Forensic Social

This fast-paced account of the history of the FBI presents the first balanced and complete portrait of the powerful and oft-criticized institution. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones offers a new take on the origins and mission of the bureau, the significance of J. Edgar Hoover’s term as director, the bureau’s pre-emptive anti-terrorist capabilities before and after 9/11, and more.

Absolute Madness tells the disturbing true story of Joseph Christopher, a white serial killer who targeted black males and struck fear into the residents of Buffalo and New York City in the 1980s. Dubbed both the .22-Caliber Killer and the Midtown Slasher, Christopher allegedly claimed eighteen victims during a savage four-month spree across the state.

After a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater’s freedom.

Audrey Edmunds was a happily married young mother of two with a baby on the way; the neighborhood soccer mom in a small Wisconsin town providing casual childcare when the unthinkable happened. An infant died in her care at the same time the unknown science of Shaken Baby Syndrome hit the media. Swept up in a media frenzy, Edmunds was accused of killing the child through SBS. She was stripped from her children and husband and sent to prison where she would fight for freedom 13 years before she was finally exonerated.

Picking up where Berton Roueche's The Medical Detectives left off, The Deadly Dinner Party presents 15 edge-of-your-seat, real-life medical detective stories written by a practicing physician. Award-winning author Jonathan Edlow, MD, shows the doctor as detective and the epidemiologist as elite sleuth in stories that are as gripping as the best thrillers.

Blood, Powder, and Residue goes inside a metropolitan crime laboratory to shed light on the complex social forces that underlie the analysis of forensic evidence. Blood, Powder, and Residue offers a vivid and sometimes harrowing picture of the lives of highly trained experts tasked with translating their knowledge for others who depend on it to deliver justice.

Nobody's Child traces the legal definition of "insanity" back to its inception in Victorian Britain nearly 200 years ago, from when our understanding of the human mind was in its infancy, to today, when questions of race, class, and ability so often determine who is legally "insane" and who is criminally guilty. Vinocour explains how "competency" and "insanity" are creatures of a legal system, not of psychiatric reality, and how, in criminal law, the insanity defense has too often been a luxury of the rich and white.

Why do we consider incest wrong, even when it occurs between consenting adults unable to have children? Why are words that gross us out more likely to be deemed "obscene" and denied the protection of the First Amendment? In Objection, psychologists Debra Lieberman and Carlton Patrick examine disgust and its impact on the legal system to show why the things that we find stomach-turning so often become the things that we render unlawful.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, an epidemic swept Europe: arsenic poisoning. Available at any corner shop for a few pence, arsenic was so frequently used by potential beneficiaries of wills that it was nicknamed "the inheritor's powder." But it was difficult to prove that a victim had been poisoned, let alone to identify the contaminated food or drink since arsenic was tasteless. Then came a riveting case.

Lydia Benecke, Co-Autorin des Long- und Bestsellers "Aus der Dunkelkammer des Bösen" geht dem Ursprung des Bösen nach. Die Gefängnispsychologin, Fachfrau für besondere Vorlieben (Paraphilien) und erfahrene Ansprechpartnerin für Kriminalermittler nimmt uns mit auf einen Streifzug der Delikte, die uns alle in unserer Gegenwart so beschäftigen: U-Bahn-Schläger, rohe Gewalt, Amokläufer, Tierquälerei, Sadismus, Kannibalismus, Kindesmissbrauch und brutale Misshandlung. Was geht in so einem Täter nur vor? Und wie nah dran sind diese schrecklichen Taten an den ganz normalen Fantasien, die jeder von uns schon einmal hatte?

What motivates those who commit violence in the name of political beliefs? Terrorism today is not solely the preserve of Islam, nor is it a new phenomenon. It emerges from social processes and conditions common to societies throughout modern history, and the story of its origins spans centuries, encompassing numerous radical and revolutionary movements. Marc Sageman is a forensic psychiatrist and government counter-terrorism consultant whose bestselling books provide a detailed, damning corrective to commonplace yet simplistic notions of Islamist terrorism.

Du bist keine Marionette! Lass dich nicht mehr austricksen! Manche Menschen üben offen Druck auf andere aus, andere verfügen über einen unerklärlichen Einfluss und wieder andere wirken offen und ehrlich, verbergen aber ihr wahres Gesicht hinter perfiden Strategien. Wir sind täglich Manipulationen und unterschwelligen Machtspielen ausgesetzt. Blender, Narzissten, Psychopathinnen, Soziopathen, Traumatisierte, Mobberinnen, Stalkerinnen und Lügner sind mitten unter uns!

Any murder causes pain and suffering that ripple through families and communities - of both the victims and the perpetrators - but premeditated murders cause the worst kind of damage. The Allure of Premeditated Murder is about the worst kinds of premeditated homicide in which the perpetrator plans an attack over a period of days, weeks, or months, leaving behind massive carnage and unspeakable suffering. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with murderers, sociologists Jack Levin and Julie B. Wiest help listeners understand why such vicious murders occur.

Psychopathen? Die großen Massenmörder der Gegenwart fallen einem ein, die Amokläufer, die Gemeingefährlichen. Doch es sind nicht nur jene aus den Schlagzeilen, die unser Leben bedrohen. Es sind die Nachbarn, die aus fadenscheinigen Gründen einen Streit vom Gartenzaun brechen, die falschen Freunde, die unsere Energie und Kraft rauben, die Mobber im Büro. Die unsichtbaren Wunden, die sie uns zufügen, sind die wahre Gefahr. Es sind psychische, finanzielle oder emotionale Verletzungen - und die sind oft verheerend.

Helena Greenwood, a doctor with a Ph.D. in chemical pathology, was working in biotechnology when she was the victim of sexual assault. She survived and was scheduled to testify against her attacker until she was found brutally murdered in her garden. Everyone believed the killer was her past attacker; but there was not enough evidence to convict him, until ten years later when a local District Attorney working the "cold cases" used Helena's own DNA research to finally bring her killer to justice.

"That's not my fingerprint, your honor", said the defendant, after FBI experts reported a "100-percent identification". They were wrong. It is shocking how often they are. Autopsy of a Crime Lab is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms. In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon L. Garrett poses the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day....

Manchmal "überfällt" es jede*n von uns: das Böse. Warum habe ich böse Gedanken? Neige ich zur Gewalt? Wie gehe ich mit ihnen um, aus psychologischer, aber auch spiritueller (in weitester Sicht) Perspektive? Die Forensische Psychiatrie hat verschiedene Erklärungsansätze für böses Handeln. Warum der Mensch aber überhaupt zum Bösen befähigt ist, bedarf einer Vernetzung mit Antworten der Entwicklungspsychologie, der Hirnforschung, Epigenetik, bei der auch der spirituelle Blick auf das Menschsein nicht fehlen sollte.

This book will cover DNA links to convictions and acquittals. The long link of DNA evidence is vast. That many convictions were overturned because of DNA evidence or that many years after convictions individuals were set free. Privacy issues are also in question. Many countries have different regulations due to new laws surrounding the length of time that DNA is stored. The varying strands of this innovative forensic evidence collection is also in jeopardy.

On November 23, 1849, in the heart of Boston, one of the city's richest men vanished. Dr. George Parkman, a Brahmin who owned much of Boston's West End, was last seen that afternoon visiting his alma mater, Harvard Medical School. Police scoured city tenements and the harbor - some leads put Parkman at sea or in Manhattan - but a Harvard janitor held a much darker suspicion: that their ruthless benefactor had never even left the Medical School building. His shocking discovery engulfed America in one of its most infamous trials.

From Sandy Hook, Connecticut, to Aurora, Colorado, to Tucson, Arizona, this nation has been racked from coast to coast with mass shootings perpetrated by criminals with sick minds. Authors Dr. Liebert and Dr. Birnes believe the increase in violence is an epidemic and dig deep into the causes of mental illness to determine what exactly is going on with these individuals and society as a whole, and what action can be taken to slow this frightening trend toward mass violence.