extensive biographical data collected from over 100 million Americans.
The Advisory Board documents show that FBI's database of facial images will provide search results automatically (the system won't need to rely on a human to check the results before forwarding them to the state or local agency) and that the FBI is developing "Universal Face Workstation software" to allow states that don't have their own "Face/Photo search capabilities" to search through the FBI's images.
Read more here.
The documents, which the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) obtained from a recent meeting of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Advisory Policy Board,1 shed new light on the FBI’s plans for NGI—the Bureau's massive biometrics database that combines fingerprints, iris scans, palm prints, facial recognition and extensive biographical data collected from over 100 million Americans.
The Advisory Board documents show that FBI's database of facial images will provide search results automatically (the system won't need to rely on a human to check the results before forwarding them to the state or local agency) and that the FBI is developing "Universal Face Workstation software" to allow states that don't have their own "Face/Photo search capabilities" to search through the FBI's images.
Read more here.
Monday, August 6, 2012
From Prison to a Paycheck
Hector Morales might not seem, at first, to be an American success story. At age 50, he works the graveyard shift—7 p.m. to 5 a.m.—at the back of a garbage truck, part of a three-man crew that lifts and loads 80,000 pounds of waste each night in New York City. It’s his first job in years. The native of Paterson, N.J., a high-school dropout, still owes more than $9,000 in child-support payments to the state of New Jersey. But compared with Mr. Morales’s situation a year ago, his story is a success.
Then, he was completing a five-year sentence at the Northern State Prison in Newark, N.J. The former heroin addict has spent, by his own estimate, 18 years behind bars, mostly on drug-related charges. Today, Newark-based Action Carting, one of the largest commercial disposal firms operating in New York, considers Mr. Morales to be a model employee and a good prospect for promotion if he completes his plan to get a commercial truck driver’s license. Currently, he’s on track to earn more than $60,000 a year, including overtime. Every week, part of his check goes to pay off his child-support debt.
Read more here.
Then, he was completing a five-year sentence at the Northern State Prison in Newark, N.J. The former heroin addict has spent, by his own estimate, 18 years behind bars, mostly on drug-related charges. Today, Newark-based Action Carting, one of the largest commercial disposal firms operating in New York, considers Mr. Morales to be a model employee and a good prospect for promotion if he completes his plan to get a commercial truck driver’s license. Currently, he’s on track to earn more than $60,000 a year, including overtime. Every week, part of his check goes to pay off his child-support debt.
Read more here.
Friday, August 3, 2012
State's prison population declines
The surest sign of Florida’s plummeting crime rate: For the first time in 28 years, the Sunshine State will have a smaller prison population than it did in the previous year. The lower number of prisoners and the drop in the crime rate are having a ripple effect throughout the criminal justice system that should ultimately curb rising costs in the $2 billion-a-year prison system.
Some of that was reflected in the new state budget, which Gov. Rick Scott said contained about $100 million in “savings,” with $75 million related to closing of operations no longer needed because of less crime and fewer prisoners. Part of that money will be redirected into prevention and rehabilitation programs.
Florida’s prison population is now projected to dip below 100,000 by this fall and stay there for the next five years, according to a new criminal justice estimate. The numbers stood at 100,527 inmates on June 30, compared with 102,319 inmates at the end of June 2011, Florida Department of Corrections data shows.
Read more here
Some of that was reflected in the new state budget, which Gov. Rick Scott said contained about $100 million in “savings,” with $75 million related to closing of operations no longer needed because of less crime and fewer prisoners. Part of that money will be redirected into prevention and rehabilitation programs.
Florida’s prison population is now projected to dip below 100,000 by this fall and stay there for the next five years, according to a new criminal justice estimate. The numbers stood at 100,527 inmates on June 30, compared with 102,319 inmates at the end of June 2011, Florida Department of Corrections data shows.
Read more here
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Lyndhurst podiatrist's forensics testimony helps clear man of murder in celebrated New Zealand trial
One certainly does not associate the work of a podiatrist with helping to free a man accused in a murder case from life in prison. But, if that podiatrist also doubles as a forensic podiatrist, such an occurrence can come about.
Dr. Michael Forman, a Pepper Pike resident who practices in the Brainard Place medical building, 29001 Cedar Road in Lyndhurst, decided about four years ago that he wanted to add a little spice to his practice and pursued a podiatric forensics degree. A forensic podiatrist deals with shoeprints and footprints found at crime scenes.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Forman said, “but I wanted to try something different.”
Part of Forman’s study was done with FBI shoeprint expert William Bodziak, who testified during the O.J. Simpson trial as to bloody shoeprints found at the murder scene made by Bruno Magli shoes. In the end, all of Forman’s work paid off in a big way for a New Zealand defendant.
While most forensic podiatrists are called in to give supplemental testimony as a defense or prosecuting lawyer builds a case, Forman’s work in the Scott Guy murder case in far-off New Zealand proved to be decisive in the finding of Ewan Macdonald not guilty of a murder charge.
“It was the most famous criminal case in the history of New Zealand jurisprudence, similar to the O.J. case in the U.S.,” Forman noted.
Read more here.
Dr. Michael Forman, a Pepper Pike resident who practices in the Brainard Place medical building, 29001 Cedar Road in Lyndhurst, decided about four years ago that he wanted to add a little spice to his practice and pursued a podiatric forensics degree. A forensic podiatrist deals with shoeprints and footprints found at crime scenes.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Forman said, “but I wanted to try something different.”
Part of Forman’s study was done with FBI shoeprint expert William Bodziak, who testified during the O.J. Simpson trial as to bloody shoeprints found at the murder scene made by Bruno Magli shoes. In the end, all of Forman’s work paid off in a big way for a New Zealand defendant.
While most forensic podiatrists are called in to give supplemental testimony as a defense or prosecuting lawyer builds a case, Forman’s work in the Scott Guy murder case in far-off New Zealand proved to be decisive in the finding of Ewan Macdonald not guilty of a murder charge.
“It was the most famous criminal case in the history of New Zealand jurisprudence, similar to the O.J. case in the U.S.,” Forman noted.
Read more here.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Novel lens enhances forensic fingerprinting technique
The CERA technology is now able to extract fingerprints from discharged cartridge cases, not visible by any other means. The scenes of many crimes involving firearms, where spent cartridge cases are the only evidence recovered, has traditionally posed a particular challenge for forensic scientists. Using fingerprints, caused by corrosive sweat, on brass metal cartridge cases has enjoyed some recent success in producing identifiable fingerprints where conventional techniques have failed.
After insertion of the spent cartridge case the Consolite CERA system starts out by automatically measuring the size and shape of the casing, and then distributes a powder over the surface in a uniform and carefully measured way. The powder is attracted to areas of surface corrosion caused by chemicals in the fingerprint deposit.
Once a clear print is obtained the CERA camera, fitted with Resolve Optics lens, collects a number of high resolution images from the circumference of the cartridge and downloads them to special imaging software to create a fingerprint for identification.
Source: http://www.laboratorytalk.com/analytical-instruments/cameras-and-imaging-systems/novel-lens-enhances-forensic-fingerprinting-technique/404538.article
After insertion of the spent cartridge case the Consolite CERA system starts out by automatically measuring the size and shape of the casing, and then distributes a powder over the surface in a uniform and carefully measured way. The powder is attracted to areas of surface corrosion caused by chemicals in the fingerprint deposit.
Once a clear print is obtained the CERA camera, fitted with Resolve Optics lens, collects a number of high resolution images from the circumference of the cartridge and downloads them to special imaging software to create a fingerprint for identification.
Source: http://www.laboratorytalk.com/analytical-instruments/cameras-and-imaging-systems/novel-lens-enhances-forensic-fingerprinting-technique/404538.article
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