Victim-offender contact has been studied extensively in prisons, but research on contact between victims and mentally disordered offenders in forensic mental health settings is lacking. Therefore, an exploratory study was conducted on contact between victims and offenders in four Dutch forensic psychiatric hospitals. These offenders have committed serious (sexually) violent offenses, for which they could not be held fully responsible due to severe psychopathology. During the mandatory treatment, it is possible for offenders and their victims to engage in contact with each other if both parties agree to this. To explore the conditions under which this contact is suitable, we interviewed 35 social workers about their experiences in 57 cases from four Dutch forensic psychiatric hospitals. Findings demonstrated that, according to the social workers, no type of offense or psychopathology were obvious exclusion criteria for victim-offender contact. Social workers described offenders' problem awareness, stable psychiatric condition, and ability to keep to agreements as important factors that enable victim-offender contact. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.
In the present study, how crime scene investigators are informed before going to a crime scene was investigated. In order to gain more insight in the flow of information from emergency call to crime scene, semi-structured interviews were conducted in three different police regions with six crime scene investigators, six forensic team leaders, and six crime scene investigators.Results indicate that information that crime scene investigators receive before going to a crime scene is usually limited. Most information is provided on-site by the uniformed police officers, forensic medical examiner, and tactical investigation team. This information flow is underexposed, and there are no guidelines about how it is recorded.Even though all parties are provided with limited information, incidents are quickly labelled by emergency call responders and forensic team leaders. The influence of the framing process that occurs as a result is underestimated. Furthermore, emergency call responders and forensic team leaders have different goals in the investigative process and hardly take into account the specific needs of the crime scene investigator. In order to better meet the needs of crime scene investigators, further research about the content of the provided information, as well as at what moment it should be shared, is needed. Also, in order to determine afterward what role information may have played in the decision-making at the crime scene the recording of information should be better safeguarded.
In case of a major cyber incident, organizations usually rely on external providers of Cyber Incident Response (CIR) services. CIR consultants operate in a dynamic and constantly changing environment in which they must actively engage in information management and problem solving while adapting to complex circumstances. In this challenging environment CIR consultants need to make critical decisions about what to advise clients that are impacted by a major cyber incident. Despite its relevance, CIR decision making is an understudied topic. The objective of this preliminary investigation is therefore to understand what decision-making strategies experienced CIR consultants use during challenging incidents and to offer suggestions for training and decision-aiding. A general understanding of operational decision making under pressure, uncertainty, and high stakes was established by reviewing the body of knowledge known as Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM). The general conclusion of NDM research is that experts usually make adequate decisions based on (fast) recognition of the situation and applying the most obvious (default) response pattern that has worked in similar situations in the past. In exceptional situations, however, this way of recognition-primed decision-making results in suboptimal decisions as experts are likely to miss conflicting cues once the situation is quickly recognized under pressure. Understanding the default response pattern and the rare occasions in which this response pattern could be ineffective is therefore key for improving and aiding cyber incident response decision making. Therefore, we interviewed six experienced CIR consultants and used the critical decision method (CDM) to learn how they made decisions under challenging conditions. The main conclusion is that the default response pattern for CIR consultants during cyber breaches is to reduce uncertainty as much as possible by gathering and investigating data and thus delay decision making about eradication until the investigation is completed. According to the respondents, this strategy usually works well and provides the most assurance that the threat actor can be completely removed from the network. However, the majority of respondents could recall at least one case in which this strategy (in hindsight) resulted in unnecessary theft of data or damage. Interestingly, this finding is strikingly different from other operational decision-making domains such as the military, police and fire service in which there is a general tendency to act rapidly instead of searching for more information. The main advice is that training and decision aiding of (novice) cyber incident responders should be aimed at the following: (a) make cyber incident responders aware of how recognition-primed decision making works; (b) discuss the default response strategy that typically works well in several scenarios; (c) explain the exception and how the exception can be recognized; (d) provide alternative response strategies that work better in exceptional situations.
Every year the police are confronted with an ever increasing number of complex cases involving missing persons. About 100 people are reported missing every year in the Netherlands, of which, an unknown number become victims of crime, and presumed buried in clandestine graves. Similarly, according to NWVA, several dead animals are also often buried illegally in clandestine graves in farm lands, which may result in the spread of diseases that have significant consequences to other animals and humans in general. Forensic investigators from both the national police (NP) and NWVA are often confronted with a dilemma: speed versus carefulness and precision. However, the current forensic investigation process of identifying and localizing clandestine graves are often labor intensive, time consuming and employ classical techniques, such as walking sticks and dogs (Police), which are not effective. Therefore, there is an urgent request from the forensic investigators to develop a new method to detect and localize clandestine graves quickly, efficiently and effectively. In this project, together with practitioners, knowledge institutes, SMEs and Field labs, practical research will be carried out to devise a new forensic investigation process to identify clandestine graves using an autonomous Crime Scene Investigative (CSI) drone. The new work process will exploit the newly adopted EU-wide drone regulation that relaxes a number of previously imposed flight restrictions. Moreover, it will effectively optimize the available drone and perception technologies in order to achieve the desired functionality, performance and operational safety in detecting/localizing clandestine graves autonomously. The proposed method will be demonstrated and validated in practical operational environments. This project will also make a demonstrable contribution to the renewal of higher professional education. The police and NVWA will be equipped with operating procedures, legislative knowledge, skills and technological expertise needed to effectively and efficiently performed their forensic investigations.
In het forensisch werkveld staan drie vragen centraal. Het gaat dan om “wie is het”, “wat is er gebeurd” en “wanneer is het gebeurd”. Alle informatie die bijdraagt aan het beantwoorden van deze vragen is waardevol in zaakonderzoeken. Vaak wordt er wel een biologisch spoor gevonden, maar is er geen “match” met de databank. In dit geval kan profileringsinformatie helpen bij het zoeken naar de juiste persoon. Met profilering wordt hier bedoeld een serie stoffen, ook markers genoemd, die informatie geven over de levensstijl van mensen. De levensstijl kan bestaan uit kenmerken, voeding, gewoonten en activiteiten. Een recent voorbeeld van een profileringsmethode is het analyseren van de buitenzijde van mobiele telefoons. Door het hanteren van de telefoon laten mensen zweet en stoffen achter die gekarakteriseerd kunnen worden. Het profiel van deze stoffen geeft een beschrijving van de levensstijl van de eigenaar. In veel zaken zijn er echter geen mobiele telefoon aanwezig, maar wel andere sporen zoals haar. Daarom is er behoefte aan een methode om haar te gebruiken voor profilering. Bovendien geeft haar een indicatie van tijd en gebeurtenissen uit het verleden omdat het langzaam groeit. In principe kan er dan informatie over de drie vragen (wie, wat, wanneer) verzameld worden. Haren worden op dit moment vooral gebruikt voor het meten van drugs, alcohol gebruik, cortisol en nicotine. Er is echter behoefte aan een breder palet van stoffen dat in één keer in haar kan worden gemeten. Het doel van dit onderzoek is daarom het ontwikkelen van een methode waarmee in één analysegang een profiel van circa 15 uiteenlopende markers kan worden gemeten.
