scholarly journals More than an offender location tool: Geographic profiling and body deposition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Berezowski ◽  
Xanthé Mallett ◽  
Douglas Macgregor ◽  
Ian Moffat ◽  
Justin R Ellis

In homicide cases, it is difficult to provide resolution for the bereaved or to obtain a successful criminal conviction of the guilty party when no body is found. Since the mid-nineteenth century, geographic and environmental patterns have been used to better understand the relationship between crime and its environment. Now known as geographic profiling, practitioners in this field amalgamate criminological, psychological, and geographical knowledge, as well as aspects of mathematics, statistics, and physics to identify spatial patterns associated with criminal behaviour as a means of locating anchor points of an offender (where they live, or work). The same techniques can also be used to locate the covert body deposition sites of their victims. This paper aims to (1) provide a brief summary of criminal behaviour and the environment and how understanding their relationship can be helpful to geographic profiling, (2) amalgamate the available literature on the application of geographic profiling in locating clandestine graves (as most documented uses are to locate offender residences), and (3) include a geographic profile of Ivan Milat, an Australian serial killer (officially) active from 1989 to 1992, demonstrating how geographic profiling techniques can help to identify additional victims and potential body deposition sites. The information in this review will be helpful to law enforcement and practitioners to improve missing persons investigations and searches for clandestine graves.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
Pier Matteo Barone ◽  
Rosa Maria Di Maggio ◽  
Silvia Mesturini

Despite widespread concern over missing persons, there has always been little clarity on what the word “missing” means. Although the category of young runaways is, indeed, an important cluster, other popular concepts related to disappearances describe a portion of missing persons. Thus, the following question persists: What exactly does “missing” mean? In this brief communication, we would like to open a discussion about the social phenomenon of missing persons and the consequent deployment of people and techniques to find those persons. In particular, the benefits of some forensic geoarchaeological approaches that are not yet fully standardized will be highlighted, such as geographic profiling and the use of multispectral satellite images, in order to provide materials for future searching protocols.


Author(s):  
Stephanie Do ◽  
Dan Nathan-Roberts

Although online sex work has become more accessible to people of all socio-economic statuses, labor practices and work safety have not improved since the widespread use of the internet. One way that we can help empower sex workers is to understand their motivations and experiences when using the internet. In a survey conducted by Sanders et al. (2017), the highest crime that 56.2% sex workers experienced was being threatened or harassed through texts, calls, and emails. Because there is no theory application to date on this marginalized group, three theories were proposed. This literature review highlights the need to explore why sex workers, as end-users, should be included in the user cybersecurity defense conversation, such as the cybercrimes that they face, their relationship with law enforcement, and what other factors affect their safety.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 100-105
Author(s):  
D. A. Bezborodov ◽  
◽  
R. M. Kravchenko ◽  

The article deals with issues related to the characteristics of the qualification of causing injury or death to an athlete during sports events. The article analyzes the possibility of applying the provisions of certain circumstances that exclude the criminality of the act. Take into account that the relationship between the participants of sports competitions and sports training, while relationships at the same time are not regulated by the law and sports regulations sports, and the internal rules of sports organizations, defining the organization of the training process. Therefore, the issues related to the influence of special rules regulating the procedure for conducting sports competitions and other sporting events on the features of criminal liability (in particular, guilt), both athletes and other persons who ensure the conduct of sports events, are studied specifically. It is taken into account that modern legislation and law enforcement often ignores this requirement, which, in particular, is expressed in the failure to include the facts of sports injuries in the list of crimes in the field of sports. First of all, the article analyzes the issues of criminal-legal assessment of an athlete's act in the event of injury to health or death to another athlete, given that in sports, harm is usually caused unintentionally, by negligence. Therefore, the work analyzes the risks, harm to health, as well as measures that should have been taken by the organizers of the competition to avoid causing harm, taking into account that all these issues are evaluative. The characteristic of harming an athlete while observing the rules of events by his opponent is given. The question of how the rules relating to a particular sport can exempt a person from liability for causing harm is being investigated.


Author(s):  
V. V. Soloviev, ◽  
S. V. Yushkin ◽  
S. V. Maksimov*

The article examines the etymology and prehistory of the introduction of the institution of antimonopoly compliance in Russian business practice, the relationship of this institution with the institution of general compliance. The article considers the definition of the concept of antimonopoly compliance, enshrined in the new article 91 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition".The authors propose their own definition of the concept of antimonopoly compliance as an activity of an economic entity aimed at ensuring compliance with antimonopoly legislation by employees of an economic entity and an economic entity as a whole by preventing and suppressing violations of the requirements of such legislation and regulatory legal and law enforcement acts based on it.The authors also substantiate the advisability of developing a special national standard GOST R "System of internal compliance with the requirements of antimonopoly legislation (antimonopoly compliance system) of an economic entity".It is noted that the effectiveness of the antimonopoly compliance system will depend not only on the ability of an economic entity to form an antimonopoly compliance system on the basis of an appropriate national standard, but also on the state's ability to determine and guarantee effective incentives to comply with antimonopoly legislation.The authors substantiate the advisability of supplementing the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation with provisions that provide for the obligation and limits to reduce the amount of punishment or replace the punishment with a softer one in the event of an anticompetitive administrative offense by a person who has implemented an effective system of antimonopoly compliance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (04) ◽  
pp. 571-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Miller ◽  
Dennis Orwat ◽  
Gelareh Rahimi ◽  
Jacobo Mintzer

ABSTRACTIntroduction:The relationship between Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and alcohol addiction is poorly characterized. Arrests for driving under the influence (DUI) can serve as a proxy for alcohol addiction. Therefore, the potential association between DUI and AD could be helpful in understanding the relationship between alcohol abuse and AD.Materials and methods:A retrospective, population-based cohort study using state health and law enforcement data was performed. The study cross-referenced 141,281 South Carolina Alzheimer’s Disease Registry cases with state law enforcement data.Results:Of the 2,882 registry cases (1.4%) found to have a history of at least one DUI arrest, cases were predominantly White (58.7%) and male (77.4%). Results showed a correlation coefficient of 0.7 (p < 0.0001) between the age of first DUI arrest and the age of AD diagnosis. A dose-response relationship between the number of DUIs and age of AD onset was found to exist, where those with a history of DUI arrest were diagnosed an average of 9.1 years earlier, with a further 1.8 years earlier age at diagnosis in those with two or more arrests for DUI. A history of DUI arrest was also found to be negatively associated with survival after diagnosis, with a 10% decreased life expectancy in those with a DUI arrest history.Conclusions:Driving under the influence, a potential indicator of alcohol addiction, is associated with an earlier onset of AD registry diagnosis and shortened survival after diagnosis. This study contributes to the growing body of evidence suggesting that some cases of AD are alcohol related and, possibly, postponable or preventable.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Arseniy A. Scherbinin ◽  

The article is devoted to the analysis of the key problems that public authorities face in their law enforcement practice when the question arises of the relationship between freedom of religion and freedom of entrepreneurial activity, as well as the search for an optimal solution in order to establish a fair balance between them.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlatka Bilas ◽  
Mile Bošnjak ◽  
Sanja Franc

The aim of this paper is to establish and clarify the relationship between corruption level and development among European Union countries. Out of the estimated model in this paper one can conclude that the level of corruption can explain capital abundance differences among European Union countries. Also, explanatory power of corruption is higher in explaining economic development than in explaining capital abundance, meaning stronger relationship between corruption level and economic development than between corruption level and capital abundance. There is no doubt that reducing corruption would be beneficial for all countries. Since corruption is a wrongdoing, the rule of law enforcement is of utmost importance. However, root causes of corruption, namely the institutional and social environment: recruiting civil servants on a merit basis, salaries in public sector competitive to the ones in private sector, the role of international institutions in the fight against corruption, and some other corruption characteristics are very important to analyze in order to find effective ways to fight corruption. Further research should go into this direction.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Easter ◽  
Angi Christensen ◽  
Michelle Miller

Locating clandestine graves is often a significant challenge for law enforcement and other investigators. A number of search techniques can be employed including visual assessments, canines, geophysical techniques, and imaging, often depending on the location/terrain, case information, and available resources. Dowsing is believed by some to be a reliable method for locating underground items of interest including water, oil, ore, and even graves; others, however, consider the practice to be controversial or even pseudoscience. Here we assess the ability of dowsing rods (wielded by previously inexperienced dowsers) to locate buried bones using a controlled blind test. Assemblages of bones were buried in three of nine holes. A control group of participants was asked to identify which holes they believed to contain bones by visual inspection, and a test group was asked to identify which holes they believed to contain bones using dowsing rods. Results indicate that neither method had a significant relationship with the true location of the bones (Matthew’s Correlation Coefficient –0.19 for the control group and 0.00 for the test group), and that there was no significant difference between the two groups (p = 0.36). In this study, dowsing was not found to be a reliable method of detecting buried bones. Some practitioners continue to advocate dowsing or other scientifically questionable search methods, even charging investigators or families substantial fees for these services. It is therefore important that such techniques are well-understood and rigorously tested, and that investigators seek and employ methods that are appropriate and valid.


Author(s):  
Dean A. Dabney ◽  
Richard Tewksbury

The actual activities, strategies, and processes of how law enforcement officials work with and manage confidential informants is explicated in this chapter. Here the processes of working within (and around) bureaucratic requirements for establishing and maintaining a relationship with an informant is examined. So too are the many ways that relationships between individual officers and informants are structured and maintained, the costs, benefits, and dangers (personal and professional) of creating a “too close” relationship are outlined and the ways in which such relationships are authentic or manipulative presented. Management of the relationship with an informant, while keeping them motivated, honest and reliable are underscored through reports of relationships, both successful and not.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document