Recently in Race Category

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1h3Ypm/www.brainmysteries.com/research/Recognition_of_facial_expressions_is_not_universal.asp

While we were talking about memory and recalling memories from a crime I began thinking about how people tend to remember facial features differently.  This lead me to the question of how do different races affect the recognition of facial expressions?  Do people of different races really notice different facial features on a perpetrator that may lead them to the conviction of an innocent person? 

 I stumbled upon this article that discusses the recognition of facial expressions between Caucasians and Asians. Research showed that both races looked at different facial features when examining facial expressions.  Caucasians tend to look at the shape of the eyes and mouth, while Asians tend to focus only on the shape of the nose. This article gives an insight on what features people focus on when looking at a person.  I believe this will definitely impact their judgment on who committed a crime when looking at a lineup of suspects. 

I always believed that hate always came from ignorance, anger, and of course fear.  I also believe that it first starts off with ignorance, then fear, and eventually that fear becomes anger.  This web page explains clearly the start of it and the solution of it, but is it really possible to eleminate this type of hate after the world has been exposed to it for years now?  Are people willing to give up such stupidity?  What if they are not ignorant, what if they know better but yet their view remains colorless?  These are just some of the questions I hope you will keep in mind when you read this web page.

http://www.cahro.org/html/hate_crimes.html 

In my Cognitive Psychology textbook, Cognition: Theory and Applications by Reed, there's a box that talks about why we have trouble distinguishing faces of people who are a different race from us.

People are notoriously awful at recognizing faces from other races. It's a human foible often explained by the notion that we have more experience looking at members of our own race and thus acquire "perceptual expertise" for characteristics of our own kind.
One influential version of that hypothesis argues that the so-called cross-race recognition deficit can be modeled by assuming that faces of other races are more psychologically similar than are faces of one's own race. But Daniel Level, PhD, a cognitive psychologist at Kent State University, has been unsatisfied with that argument.
"The perceptual expertise position is pretty intuitive, and it makes sense," he says. "But I'm arguing that it's not really the case. The problem is not that we can't code the details of cross-race faces - it's that we don't."
Instead, he says, people place inordinate emphasis on race categories - whether someone is white, black, or Asian - ignoring information that would help them recognize people as individuals. In recent research, Levin has shown that people can, in fact, perceive fine differences among faces of people from other races - as long as they're using those differences to make race classifications.
For example, Levin explains, "When a white person looks at another white person's nose, they're likely to think to themselves, 'That's John's nose.' When they look at a black person's nose, they're likely to think, "That's a black nose."
The results are important, Levin maintains, because they help explain the long-standing question of why people are poor at recognizing the faces of people who  belong to other racial groups. Such an understanding could be useful in a variety of settings, including training police and others in the justice system to identify faces more accurately.

Source: From "Why do 'they all look alike'?" by Siri Carpenter, Monitor on Psychology, December, 2000, p. 44.

In every country that you go to there will always be people that come from other countries that work with or without citizenship.  For some people being without citizenship means being taken advantage of.  Seems that most farms and factories in Calabria, Southern Italy, did exactly that and worst.

 

http://www.msf.org.uk/violence_exposes_neglect_italy_20100112.news

This is a great website with all sorts of interesting statistics about crimes, hate crimes, and law enforcement officers killed and assaulted. The stats date back to 1995, and they break it down pretty in depth.

This article looks at the case of Maria Teresa Macias. Macias was killed by her husband Avelino Macias.  The Sonoma County Sheriffs Office were the ones dealing with this case. It was states that Maria had contacted the Sheriffs office on more that 22 different occasions leading up to her death.  In this documentation Macias family is suing the Sheriffs department for not acting properly to the act of domestic violence that lead up to the domestic homicide of Maria Teresa Macias. Maria's family claims that the Sheriffs Office neglected to take her case seriously becasue she was not only a women but a latino woman. In this case a expert witness, San Diego Police sergeant Anne O'Dell was brought in to review the case. In the link I provided below you can see the way in which O'Dell went about determining that the Sonoma County Sheriffs office did indeed neglect an attempt to prevent this homicide from happening . O'Dell states that in many case and situations the Sheriffs Office could have responded but simply brushed the numerous 911 phone calls away. Personally I think the article is very interesting. We hear a lot about expert witnesses in trials but I have never actually seen a case in which one has been used and ultimately determined the outcome. I am sure there are many cases out there where this has been the case (otherwise expert witnesses wouldn't be as important as they are).

 

 

http://www.justicewomen.com/witness.html

In class and in this blog, we've talked a lot about shows like CSI, Law & Order, Dexter, Monk, etc.

            http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/12/fort.hood.suspect/index.html

This article is about the Fort Hood Shooting. What makes it relevant is the evidence which it provides, detailing specific events that should have warned supervisors of Major Nidal Hasan to not promote him, or at least be cautious of him. This could have prevented the deaths of 13 people and wounds of many others. The article discusses different actions done by Hasan that many perceived should have warranted the prevention of his promotions in the army. Some of these actions include a presentation about questioning the U.S. constitution and claiming Islamic law is more important, and frequent poor performance reviews from superiors where he attended medical school. This raises important questions about profiling when trying to prevent crimes.

Skin color may be genetically controlled, and police may be able to use this information.

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5055391

But police officers are likely to be interested, too. Already, some officials are testing DNA left at crime scenes to get clues about what the culprit might look like. Tony Frudakis runs DNAPrint Genomics, a Florida-based company that uses gene markers associated with geographic ancestry to give police a general sense of whether someone might look more black or white. In one case, he says, such "DNAWitness" testing helped recently track down a serial killer in Louisiana.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1613583

An investigation by reporters for The Miami Herald alleges white criminal offenders in Florida are more likely to have their convictions quashed than blacks who are charged with the exact same crime. The report sheds light on apparent abuse of a law meant to give a fresh start to first-time criminals. NPR's Tony Cox speaks with a reporter for The Miami Herald, as well as a former head of the Black Lawyers Association.