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Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 3
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AMERICAN BOARD OF FORENSIC NURSING Chair of the Executive Board of Nursing Advisors: Russell R. Rooms, MSN, RN, CMI-III, CFN Vice Chair of the Executive Board of Nursing Advisors: Jamie J. Ferrell, RN, BSN, FACFEI, DABFN, DABFE, CFN Chair Emeritus: Charla Jamerson, RN, BSN, CMI-III Members of the Executive Board of Nursing Advisors: J. Sue Champagne, BA, RN, CMI-III Rose Eva Bana Constantino, PhD, JD, RN, FACFEI, DABFN, DABFE, CFN Renae M. Diegel, RN, SANE, CMI-III, CFC, CFN Dianne T. Ditmer, MS, RN, DABFN, CMI-III, CFN Tara Ferguson, LT, RN, NP, CMI-III, CFN Michele R. Groff, PhN, MSN, DABFN, CMI-III, CFN Renee K. LaPorte, PhD, RN, CMI-III, CHS-III Lo M. Lumsden, ANP, EdD, RN, DABFN Ann K. McDonald-Marchesi, MBA, BSN, RN, CMI-III Yvonne D. McKoy, PhD, RN, DABFN Cheryl L. Pozzi, MS, BSN, RN, FACFEI, DABFN, DABFE Suzette Rush-Drake, RN, BSN, PsyD, DABFN, DABFE
AMERICAN BOARD PSYCHOLOGICAL SPECIALTIES Chair of the Executive Board of Psychological Advisors: Michael A. Baer, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE, DABFM, Master Therapist Vice Chair of the Executive Board of Psychological Advisors: Raymond F. Hanbury, Jr., PhD, DABPS, DABFE Chair Emeritus: Carl N. Edwards, PhD, JD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE Members of the Executive Board of Psychological Advisors: Robert J. Barth, PhD, DABPS Alan E. Brooker, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE, CMI-III David F. Ciampi, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS Brian R. Costello, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE Ronna F. Dillon, PhD, DABPS, DABFE, CMI-V, CHS-III Douglas P. Gibson, PsyD, DABPS, CMI-V, CHS-III
Raymond H. Hamden, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABECI, CMI-V, CHS-V Thomas L. Hustak, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE Richard Lewis Levenson, Jr., PsyD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE Philip Murphy, PhD Douglas H. Ruben, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE, DABFM Richard M. Skaff, PsyD, DABPS Charles R. Stern, PhD, DABPS, DABFE, CMI-V Robin Tener, PhD, DABPS
AMERICAN BOARD OF RECORDED EVIDENCE Chair of the Executive Board of Recorded Evidence Advisors: Thomas J. Owen, BA, FACFEI, DABRE, DABFE Committees of the American Board of Recorded Evidence Forensic Audio: Ryan Johnson, BA James A. Griffin, DABFE Forensic Video: Robert Skye Forensic Voice Identification: Ernst F. W. Alexanderson, BA, MBA, DABRE, DABFE Members of the Executive Board of Recorded Evidence Advisors: Michael C. McDermott, JD, DABRE, DABFE Jennifer E. Owen, BA, DABRE, DABFE Lonnie L. Smrkovski, BS, DABRE, DABFE Mindy S. Wilson, BS, MA, DABRE International Representative–Japan: Takao Suzuki, BS, DABRE, DABFE
AMERICAN BOARD OF FORENSIC SOCIAL WORKERS Chair of the Executive Board of Social Work Advisors: Daniel S. Guerra, PhD, FACFEI, DABFSW, DABFE Chair Emeritus: Karen M. Zimmerman, MSW, DABFSW, DABFE Members of the Executive Board of Social Work Advisors: Susan L. Burton, MA, MSW, CSW, DABFSW, DABLEE Judith V. Caprez, MSW, DABFSW Peter W. Choate, BS, MSW, DABFSW, DABFE Joan M. Danto, MSW, LCSW, DABFSW, DABFE Ronald L. Eltzeroth, MA, MS, MSW, DABFSW Douglas E. Fountain, PhD, DABFSW Judith Felton Logue, PhD, FACFEI, DABFSW, DABFE, DABFM, DABPS Steven J. Sprengelmeyer, MSW, MA, DABFSW, DABFE Paul E. Stevens, ACSW, DABFSW
AMERICAN BOARD FOR CERTIFICATION IN HOMELAND SECURITY Chair of the Executive Board for Certification in Homeland Security: Nick Bacon, CHS-V, DABCHS, Past President of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, Former Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs for the state of Arkansas, Director of the Homeland Security Veterans Corps Members of the Executive Board for Certification in Homeland Security: David N. Appleby, BS, JD, CHS-V, Colonel (Ret.), Special Forces, U.S. Army Reserve
Michael Baer, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM, DABPS, FAPA, CHS-V, Master Therapist Donna Barbisch, MPH, DHA, CHS-V Major General, United States Army Reserve Harold Bengsch, BS, MSPH, REHS/RS, CHS-V John H. Bridges, III, CHMM, CSHM, DABCHS, CHS-V Major General Robert C. G. Disney (Ret.), U.S. Army, CFSSP, CHS-V Paul P. Donahue, MBA, Cr.FA, CMA, CPP, CBM, CHS-V Joe A. Dziuban, EFO, CHS-V Col. Robert Fortin (Ret.),United States Army, CHS-V Ernest R. Frazier, Sr., Esq., DABLEE, CHS-V John P. Giduck, JD, CHS-V James L. Greenstone, EdD, JD, FACFEI, DABLEE, DABPS, ABFE, CMI-I, Lt. Col., CHS-V Brig. Gen. John J. Harty (Ret.), CHS-V Keith Holtermann, DrPH, MBA, MPH, RN, CEN, REMT-P, CHS-V Col. LZ Johnson, Special Forces, U.S. Army (Ret.), BSBA, CHS-V John H. Lombardi, PhD, MBA, NAPS, CST, CSS, CPO, IAPSC, DABFE, DABLEE, CHS-V Herbert I. London, PhD, CHS-V Col. Richard Niemtzow, United States Air Force, MD, PhD, MPH, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM, DCP, CHS-V Brig. Gen. Patricia Nilo, United States Army Chemical Corps, CHS-V Thomas J. Owen, BA, FACFEI, DABRE, DABFE, CHS-V James S. Potts, BS, MS, CHS-V Lt. Col. David Rosengard (Ret.), MD, PhD, RPH, DABFE, DABFM, ABECI, CMI-V, CHS-V, DAPA, FACA Robert R. Silver, Ph.D., MS, BS, CHS-V Herman C. Statum, MS, CPP, CHS-V Edward W. Wallace, Detective 1st Grade (Ret.), MA, SCSA, LPI, CFI I & II, CLEI, CTO, CDHSI, CHS-V
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The Forensic Examiner® (ISSN 1084-5569) is published quarterly by The American College of Forensic Examiners International, Inc. (ACFEI). Annual membership for a year in the American College of Forensic Examiners International is $130. Abstracts of articles published in The Forensic Examiner® appear in National Criminal Justice Reference Service, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts, Gale Group Publishing's InfoTrac Database, e-psyche database and psycINFO database. Periodicals Postage Paid at Springfield, Missouri and additional mailing offices. ©Copyright 2005 by the American College of Forensic Examiners International. All rights reserved. No part of this work can be distributed, or otherwise used without the express permission of the American College of Forensic Examiners International. The views expressed in The Forensic Examiner® are those of the authors and may not reflect the official policies of the American College of Forensic Examiners International.
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4 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
THE
FORENSICEXAMINER
VOLUME 14 • NUMBER 2
®
SUMMER 2005
The
FORENSICEXAMINER
®
06
2005 Editorial Advisory Board Jack S. Annon, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM, DABPS, DABLEE E. Robert Bertolli, OD, CHS-III, CMI-V David T. Boyd, DBA, CPA, Cr.FA, CMA, CFM John Brick, MA, PhD, DABFE, DABFM, CMI-V Steve Cain, MFS, DABRE, DABFE James H. Carter, MD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Leanne D. Courtney, BSN, MFS, DABFN, DABFE D. Larry Crumbley, PhD, CPA, DABFA, Cr.FA Edmund D. Fenton, Jr., DBA, CPA, CMA, Cr.FA Nicholas J. Giardino, ScD, DABFE Daniel P. Greenfield, MD, MPH, DABFE, DABFM James L. Greenstone, EdD, JD, FACFEI, DABECI, DABFE, DABFM, DABPS, DABLEE, CMI-I, CHS-V Raymond F. Hanbury, Jr., PhD, ABPP, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE James R. Hanley, III, MD, DABFM Nelson H. Hendler, MD, DABFM John R. Hummel, PhD, CHS-III Zafar M. Iqbal, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Paul Jerry, PhD, MA, CPsych, DABFC, DAPA Philip I. Kaushall, PhD, DABFE, DABPS Richard L. Levenson, Jr., PsyD, DABFE, DABPS Jonathan J. Lipman, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE, DABFM Judith F. Logue, PhD, FACFEI, DABFSW, DABPS, DABFE, DABFM David B. Miller, DDS, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM, DABFD Sandralee N. Miller, RN, FACFEI, DABFN, DABFE Terrence W. C. O’Shaughnessy, DDS, FACFEI, DABFD, DABFE, DABFM George B. Palermo, MD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Marc A. Rabinoff, EdD, FACFEI, DABFE Douglas H. Ruben, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM, DABPS William R. Sawyer, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Victoria Schiffler, RN, DABFN Stanley Seidner, PhD, DABFE, DABFET, CHS-III Kandiah Sivakumaran, MS, PE, DABFET Marilyn Stagno, PsyD, DABFE, DABFM, DABPS James Stone, MD, MBA Gere N. Unger, MD, JD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Ralph Van Atta, PhD, FACFEI, DABPS Raymond E. Webster, PhD, FACFEI, DABFE, DABFM Paul Zikmund, MBA, Cr.FA Publisher: Robert L. O’Block, MDiv, PhD, PsyD, DMin, STD (rloblock@aol.com) Editor: Heather Barbre Blades, MA (editor@acfei.com) Assistant Editor, Senior Writer: Erica B. Simons, BS
11 23
Blood Spatter Interpretation at Crime Scenes
CME
By Louis L. Akin, LPI
Announcing ACFEI’s 2005 National Conference Sept. 30 - Oct. 1, 2005, in San Diego, California
Childhood Animal Cruelty: A Review of Research, Assessment, and Therapeutic Issues By Sara C. Haden, MA; and Angela Scarpa, PhD
33
Information Assurance Education and the Protection of U.S. Critical Infrastructures By Marie Wright, PhD, CHS-III
41
A Multi-Center Study for Validating the Complaint of Chronic Back, Neck, and Limb Pain Using the “Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test”
CME
By Nelson Hendler, MD, MS; Ann Cashen; Sam Hendler; Christopher Bringham, MD; Phillip Osborne, MD; B. Todd Graybill, PhD; L. Catlett, MD; and Mats Gronblad, MD, PhD
50
Cyber-Criminals and Data Sanitization: A Role for Forensic Accountants By Dale L. Lunsford, PhD; and Walter A. Robbins, DBA, CPA, Cr.FA
21
Registration Form for ACFEI’s 13th National Conference, Sept. 30 - Oct.1, 2005, in San Diego, CA
56
Forensic Case Profile: In the Belly of the Beast: The Birth of Death
38
Announcing the 5th Certified in Homeland Security Conference, Sept. 28-29, 2005, in San Diego, CA
60
Member Book Reviews
62
ACFEI News
Registration Form for the 5th Certified in Homeland Security Conference
63
Welcome New Members
64
Continuing Education (CE) Questions
67
Falsely Accused
39
Editorial Intern: Leann Long Designed by: Brandon Alms, BFA (brandon@acfei.com)
The American College of Forensic Examiners International (ACFEI) does not endorse, guarantee or warrant the credentials, work or opinions of any individual member. Membership in ACFEI does not constitute the grant of a license or other licensing authority by or on behalf of the organization as to a member’s qualifications, abilities or expertise. The publications and activities of ACFEI are solely for informative and educational purposes with respect to its members. The opinions and views expressed by the authors, publishers or presenters are their sole and separate views and opinions, and do not necessarily reflect those of ACFEI, nor does ACFEI adopt such opinions or views as its own. The American College of Forensic Examiners International disclaims, and does not assume any responsibility or liability with respect to the opinions, views and factual statements of such authors, publishers or presenters, nor with respect to any actions, qualifications or representations of its members or subscriber efforts in connection with the application or utilization of any information, suggestions or recommendations made by ACFEI, or any of its boards or committees, or publications, resources or activities thereof.
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 5
Abstract Medicolegal investigators (MIs) are responsible for being educated, trained, and proficient in performing their duties as criminalists and crime scene technicians. This article is written to better educate MIs from various agencies on the basic principles of blood spatter interpretation. Blood spatter interpretation is an important part of contemporary crime scene investigations. While not every MI needs to become an expert, every investigator should at least understand the
By Louis L. Akin, LPI
fundamental principles and procedures in order to be able to correctly record data at crime scenes for later interpretation by blood spatter analysts.
Key Words: blood spatter analysis, crime scene analysis, crime scene reconstruction, blood spatter velocity, blood spatter patterns CME
This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates. ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Certified Medical Investigators who are required to obtain 15 credits per year to maintain their status. ACFEI is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to sponsor continuing medical education for physicians. ACFEI designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1 hour in category 1 credit towards the AMA Physicians Recognition Award.
he medicolegal investigator (MI) plays a critical investigative role at a crime scene as he or she performs a meticulous examination of the body. At the crime or accident scene, an MI gathers evidence to determine the cause, mechanism, and manner of death and preserves the evidence. Generally, a body and the evidence found on it are in the custody of the MI while the overall crime scene is the responsibility of the law enforcement criminalists and crime technicians. However, these fields overlap, and the evidence at the scene, whether on the body or in contiguous areas, is used to determine what occurred. Ultimately, it is the medical examiner (ME) or coroner who decides whether the manner of death was natural, accidental, suicidal, homicidal, or unknown (sometimes called equivocal) and who determines the proximate cause and mechanism of death. The ME relies on the evidence gathered by the MI at the scene in making that decision. Blood spatter interpretation may be compared to tracking. It may take considerable training to reach the level of a professional tracker who can, for example, determine that a footprint was made 2 days earlier by a running 183-pound male with bunions. That level of training or expertise is not required to be able to look at a footprint and determine which way the person was walking—to do this, you just pick out the heel and toe. In the same way, while an expert may
6 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
be able to see things in the blood that the investigator does not, an investigator can learn to determine where a victim was positioned by looking at the blood spatter at a scene the same way he or she would look at a footprint to determine which way the footprint is going. A basic understanding of the principles of blood spatter analysis will allow the investigator to correctly collect blood stain data at the scene and intelligently converse with the ME, homicide detectives, and blood spatter experts regarding the blood evidence. This understanding is important, because the interpretation of blood spatter patterns and other evidence at crime scenes may reveal critically important information such as the positions of the victim, assailant, and objects at the scene; the type of weapon that was used to cause the spatter; the number of blows, shots, stabs, etc. that occurred; and the movement and direction of the victim and assailant after bloodshed began. It may also support or contradict statements given by witnesses.1 The crime scene analyst may use the blood spatter interpretation to determine what events occurred; when and in what sequence they occurred; who was, or was not, there; and what did not occur. The lists of precisely what information can be learned by the interpretation of blood stain patterns are similar for Bevel and Gardner,2 James and Eckert,3 Hueske,4 Slemko,5 and Sutton.6
The Theory: The Teardrop Versus the Blood Drop Experiments have shown that blood tends to form into a sphere rather than a teardrop shape when free falling or projected in drop-size volumes (approximately 0.05 ml or 20 drops per milliliter, though some are larger and some are smaller).7 The formation of the sphere is a result of surface tension.8 Fresh blood is slightly more viscous than water and Figure 1. Side view of blood drop in air and hitting surface.
tends to hold the sphere shape in flight. The sphere shape is critical to the calculation of the angle of impact (AOI) of blood spatter, which is used to determine the point or area from which the blood originated, commonly referred to as the point of hemorrhage (POH) or the point of origin. (Note: this author prefers to use the term point of hemorrhage to distinguish the area from which the blood was disgorged from other points of origin, the latter phrase being a widely used term in blood spatter,
ballistics, and crime and accident scene investigation and reconstruction. Although most experts use the word point, the word area is a more conservative one to use.) Using Pythagorean Trigonometry to Determine the Angle of Impact, Point of Convergence, and Point of Hemorrhage Generally, a single spatter of blood is not enough to determine the POH at a crime scene. The determination of the AOI and placement of the POH should be based on the consideration of a number of spatters. The process for determining the AOI is not complicated. When a sphere of blood strikes a flat surface, the diameter of the sphere in flight will equal the width of the stain on the surface (which is equal to the opposite side of a right triangle) as illustrated in Figures 1, 2, and 3. To find the POH, one must first determine the two-dimensional point of convergence (POC). The POC is the intersection where lines drawn through the center of the individual stains meet (at the X - Y axis
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 7
Figure 2. Top view of blood drop in air and the stain it leaves after it hits a flat surface.
intersection). It is determined by drawing lines or strings through the long axis of individual spatters, as illustrated in Figure 4. The next step in the process is to determine the AOI for representative bloodstains. To Determine the Angle of Impact (AOI): i. Where opposite = width (W) and hypotenuse = length (L) ii. Angle of impact = inverse of ARCSIN of W/L ratio a. First calculate ratio (W/L) b. Then SIN - 1 (2nd key) to get degree of AOI. For purposes of providing visual illustration to a jury, strings can be used to demonstrate the AOI and POC, as shown in Figure 5. The Perpendicular or Z Axis Once the POC and the AOIs have been established, the next step is to locate the
Figure 3. Central axis.
POC three-dimensionally, which will require a vertical axis that is ordinarily called the Z or perpendicular axis. The perpendicular axis is the same as the long axis of a standing person. The location where the strings or imaginary lines of the trajectories of the blood stains meet on that axis will approximate the point or area from which the blood was disgorged, dubbed the POH. (See Figure 6.) While the POC is the two-dimensional intersection of the X and Y axes, the POH is located above the POC on the vertical axis 90° perpendicular to the floor. It is the point from which the blood hemorrhaged or was disgorged from the body. In Figure 7, the POH is determined by calculating the angle that the blood struck the wall and drawing a line from each blood spot back to the Z axis. The formula to determine the POH on the vertical (Z) axis is similar to the one used to establish the AOI, except that the TAN function of the calculator is used. First, measure the distance from each
Figure 5. Lines drawn through the central axes of the individual blood drops can be laid flat to show where they converge (point of contact) and then raised to show points of origin or hemorrhage. In this photograph the point of contact would be at the XYZ axis on the floor and the point of hemorrhage near the upper arrow.
Figure 4. Point of convergence.
blood stain along its central (Y) axis to the POC. Second, use the calculator to obtain the TAN of the degrees AOI. Third, multiply the TAN of the AOI by the distance measured along the Y axis. To Determine Point of Hemorrhage (POH) on the Vertical (Z) Axis For each representative bloodstain: Where distance from bloodstain to AOC = Y axis, TAN of 0 (AOI) x Y = POH. Example: AOI where O = 1.5 mm and H = 3 mm, then ratio = 0.05 Take -SIN 0.5 and the 0 = 30° TAN of 30° = 0.57735 And where length of Y axis (distance to POC) is 90 cm, then POH = TAN of 0 (30°) x Y (90 cm) Calculate as TAN (30°) = 0.57735 x 90 cm = 51.961 Answer: POH = 52 cm, Then 52 cm / 2.54 = 20.4724409 inches. Measure 52 cm (or 20.5 inches) from the floor (X-Y axis) up the Z axis to arrive at the approximate point where the blood left the body. Velocities of Blood Spatter There are three classifications of velocities of blood patterns, with a large undefined
Figure 6. The perpendicular or Z axis.
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Figure 7. Lines converge in the third dimension at the point of hemorrhage on the Z axis.
Figure 8. Classic 90° angle blood drops caused by gravity. The spines were caused by the relatively textured brown wrapping paper. Glass may have produced perfectly smooth edges.
Figure 9. Low velocity blood from the simulation of a bleeding person who is walking or running. Note that the blood drops “point” in the direction of travel. This image is of cow blood on brown wrapping paper. These are classic angled drops with waves and probably impacted the surface at roughly 60°. Figure 10. Cast-off blood pattern.
Fig. 9
gap between the medium-speed and high-speed velocities. This gap is a result of the velocity classifications having grown out of the blood stains found at crime scenes that have limited causes (i.e., gravitational pull), blunt instrument acceleration, and high speed misting as a result of gun shot wounds. The velocity is the force causing the blood to move, rather than of the speed of the blood itself, and is measured in feet per second (fps). High velocity blood, for instance, may be caused by a bullet moving at 1800 fps. Low Velocity. Low velocity stains are produced by an external force less than 5 fps (normal gravity); these stains are 3 mm and larger. They are usually the result of blood dripping from a person who is holding still, walking, or running, or sometimes from cast-off. Dripping blood often falls at a 90° angle and forms a 360° stain when it hits a flat perpendicular surface, depending on the texture of the surface. Spines can be caused by drops repeatedly landing in the same place, by the distance the drop falls, or by the surface upon which the blood lands. Low velocity blood may also be found in the trail of a person who is bleeding, and larger pools of blood may indicate where the person paused. Medium Velocity. Medium blood spatter is produced by an external force of greater than 5 fps and less than 25 fps. The stains generally measure 1-3 mm in size. They are often caused by blunt or sharp-force trauma (i.e., knives, hatchets, clubs, fists, arterial spurts, and sometimes cast-off ).
Weapon Cast-Off. Weapon cast-off, or just plain cast-off, is often found at crime scenes where blunt or sharp instruments were used as the weapons of attack. Castoff blood is sometimes confused with arterial spurts. Cast-off blood is flung off the weapon (such as an axe, knife, or club) as a result of centrifugal force as the weapon is swung back over the attacker’s head. Cast-off spatter tends to be oval or elliptical in shape as the weapon is being swung through an arc, but becomes more round as it strikes at a 90° angle at topdead center over the attacker’s head. It may be classified as low or medium velocity depending on the drop size. See Figures 10 and 11. Arterial Spurts. Arterial blood graphically displays the pumping of the left ventricle of the heart in squirted arcs (See Figure 12). As the ventricle contracts, the blood is squirted out of the artery as water from a water pistol. It starts with a low pressure that increases and then decreases, causing the arcing pulse that results in the distinctive blood pattern. Arterial blood spatter does not lead far because the bleeder loses blood volume quickly and goes into shock or dies. Occasionally, however, victims have covered surprisingly long distances while bleeding arterially. The arterial blood pattern may be confused with cast-off blood patterns or obfuscated by layover patterns. The bleeder may still be under attack while bleeding arterially and may sustain further bleeding wounds or may be bleeding
Fig. 10
Figure 11. Drawing of cast-off blood from the arc of a chopping, stabbing, or clubbing motion. Note the 90° round spatter at the topdead-center position over the attacker’s head.
from previous wounds. The arcs are commonly accompanied by bloody hand prints and other forms of transfer blood such as swipe and wipe. The bleeder may fall against the blood spatter and smear the pattern (wipe) or smear blood from his or her body or clothing onto the surface (swipe). These are but two forms of transfer blood that may be confusing in the picture at crime scenes and even more confusing in photographs of crime scenes. Most medium velocity blood will be in the form of patterns created by blood flying from a body to a surface as a result of blunt and sharp trauma. It may be the result of punching, stabbing, or bludgeoning with a blunt instrument. In Figure 13, the pattern has a void where the victim’s head would have been located during a beating. Such a void space may be created by anything that blocks the blood from falling on the surface where it would otherwise have land-
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 9
Figure 12. Author Louis Akin mimics arterial spurting on brown wrapping paper. These spurts were produced using a hypodermic syringe and cow blood. While this photograph shows the arc pattern, the amount of blood from actual arterial spurts is usually greater and messier. The arcs may staircase downward as the victim collapses to the floor.
ed. The object creating the void may be the victim, the attacker’s body, or a piece of furniture that was moved in order to stage the scene. Locard’s Principle of Exchange states that whenever two objects come into contact, some of the matter of each object is transferred to the other. Locard’s principle has become a cardinal principle of crime scene analysis and reconstruction. If a person enters a crime scene and leaves, he or she leaves something of him or herself at the scene and takes something from the scene with him or her. In many cases, the void is what the attacker leaves, and the blood spatter that would have filled the void is what he or she takes away from the scene. High Velocity. An external force greater than 100 fps produces high velocity blood spatter, and the stains tend to be less than 1 mm. The pattern is sometimes referred to as a mist. High velocity patterns are usually created by gunshots or explosives but may also be caused by industrial machinery or even expired air, coughing, or sneezing. In any case, the spatter tends to be tiny drops propelled into the air by an explosive force. High velocity droplets travel the least distance because of the resistance of the air against their small mass. In gunshot wounds, the area contiguous to the wound may be showered in a mist of
Figure 13. Medium velocity blood as from a bludgeoning.
blood spatter and may contain pieces of tissue, but areas further away may not have any blood spatter on them or may only have tissue and blood that accompany the surface impacted. Conclusion Blood spatter evidence is being gathered in more cases each day as more personnel are trained in methods of photographing and collecting evidence. Blood spatter evidence is currently restricted almost exclusively to major murder cases. Since blood spatter can tell so much about what took place at the scene of a crime, it should be given more attention, even when there are witnesses and the violence was not lethal. The practice of collecting fingerprints at crime scenes spread at a slow pace when it was first introduced, but now every law enforcement department has fingerprint technicians to collect prints at scenes and experts to compare and classify those prints. In the near future, we can expect every department to have blood spatter technicians to collect the blood spatter evidence at the scene and experts to analyze it. MIs and crime scene technicians will be the personnel most likely to gather this evidence at the scene. References 1. Stuart H. James, William G. Eckert, Interpretation of Bloodstain Evidence at Crime Scenes, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CFC Press, 1999), 10-11. 2. Tom Bevel, Ross M. Gardner, Bloodstain Pat-
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Figure 14. High velocity gun shot blood spatter leaves a mist-like appearance.
tern Analysis, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2002). 3. Stuart H. James, William G. Eckert, Interpretation of Bloodstain Evidence at Crime Scenes, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: 1999). 4. Edward E. Hueske, Shooting Incident Investigation/Reconstruction Training Manual (Unpublished training manual, 2002). 5. J. Slemko, Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Tutorial for Forensic Consulting. Retrieved 2005 from: http://www.bloodspatter.com/BPATutorial.htm. 6. Paulette T. Sutton, Bloodstain Pattern Interpretation, Short Course Manual (Memphis, TN: University of Tennessee, 1998). 7. Stuart H. James, William G. Eckert, Interpretation of Bloodstain Evidence at Crime Scenes, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1999), 20. 8. Paulette T. Sutton, Bloodstain Pattern Interpretation, Short Course Manual (Memphis, TN: University of Tennessee, 1998), 4. This article has been excerpted from Step by Step Guide to Blood Spatter Interpretation at Crime and Accident Scenes for Medicolegal Death Investigators. It appears here with changes.
About the Author Louis L. Akin, LPI, lives in Austin, Texas, and has been an ACFEI member since 2003. He has 23 years of experience in crime scene investigation and reconstruction. Akin designed and engineered the On Scene Blood Spatter Calculator software, which automates recording and calculating blood spatter. He also authored the pocket manual Blood Spatter Interpretation at Crime and Accident Scenes: Step by Step Field Guide for Medicolegal Investigators, which offers a simplified method of manually collecting, recording, and preserving blood spatter data on the scene. Akin also teaches blood pattern analysis in Austin. For more information, please visit his websites at www.akininc.com and www.onsceneforensics.com .
Earn CE Credit To earn CE credit, complete the exam for this article on page 64 or complete the exam online at www.acfei.com (select “Online CE”).
ACFEI s 13th National Conference
(San Diego, CA • Sept. 30—Oct. 1, 2005)
The American College of Forensic Examiners Institute (ACFEI) is proud to present our 13th National Conference! ACFEI has a 13-year track record of providing the highest quality educational offerings for professionals working in the many varied forensic fields, and an unwavering dedication to excellence has helped make ACFEI the nation’s largest forensic membership association. A respect for and understanding of the diverse forensic fields has set ACFEI apart from other organizations. This diversity is reflected in the program for our 13th National Conference. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, professionals can expand their knowledge, skills, and education while networking with fellow professionals from all forensic disciplines. Institute
Continuing Education at ACFEI s 2005 National Conference There will be more than 140 continuing education (CE) credits available at the 2005 National Conference. Any member certified through ACFEI can earn his or her yearly CE at the 2005 National Conference. Other professional CE credits are provided based on the following accreditations held: • Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) • Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (CME) • American Psychological Association (APA) • Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) • California Board of Behavioral Sciences (CBBS) • California Board of Registered Nursing (CBRN) • National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) • National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (CPE)
Manchester Grand Hyatt To Host ACFEI s 2005 National Conference in San Diego The American College of Forensic Examiners (ACFEI) is proud to announce that the Manchester Grand Hyatt will be hosting ACFEI’s 2005 National Conference in San Diego, California, September 30 through October 1. ACFEI chose the Manchester Grand Hyatt to host its 2005 National Conference due to the hotel’s ideal setting and beautiful, luxurious accommodations. The Hyatt is holding a block of specially priced rooms for ACFEI conference attendees. The first 300 prospective conference attendees to reserve their rooms can take advantage of the super-low rate of $169 per night plus tax. Subsequent reservations will be subject to a rate of $219 per night plus tax. Reserve your rooms now to take advantage of the terrific discounted rate. The negotiated discount rate is valid not only for the dates of the conference (September 30- October 1, 2005), but also for the three days prior to the meeting and three days after the meeting (on a space-available basis). For more information on the hotel, or to reserve your accommodations, please call (619) 232-1234 or visit www.manchestergrand.hyatt.com. Be sure to use the conference group code G-AMCF to receive ACFEI’s discounted rate. See You in San Diego! I hope you will join us at this year’s exciting conference. You can access expanded abstracts and the latest conference schedule online at www.acfei.com (click “conferences”). Or, call me toll free at (800) 423-9737 for more information or to register. See you in San Diego!
Brent McCoy Chief Association Officer PS: Register for ACFEI’s National Conference using the registration form on page 21, or by visiting www.acfei.com (click “conferences”). *Conference schedule is subject to change.
Exciting Keynote Presentations at ACFEI’s 2005 National Conference Featured Presentation and Banquet Speaker: Dr. Stanton Samenow Stanton Samenow, PhD, FACFEI, Stanton Samenow DABFE, DABFM, DABPS, received his bachelor of arts degree (cum laude) from Yale University in 1963 and his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1968. Dr. Samenow maintains a private practice of clinical psychology in Alexandria, Virginia. His specialty has continued to be the evaluation and treatment of juvenile and adult offenders. Dr. Samenow has delivered lectures, training seminars, and workshops in 48 states, Canada, and England, and he has served as a consultant and expert witness for a variety of courts and agencies, including
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Dade County (Florida) Public Schools, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. Office of Probation. In 1980, he was appointed by President Reagan to the Law Enforcement Task Force and in 1982 to the President's Task Force on Victims of Crime. In 1987, President Reagan appointed him as a Conferee to the White House Conference on a Drug-Free America. On Friday, September 30, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Dr. Samenow will present “From Idea to Post Execution: The Offender’s Mental Processes Before, During, and After a Crime.” This featured presentation will examine the mental processes of an offender from the time the perpetrator thinks of a crime and fantasizes about it through the aftermath, whether or not he or she is apprehended. Dr. Samenow will look closely at crimes
that are alleged to be the result of “compulsions,” “impulse disorders,” “crimes of passion,” or “insanity.” Special attention will be focused on so-called “out of character” crimes. Additionally, he will examine the role of mind-altering substances on the offender's thinking. Also to be considered are the tactics an offender deploys after-the-fact to try to present him or herself in the best possible light and minimize legal jeopardy. Dr. Samenow will also be speaking on Friday evening at ACFEI’s Awards Banquet from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. when he will present “Inside the Criminal Mind.” This presentation will provide a “tour” of the mind of the criminal, unraveling apparent fascinating paradoxes and complexities. A major focus will be the psychologically “thin skin” of a person who insists on prevailing in any situation, whether it be by deception, intimidation, or brute force.
F e a t u r e d Workshop and Luncheon S p e a k e r : Robert “Roy” Hazelwood Roy Hazelwood, Roy Hazelwood MS, DABFE, DABLEE, was one of the original profilers when the Behavioral Science Unit was first developed at Quantico, where he served as Supervisory Special Agent with a focus on sexual crimes. He served with the FBI for 22 years, where he taught courses at the Academy, the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, the U. S. Military Police CID, and the Southern Police Institute. He is now Affiliate Professor of Administrative Justice at George Mason University and has appeared as an expert on criminal investigations on numerous radio and television shows. Hazelwood is also a commentator for The Forensic Echo. Hazelwood's early interest in autoerotic fatalities initiated a groundbreaking study
that compiled the results of over 150 cases. He also conducted the largest known survey of police attitudes toward rape, working with Dr. Park Dietz and Dr. Janet Warren to interview incarcerated men convicted of sexually sadistic crimes. After this study was completed the team conducted an involved study of the wives and girlfriends of sexual sadists. Hazelwood is currently researching juvenile sex offenders. Hazelwood will present a two-part 4hour workshop on Saturday, October 1, 2005, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The presentation, M.O., Ritual, and Signature will inform the participant of the definition, purpose, and characteristics of the major categories of sexual crime behavior. The attendee will become familiar with the techniques used by Mr. Hazelwood in analyzing and behaviorally linking two or more crimes to a single criminal via his or her “signature.” Case histories will be used to augment this presentation. Hazelwood will continue his workshop with “Evaluating Crime Scenes for Staging” from 10 a.m. to noon. This lecture
will present Hazelwood’s research on staging. It will focus on factors that indicate that a crime scene has been altered with the intent of misdirecting the investigator as to motive, manner of death, or person responsible. Case histories will augment this presentation. Immediately following his featured workshop, Hazelwood will speak at the ACFEI Networking Luncheon from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Hazelwood will speak about “A Compliant Victim: Accomplice to Murder.” Hazelwood has conducted extensive interviews of 20 women who were formerly the wives and girlfriends of sexually sadistic men. Five of the women interviewed assisted their husbands in murder. Hazelwood will speak about his interviews of one woman who was a victim of her husband’s sadistic desires and assisted him in the murder of three victims.
12 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to see two of the biggest names in the field of forensics — register today!
An Interview with ACFEI’s National Conference Featured Presenter Dr. Stanton Samenow
Please describe the topics you are planning to discuss in your presentations at the ACFEI National Conference. Stanton Samenow In my morning presentation, entitled “From Idea to Post Execution: The Offender's Mental Processes Before, During, and After a Crime,” I will concentrate on how the offender’s mind operates. I will discuss the so-called “out of character crime” and indicate why it is always actually “in character” once the crime is placed in context. I will also discuss the myth of the crime considered “compulsive” and provide some insight into the offender’s tactics that he deploys when he is being held accountable for his crime. What a criminal tells others after the crime has been committed is likely to be at odds with what actually transpired. Attendees can expect to understand more about the so-called “crime of passion” and the role of mind-altering substances in the commission of a crime. In my presentation at the ACFEI award banquet, “Inside the Criminal Mind,” I plan to unravel some of the apparent paradoxes and contradictions in the criminal thought process. I will attempt to illuminate the absurd and confusing aspects of maudlin sentiment and savage brutality. I believe the most riveting part of the presentation will be my focus on how a person who has left a trail of carnage behind him still retains the view that he is, at heart, a good person. This way of criminal thinking has an enormous impact on how to deal with offenders. How will your presentation appeal to and benefit all members of a diverse
audience containing professionals of various areas of forensic specialty? All forensic professionals deal with offenders in one way or another. The thought processes of offenders should be germane to the work of men and women in law enforcement, mental health, corrections, and virtually any other field that deals with this difficult population. What goals or objectives do you wish to achieve by presenting at the ACFEI National Conference? As a presenter, I always hope for an audience of professionals who have an open mind to a point of view that may differ from their own; I always aspire to help other professionals who are working in the challenging area of forensic psychology, psychiatry, and related areas; and I always anticipate learning from others. Please tell our readers about your professional involvement and background in the forensic arena. I became involved in the forensic arena shortly after finishing graduate school in clinical psychology. I joined the program for the investigation of criminal behavior at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. I joined Dr. Samuel Yochelson in what became the longest in-depth research-treatment study of offenders that has been conducted in North America. The study lasted a total of 17 years. I was involved between 1970 and 1978. I then entered private practice in Alexandria, Virginia, where I have remained since and specialized in forensic psychology, notably criminal and child custody matters. What has been the most interesting experience you have encountered while working on a forensic case? My most interesting forensic case was
that of Washington, D.C., sniper, Lee Malvo. I was the mental health witness for the prosecution during the insanity phase of the proceedings. The defense contended that Mr. Malvo had a difficult childhood, was vulnerable to the influence of a father figure, and was essentially brainwashed into committing the murders that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. What are the most interesting aspects of your job? Criminal and child custody cases are both interesting in that they involve being a student of human nature and entail problem solving that can be extremely difficult and, at times, elusive. You have worked in this field for 35 years. Have you retained your enthusiasm? How have you avoided burn out? There is always the challenge of doing work that has potentially redeeming social value in both criminal and child custody matters. During the past 20 years I have become deeply immersed in very adversarial child custody cases. My role has usually been that of the independent custody evaluator. The potential to help a child or children as well as to help an entire family keeps me going in this extremely demanding area of work. Dr. Samenow will present “From Idea to Post Execution: The Offender’s Mental Processes Before, During, and After a Crime” at ACFEI’s National Conference on Friday, September 30, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. He will also offer the featured presentation “Inside the Criminal Mind” at ACFEI’s Awards Banquet from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. that evening.
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 13
Schedule at a Glance Pre-Conference—Thursday, September 29, 2005 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Workshop Instructor: Linda Whitten, APRN, BC, FAPA, LPN, MSN CE Credit: 8 credits for APA, NBCC, CBBS, CME, CE * This workshop is free with conference registration, but space is limited and pre-registration is required. You must be a mental health professional with a state license to practice independently to receive the ARC certificate for this workshop. Individuals without the requisite licensure may participate in the workshop, however they will not receive the ARC certificate.
Friday, September 30, 2005 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. Breakfast
Use this key to determine what CE credits can be earned at each presentation at the 2005 National Conference. AGD Academy of General Dentistry APA American Psychological Association ASWB Association of Social Work Boards CBBS California Board of Behavioral Sciences CBRN California Board of Registered Nursing CE American College of Forensic Examiners CFC Certified Forensic Consultants CFN Certified Forensic Nurses CHS Certified in Homeland Security CME Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education CMI Certified Medical Investigators CPE National Association of State Boards of Accountancy Cr.FA Certified Forensic Accountants NBCC National Board of Certified Counselors
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Certified Forensic Accountant, Cr.FA, Certification Review Course (Day One) (15 CE for CPE, CE) Instructor: J. Bradley Sargent (Separate registration required.) Certified Forensic Consultant, CFC, Certification Review Course (Day One) (15 CE for APA, CBBS, CBRN, NBCC, AGD, CMI, Cr.FA, CPE, CME, CE) Instructor: Dr. Marc Rabinoff (Separate registration required.) Certified Medical Investigator, CMI, Certification Review Course (Day One) (15 CE for CME, AGD, CBRN, CE) Instructors: Dr. Michael Karagiozis and Richard Sgaglio (Separate registration required.) Certified Forensic Nurse, CFN, Certification Review Course (Day One) (15 CE for CBRN, CE) Instructors: Rusty Rooms and Jamie Ferrell (Separate registration required.) Ethics Core Course: “Professional Ethics in Forensic Examination” (5 CE for APA, CBBS, CBRN, NBCC, AGD, CMI, CFN, Cr.FA, CPE, CME, CE) (Separate registration required.)
14 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Featured Presentation: “From Idea to Post Execution: The Offender’s Mental Processes Before, During, and After a Crime” (2 CE for APA, NBCC, CBBS, CMI, CME, CFC, CE) Featured Presenter: Dr. Stanton Samenow 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. “Properly Documenting a File and Forensic Examination of IME Doctors” (2 CE for CFC, CME, CMI, CE) Presenter: Dr. John Haberstroh “Introduction of Crime Scene Investigation Techniques into the Field of Forensic Engineering Studies” (2 CE for CFC, CMI, CE) Presenter: Ronald G. Schenk 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. “The Role of Forensic Social Workers in Court-Appointed Case Management” (3 CE for ASWB, CFC, CE) Presenter: Judith V. Caprez 10 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. Networking Break 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. “Evaluating a Request for a Hastened Death: Issues of Psychology, Law and Ethics” (2 CE for APA, NBCC, CBBS, CFC, CME, CE) Presenters: Dr. Philip Kaushall and Michael S. Evans, Esq.
ACFEI s 2005 National Conference ¥ September 30 — October 1, 2005 in San Diego, California “Classification of Sex Crime Characteristics” (2 CE for CME, CBRN, APA, NBCC, CMI, CFN, CE) Instructor: Matthew Brittain “Using Attorneys’ Trust Funds to Launder Money” (2 CE for CPE, Cr.FA, CHS, CE) Presenter: Linda Walden 11:15 p.m. to 12:15 p.m. “Nurses and Emergency Preparedness and Response” (1 CE for CBRN, CFN, CHS, CE) Presenter: J. Sue Champagne 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Lunch on your own. 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. “The Evidence Base for Criminal Personality Profiling” (1 CE for APA, NBCC, CE) Presenter: Dr. James S. Herndon “Violence in the House of Healing: Recognition, Response, and Prevention of Violence in Healthcare” (1 CE for CBRN, CFN, APA, CE) Presenter: Dianne Ditmer 1:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. “The Collaborative Practice Approach to Conflict Resolution” (2 CE for CFC, Cr.FA, CE, APA, NBCC, CPE) Instructor: Sandra Popescu “Turning Forensic Case Studies into Documentary Film Projects” (2 CE for CE, CFC) Presenter: Eric A. Kreuter 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. “Forensic Aspects of Drug Interactions” (3 CE for CME, CMI, CBRN, AGD, APA, CFN, CE) Presenter: Dr. Peter Anderson
3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. “Rule 26 Panel: Applied Sciences Professionals” (1.5 CE for CFC, CME, AGD, APA, Cr.FA, CMI, CFN, CE) Panelists: Dr. Thomas Beaver, Peter Franklin, Bob Hughes, Michael McDermott, Esq., and Joe Miller 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. “IRS Representation” (2 CE for CPE, Cr.FA, CFC, CE) Presenter: Joseph Wheeler 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. “Testifying as a Forensic Expert: Legal Requirements and Liability” (3 CE for CFC, CMI, CBRN, AGD, APA, Cr.FA, CFN, CE) Presenter: Dr. Boyd W. Shepherd, Esq. 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. “Rule 26 Panel: Theoretical Sciences Professionals” (1.5 CE for CFC, CME, APA, Cr.FA, CMI, CFN, CE) Panelists: Dr. Ashley B. Hart II, Dr. John Haberstroh, Dr. Ken Manges, Dr. Nachman Brantbar, Dr. Joseph Stewart, Dr. James Ungar
Saturday, October 1, 2005 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. Breakfast 7 a.m. to noon. (Testing: 11 a.m. to noon.) Law Core Course: “Law and Forensic Examination” (4 CE for APA, ASWB, CBBS, CBRN, NBCC, AGD, CME, CFC, CFN, CMI, Cr.FA, CPE, CE) (Separate registration required.) 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Testing: 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.) Certified Forensic Accountant, Cr.FA, Certification Review Course (Day Two) Instructor: J. Bradley Sargent Certified Forensic Consultant, CFC, Certification Review Course (Day Two) Instructor: Dr. Marc Rabinoff Certified Medical Investigator, CMI, Certification Review Course (Day Two) Instructor: Dr. Michael Karagiozis and Richard Sgaglio
7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Pre-Banquet Reception
Certified Forensic Nurse, CFN, Certification Review Course (Day Two) Instructors: Rusty Rooms and Jamie Ferrell
8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ACFEI Awards Banquet Featured Presentation: “Inside the Criminal Mind” (1.5 CE for CFC, CME, APA, CE, NBCC, CBRN, CMI, CFN) Featured Presenter: Dr. Stanton Samenow
8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Featured Presentation: “M.O., Ritual, and Signature” (2 CE for CFC, CME, APA, CE, NBCC, CBRN, CFN, CMI) Featured Presenter: Robert “Roy” Hazelwood 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. “The Nurse’s Role in a Bioterrorist Event” (2 CE for CBRN, CHS, CFN, CE) Presenter: Barbara B. Citarella “The Use of Modeling and Simulation in Forensic Investigations” (2 CE for CFC, CHS, CMI, CE) Presenter: Dr. John R. Hummel
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 15
10 a.m. to noon Featured Presentation: “Evaluating Crime Scenes for Staging” (2 CE for CFC, APA, CE, CMI) Featured Presenter: Robert “Roy” Hazelwood 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. “Identity Theft”(1 CE for CFC, CPE, Cr.FA, CHS, CE) Presenter: Michael W. Homick 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. “Sexual Assault Policy, Programs, and Health Care in the United States Military” (2 CE for CBRN, CFN, CHS, CE) Presenter: Lt. Cynthia T. Ferguson “Treatments of Selected Forensic Accounting Cases” (2 CE for CPE, Cr.FA, CE) Presenter: Janet K. Reynolds “Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Malpractice Claims and Consumer Complaints in Our Changed World” (2 CE for ASWB, CME, CFC, AGD, APA, NBCC, CBBS, CFN, CMI, CE) Presenter: Dr. Judith Logue 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. ACFEI Networking Luncheon Featured Presentation: “A Compliant Victim: Accomplice to Murder” (1 CE for CFC, CME, APA, ASWB, CE, NBCC, CBRN, CFN, CMI) Featured Speaker: Robert “Roy” Hazelwood
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. “Law and the Expert Witness” (2 CE for CFC, CMI, CFN, CME, AGD, CE) Presenter: Tom Owen 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. “Standards of Practice for the Assessment and Treatment of Sex Offenders” (3 CE for APA, CME, NBCC, CFC, CE) Presenters: Dr. Ashley B. Hart II, Dr. William Mark Konescyni, and Roland Church “Post-traumatic Stress in the Aftermath of Homicide, Suicide, and Other Sudden Unexplained Fatalities and Sexual or Felonious Assaults: Efficacious Paths for Surviving Loved Ones and Survivors” (3 CE for CME, APA, NBCC, CBBS, CFN, ASWB, CE) Presenters: Dr. Sandra A. Caramela-Miller, David A. Hadden, and Shannon L. Miller “Interpretation of Blood Spatter Evidence at Crime and Accident Scenes” (3 CE for CMI, CME, CE) Presenter: Louis L. Akin 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. “Investigating Corporate Fraud” (3 CE for CPE, Cr.FA, CE) Presenter: Paul E. Zikmund 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. “School Forensics: Intervention, Investigation, and Litigation” (2 CE for APA, NBCC, CHS, CE) Presenter: Ron Garrison “Profiling White Collar Crime” (2 CE for APA, CHS, CBBS, CE) Presenter: Dr. Janet Mielke Schwartz
16 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
• (800) 423-9737 • www.acfei.com
“The Application of Self-Efficacy Theory in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) Among Adolescent Delinquents” (2 CE for ASWB, APA, NBCC, CE) Presenter: Dr. Laura W. Kelley
1 p.m. to 6 p.m. (Testing: 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.) Evidence Core Course: “Scientific Evidence: A Short Course in the Applied Forensic Sciences” (4 CE for APA, ASWB, CCBS, CBRN, NBCC, AGD, CMI, Cr.FA, CPE, CFN, CFC, CME, CE) (Separate registration required.)
September 30—October 1, 2005
“Conducting an International Fraud Investigation” (2 CE for CPE, Cr.FA, CE) Presenter: Harry J. Potter
The Business of Forensic Consulting: Thoughts From Dr. Marc Rabinoff, Instructor of the Certified Forensic Consultant, CFCSM, Certification Review Course
What is it that most forensic experts forget to do? What is it that most forensic experts do not want to think about? The “business side” of conducting a forensic Marc Rabinoff consultant practice. Although we spend many, many hours developing our professional expertise, we do not always take the time to manage the business side of our practices. Marketing Many of us have little or no skill or knowledge on how to market what we do to the legal profession, but this is the group that most needs to know who we are and how to find us. Attorneys will argue that experts who market or advertise are bad for them at trial because these experts may seem like hired guns advertising themselves to the highest bidder. So can we do marketing and avoid such a dilemma? The answer is yes! I have always believed that we can “market” ourselves clearly, and without undue ramifications from attorneys, through our professional publications, our presentations at professional meetings, and our work for professional organizations within our disciplines. A professional web site can also be designed to market the expertise we have and explain how we can assist legal professionals. Letters of Retention Another important consideration for forensic consultants is their letters of retention. Once attorneys contact us we must be able to present our retention letter information. This must include statements of our expertise as well as descrip-
tions of what we charge and billing requirements for the payment of fees and expenses. We must make sure the relationship between us (as the forensic experts) and the attorneys is clear as to performance requirements on both parts. If the communication is unclear, problems will arise. Billing The litigation process can be lengthy. Months or years of work on and/or a hiatus from a case can place the forensic expert in a business dilemma. The keeping of files, the retention of legal documents, and the updated billing for work completed must be reviewed on a regular basis. Résumés The forensic expert needs to keep an updated professional résumé as well as a complete and detailed list of all cases where testimony has been given to meet Rule 26 guidelines. Many forensic experts do not do these simple things and get into trouble because their résumés are not updated and do not reflect the expertise the court may demand, even though the expert is well qualified. This is an area discussed in the Certified Forensic Consultant (CFC) course, and it is one where each participant can ask questions and work on his or her own documents as the discussions move on. How the Certified Forensic Consultant Course Can Help The CFC certification review course examines these and other topics to help forensic professionals become more effective and successful consultants, regardless of their disciplines. The course’s discussions on understanding
the litigation process would be incomplete without the “business side” of the equation being presented. How can forensic experts do their jobs without understanding the roles of attorneys and their own roles, including the business operations of their practices? We can be the best on the stand, the best in writing reports, and the best in researching and evaluating data and evidence, but what about being the best in making sure we are not compromised at trial because we are “owed money” or “forgot to bill,” facts that could be used against us as “bias” or having a “conflict of interest?” Do you want your testimony to ride on your billings and fees when it should rely only on your professional opinion as recognized by the court? The CFC certification review course provides valuable information on a variety of topics, in addition to the ones I’ve discussed here. Certainly I can list many more areas of the “business side” of what we do as forensic experts, but hopefully this discussion helps us think and reflect before we place our names out in the stream of commerce to let attorneys know what we do and how we can assist in the litigation process. I hope to continue this discussion with you in San Diego at the Certified Forensic Consultant, CFC, certification review course on Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 2005. Marc A. Rabinoff, EdD, CFC, FACFEI, DABFE, is the instructor for the Certified Forensic Consultant, CFC, certification review course. The next course offering will take place at ACFEI’s 2005 National Conference on Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 2005, in San Diego. Use the form on page 21 to register for this course now!
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 17
Take the Certified Forensic Accountant, Cr.FA, course at ACFEI’s National Conference September 30-October 1, 2005, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, California The Certified Forensic Accountant, Cr.FA®, certification review course has five major areas of focus. 1. Introduction to Forensic Accounting. The course begins with an introduction and overview of forensic accounting. The class surveys the general concepts of judicial procedure and evidence applicable to forensic accounting and compares civil procedure to criminal proceedings and administrative proceedings. This section of the course also covers alternative dispute resolution, professional responsibility and ethics, admissibility of expert opinions, and potential liability of the forensic accountant. There is a focus on the Federal Rules of Evidence and their typical counterparts
in state and other jurisdictions, with particular attention paid to their applicability to documentary and other forms of tangible evidence. 2. The Engagement. This section of the course addresses the role of the forensic accountant in litigationconsulting engagements and testifying engagements. Engagement retention and types of engagements frequently encountered by forensic accountants are discussed. 3. Fraud. This section provides an overview of fraud investigation and fraudulent financial reporting, including the legal elements of fraud and fraud investigation. 4. Additional Services. This section of the course addresses additional services provided by forensic
accountants, including analysis of damages, accountant liability services, audit failure cases, tax failure cases, and consulting failure cases. 5. Valuation. The course concludes with a discussion of valuation, the fastest growing but highly competitive area of forensic accounting. Principles for the valuation of closely held businesses, professional practices, and interests in real estate businesses are covered. Upon successful completion of the Cr.FA examiation, participatns will earn the Certified Forensic Accountat, Cr.FA, credential.* *The Cr.FA designation is available only for accountants meeting all of their State Board of Accountancy requirements.
Reserve your spot in this certification course! Call toll free (800) 423-9737, visit www.acfei.com (click “conferences”), or e-mail marianne@acfei.com. A proctored exam option is also available in your area. For more information call Marianne toll free at (800) 423-9737, ext. 220. Conference schedule is subject to change.
18 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
Become a Certified Forensic Nurse, CFNSM! Take the CFN course at ACFEI’s 13th National Conference, Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2005, in San Diego, CA
The CFN program is unique from other forensic nurse training programs because, rather than teaching only one specific area of nursing or forensics, it teaches and tests the overall capabilities required of a competent forensic nurse. As a result, the CFN designation helps verify that the Certified Forensic Nurse can conduct a sound forensic engagement, examination, or case that will stand up under the rigorous standards of the U.S. judicial system. The CFN course covers the following areas related to forensic nursing: I. Forensic Nursing Core II. Forensic Nursing Focus Areas • The History of Forensic Nursing • Homicide • The Forensic Nursing Process • Sexual Assault • Violence and Victimology • Intimate Partner Violence • Injury Identification, Interpretation, and Documentation • Child Maltreatment • Criminalistics and Forensic Science • Legal Nurse Consulting • Nursing and the Law/Legal Interface • Correctional Nursing “All nursing professionals will benefit from this program, including those at the bedside providing direct patient care, those at administrative levels, educators, and nurses working in community-based programs. Every nurse who takes part in the CFN program will benefit and improve his or her practice!” —Jaime Ferrell, BSN, RN, DABFN, CA/CP-SANE, SANE-A, CMI-III, CFN
Register now for this exciting event! Call toll free (800) 423-9737, visit www.acfei.com (click “conferences”), or e-mail marianne@acfei.com. A proctored exam option is also available in your area. For more information call toll free (800) 423-9737. *Conference schedule is subject to change.
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 19
Dear Colleague, I would like to share with you a wonderful opportunity to expand your professional career through furthering your education and certification in the forensic sciences. As Education Coordinator for the Certified Medical Investigator program, it has been my distinct honor to meet hundreds of insightful individuals from a wide spectrum of scientific and health care disciplines, all of whom have experienced the growing need for a broader understanding of the forensic process in their own practices. Regardless of our profession or specialty, the twenty-first century is an age of growing interest in the sciences and consciousness of forensics. From a simple question like, How probable is it that this accident caused that injury? to the fascinating reconstruction of old crime scenes, forensic investigation and techniques are rapidly becoming the norm for answering legislative and legal questions to a reasonable degree of forensic certitude. The forensically certified technician, scientist, or health care professional can offer competent and reliable answers to civil bodies that judges, juries, and legislators can use as a foundation for their critical decisions. Just last month, a superior court judge in Arizona ordered a prisoner to be transported to Las Vegas so that I could perform a court-ordered competency evaluation on him prior to his standing trial. This remarkable order from the bench—to transport an inmate hundreds of miles and out of state for an evaluation—was not triggered by a lack of medical professionals in the local area. The prison where the inmate was being held had both an internist and a psychiatrist on staff, both of whom had seen the accused. The inmate was sent to me because of my Level-V Certified Medical Investigator standing earned through the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute. The credibility of the certification, and the unbiased, scientific review it implied, warranted, in the mind of the court, the significant expense of sending this inmate out of state for a forensic medical evaluation. It is inevitable that civil, criminal, or legislative questions will be presented to you that are more easily, precisely, and professional answered from the perspective of a forensic examiner. The Certified Medical Investigator program will help you learn to conduct superior independent medical investigations; to identify and gather evidence while protecting the forensic scene; to interpret relevant case law, reports, analyses, and evidence to write comprehensive, accurate, unbiased reports; to provide credible, defensible testimony in a court of law; to develop critical thinking skills crucial to forensic investigation; and to understand foundational anatomy and physiology, a skill-base crucial to medical investigation. I believe you will find the opportunities for professional development and personal growth available through the Certified Medical Investigator certification review course to be both amazing and exciting! I hope you will join me in San Diego on Sept. 30 -Oct. 1. Sincere Regards,
Michael Karagiozis, DO, MBA, CMI-V AOBFP, ACFEI, AAHIVM, AAPM
The next Certified Medical Investigator, CMI, certification review course offering will take place at ACFEI’s 2005 National Conference on Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 2005, in San Diego. Use the form on page 21 to register for this course now! *Conference schedule is subject to change.
20 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
ACFEI’s 2005 NATIONAL CONFERENCE San Diego, California • Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 2005 (Please type or print your name as you would like it to appear on your badge.) Name _____________________________________Designation__________ Member ID #________ Address _____________________________City__________________ State_______ Zip__________ Phone ( ) _______________ Fax ( ) ________________ E-mail ________________________ I. CONFERENCE REGISTRATION: Please check the appropriate registration category: general sessions registration, certification course registration, or core course registration. You must select only one type of registration, as these events run concurrently. All three types of registration include ALL dining events: a full breakfast both days, a four-course banquet on Friday, and a luncheon on Saturday.
❑ A. General Sessions Registration ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑
Early-Early Bird (Until 6/15) $375 Member $340 Life Member (10% discount) $400 Non-Member Spouse/Guest* (name)_____________________ $200 Student (full-time) $100
Early Bird (6/16–8/1) $425 $380 $450 $250 $150
Regular Late (8/2–9/29) (After 9/29) $475 $525 $425 $475 $500 $550 $295 $345 $195 $245
Total $________ $________ $________ $________ $________
Guests are ineligible for CE credits.
❑ B. Certification Course Registration
Please check the certification course for which you wish to register. You must select only one; these courses run concurrently. Applicants for these courses must be ACFEI members in good standing; have appropriate credentials for their profession, current and unrestricted, with no history of revocation or suspension; have no record of disciplinary action for any ethical, criminal, or other offense by any disciplinary body or court of law within the past 10 years; have records of compliance with all applicable local ordinances, state laws, and federal regulations for their professions; not be currently under investigation by any law enforcement agency, licensing board, professional association, or other entity; and not have any felonies or convictions in the past 10 years. Some of these courses have other prerequisites, and you may be asked to provide additional information at a later date.
Early Bird Instructor: J. Bradley Sargent, CPA, Cr.FA; Level: Intermediate to Advanced; (Until 8/1) $445 Prerequisites: An applicant must be a CPA and/or registered with his or her
Regular (8/2–9/29) $495
Late (After 9/29) $545
$________
$445
$495
$545
$________
$300
$350
$400
$________
$445
$495
$545
$________
❑ The Certified Forensic Accountant, Cr.FA, course
Total
State Board of Accountancy, if required by state law, and must comply with all local state ordinances, state laws, and federal regulations.
❑ The Certified Forensic Consultant, CFC, course Instructor: Marc Rabinoff, EdD, DABFE, CFC; Level: Advanced.
❑ The Certified Forensic Nurse, CFN, course Instructors: Rusty Rooms, MSN, RN, CFN; Jamie Ferrell, BSN, RN, CFN; Level: Advanced; Prerequisites: Applicants must be RNs with a minimum of five years experience who have successfully completed a formal didactic educational program in forensic nursing.
❑ The Certified Medical Investigator, CMI, course Instructor: Michael Karagiozis, DO, MBA, CMI-V; Level: Advanced; Prerequisites: CMI-I applicants must possess a bachelor’s degree or 5 years of experience in the medical or forensic fields; a CMI-II applicant must be a coroner, investigator, RN, LPN, or other professional in a forensic field; a CMI-III applicant must be a coroner, investigator, RN, LPN, or other professional with 5 years of experience in a forensic field; a CMI-IV applicant must possess an MD, DO, DDS, PhD, or other doctorate-level degree in a field relevant to forensic investigation; a CMI-V applicant must possess an MD, DO, DDS, PhD, or other doctorate-level degree in a field relevant to forensic investigation and have 5 years of experience in forensics, investigation, criminology, or a related field. Please check your anticipated level: ❑ CMI-I ❑ CMI-II ❑ CMI-III ❑ CMI-IV ❑ CMI-V
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Continued from previous page
❑ C. Core Course Registration The core course registration option allows you to enroll in all three of ACFEI’s core courses: evidence, law, and ethics. These courses are required for ACFEI Diplomate applicants. The Ethics Core Course will be held on Friday, Sept. 30, from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. The Law Core Course will be held on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 7 a.m.–noon. The Evidence Core Course will also be held on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 1 p.m.–6 p.m. Ethics Core Course: Professional Ethics in Forensic Examination; Level: All levels; Prerequisites: None; Audience: This course is designed for professionals from across the disciplines who conduct forensic examinations and testify. Fundamental and current knowledge and skills in forensic science ethics are presented. Law Core Course: Law and Forensic Examination; Instructor: Carl Edwards, JD, PhD, DABFE, DABPS, FACFEI; Level: All levels; Prerequisites: None; Audience: This course is intended for professionals from across the disciplines who work in forensic examination and testifying. Evidence Core Course: Scientific Evidence—A Short Course in the Applied Forensic Sciences; Instructor: Carl Edwards, JD, PhD, DABFE, DABPS, FACFEI; Level: All levels; Prerequisites: None; Audience: This course is intended for professionals from across the disciplines who work in forensic examination and testifying and who are interested in learning more about scientific evidence.
Regular ❑ Member ❑ Non-Member
$425 $475
Late (After 9/29) $475 $525
Total $________ $________
II. ADDITIONAL CONFERENCE INFORMATION Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Workshop—Pre-Conference: Thursday, Sept. 29, from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Instructor: Linda Whitten, APRN, LPN, MSN, BC, FAPA This workshop is free with conference registration; pre-registration is required. You must be a mental health professional with a state license to practice independently to receive the ARC certificate. Others may participate, but they will not receive the certificate. ❑ Yes, I will attend the Disaster Mental Health workshop. License number:________________________ Licensed in (state):_______ The Certified in Homeland Security (CHS) Conference will be held in San Diego on Sept. 28-29, 2005. ACFEI members who wish to attend ONLY the general sessions at BOTH the ACFEI and CHS conferences may do so for $595 (a 30% savings). This special offer does NOT include certification courses or core courses. To take advantage of this offer you must register by Sept. 27, 2005. For more information please call (800) 423-9737, ext. 220, or e-mail marianne@acfei.com. Additionally, the American Psychotherapy Association’s (APA’s) National Conference will be held at the same time and location as ACFEI’s 2005 National Conference. ACFEI general sessions registrants may attend the general sessions of BOTH the ACFEI and APA National Conferences for no additional charge (does not include APA food events). For more information please call (800) 423-9737. For the most up-to-date listing of APA general sessions, visit www.americanpsychotherapy.com (click “Conferences”).
III. HOTEL INFORMATION The conference will be held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt on San Diego Bay (www.manchestergrand.hyatt.com). Call (619) 232-1234 with the group code “G-AMCF” to reserve your room. Space in this hotel is limited; reserve your room now. (The guaranteed group rate ends Aug. 25, 2005.)
IV. PAYMENT PROCESSING ❑ Check enclosed ❑ Purchase Order
❑ Am. Express ❑ Master Card/Visa
Total Amount Due:
$_________
Card Number ______________________________ Exp_______ Name (as it appears on card)_____________________________ Signature ____________________________________________
All requests for cancellation of conference registration must be made to ACFEI headquarters in writing by fax or mail. Phone cancellations will not be accepted. All cancelled/refunded registrations will be assessed a $50 administrative fee. All refunds will be issued in the form of credit vouchers and are pro-rated as follows: cancellations received four or more weeks prior to the conference = 100% refund (less $50 administrative fee); cancellations received less than four weeks but more than one week prior to the conference = 50% refund (less $50 administrative fee); cancellations received one week or less prior to the conference = no refund. For more information on administrative policies, such as grievances, call (800) 423-9737. The performance of this conference is subject to the acts of God, war, government regulation, disaster, strikes, civil disorder, curtailment of transportation facilities, or any other emergency making it impossible to hold the conference. In the event of such occurrences, credit vouchers will be issued in lieu of cash. Conference schedule is subject to change. Please be prepared to show photo identification upon arrival at the conference. Special Services: ❑ Please check here if you require special accommodations to participate in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Attach a written description of your needs.
FAX YOUR REGISTRATION FORM TODAY to (417) 881-4702; APPLY ONLINE at www.acfei.com; MAIL TO 2750 E. Sunshine Springfield, MO 65804; PHONE toll free (800) 423-9737, ext. 120 or 220
By Sara C. Haden, MA, and Angela Scarpa, PhD Key Words: animal cruelty, children, criminals, assessment, treatment
This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates. ACFEI is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing professional education for psychologists. ACFEI maintains responsibility for the program.
Abstract A link between childhood animal cruelty and adult criminal behavior is a topic of debate among criminologists, psychologists, and the like. Although animal cruelty is exhibited in 25% of children diagnosed with conduct disorder (Arluke, Levin, Luke, & Ascione, 1999), many clinicians, researchers,
ACFEI is recognized by the National Board for Certified Counselors to offer continuing education for National Certified Counselors. We adhere to NBCC Continuing Education Guidelines. Provider #5812.
and family professionals have ignored this issue of violence (Flynn, 2000).
ACFEI, provider number 1052, is approved as a provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) www.aswb.org, phone: 1-800-225-6880, through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. ACFEI maintains responsibility for the program. Licensed social workers should contact their individual board to review continuing education requirements for licensure renewal.
attention to and reviews research regarding its prevalence, etiology,
This article explains why animal abuse is an important behavior to pay
assessment, and treatment. The literature suggests that animal cruelty is not uncommon among children and may be associated with certain family and child factors, as well as adult criminal behavior.
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 23
Henry Lee Lucas was born in Blacksburg, Virginia. At 10 years of age he watched his mother’s live-in boyfriend stab a calf in the neck and have sex with it while it was dying. At age 13 he began catching small animals and skinning them alive for fun. After stabbing, mutilating, and murdering women for over 30 years, at age 47, Lucas is now serving a life sentence in prison (Wright & Hensley, 2003). For over 35 years, research has suggested a link between childhood animal cruelty and adult criminal behavior. In 1964, Mead asserted that childhood animal cruelty was symptomatic of a violent personality that, if not diagnosed and targeted, could lead to “a long career of episodic violence and murder” (Mead, 1964, p. 22). In 1987, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) revised its third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), for the first time including animal cruelty as a symptom of conduct disorder in children and eventually considering it to be a reliable diagnostic criterion (Spitzer, Davies, & Barkley, 1990). This disorder is most often characterized by a persistent pattern of rulebreaking behaviors associated with physical harm to other people, property loss and damage, deceitfulness/theft, and serious rule violations (DSM-IV, 1994). Since animals are legally considered property, it was unclear whether to conceptualize animal cruelty as a symptom comparable to destruction of property or physical assaults to people. The DSM-IV (1994) clarified this issue by listing “has been physically cruel to animals” under the subset of “aggression to people and animals.” Since a large proportion of children with conduct disorder go on to meet criteria for antisocial personality disorder and may become violent criminals, researchers have studied its descriptive features, prevalence, course, assessment, and efficacious treatments (APA, 1994). This article reviews research specifically
concerning the childhood animal cruelty dimension of conduct disorder. In particular, several areas are addressed: 1) its defining characteristics, 2) prevalence among clinical and non-clinical populations, 3) proposed etiological factors and theories, 4) various established assessments, 5) treatments, and 6) future directions. One symptom of any disorder should not necessarily be considered most indicative of that disorder. However, childhood animal cruelty deserves special attention for several reasons. First and foremost, violence against animals has largely been ignored because society values animals less than people. There are also many socially acceptable practices or actions that either harm or kill animals (e.g., hunting, animal experimentation), and crimes against animals are often viewed as isolated incidents (Flynn, 2000). Second, in Frick et al.’s (1993) meta-analytic review of the symptoms for conduct disorder, cruelty to animals was considered to be one of the earliest reported symptoms (at 6.75 years of age). This is important because an early onset of symptoms is typically associated with a poor prognosis for conduct disorder (APA, 1994). Third, research has suggested a specific link between childhood animal cruelty and adult violence (Felthous, 1980; Kellert & Felthous, 1985; Ressler, Burgess, & Douglas, 1988), thus highlighting the importance of early detection, assessment, and treatment. Fourth, children who engage in animal cruelty have been found to have more severe conduct problems than those children exhibiting other symptoms (Luk, Staiger, Wong, & Mathai, 1999). Fifth, it is believed that child and spousal abuse is commonly found in homes where companion animal abuse is prevalent, thereby implying that the reporting of animal abuse may lead to the discovery of human abuse (Flynn, 2000; Shapiro, 1996). Lastly, animals serve an integral role in the development of many children. Committing a horrific act of violence against
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any living being deserves attention regardless of whether that act is part of a larger problem or possibly leading to subsequent violence (Solot, 1997). A Description of Childhood Animal Cruelty Definition and History. Defining cruelty to animals is a difficult proposition for a variety of reasons. As previously mentioned, society condones various practices that harm or kill animals (Flynn, 2000). Moreover, different cultures condone and condemn various practices involving animals (Ascione, Kaufmann, & Brooks, 2000). For example, cows are regularly slaughtered for food in the United States, while it is illegal to kill cows in some parts of India. Most often, animal cruelty indicates abuse that is socially unacceptable, intentional/deliberate, and/or unnecessary. Ascione (1993) defines cruelty to animals as a “socially unacceptable behavior that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or death of an animal” (Ascione, 1993, p. 228). In addition, animal cruelty can include acts of commission and omission. Therefore, striking a dog’s head with an iron bar and depriving a cat of food are both considered cruel behaviors toward animals. Cruelty may also be defined based on the particular type of animal that is harmed. For example, Ascione, Thompson, and Black (1997) differentiate between invertebrates (e.g., worms, insects), cold-blooded vertebrates (e.g., fish, reptiles), and warm-blooded vertebrates (e.g., birds, mammals). Violence directed toward warm-blooded vertebrates is considered the most severe. A clear definition of animal cruelty is lacking in most studies (Lockwood & Ascione, 1998). It is argued that some of the research that has not found an association between childhood animal cruelty and future violence has used too broad a definition of animal cruelty. Before focusing on the research concerning childhood cruelty to animals, it
is important to describe how researchers and clinicians began to view such behavior as a possible single predictor of criminal behavior. It was once suggested that childhood histories of enuresis, firesetting, and cruelty to animals were associated with adult violent behavior (MacDonald, 1963). This grouping of behavior was referred to as the triad behaviors. In a study of aggressive violent criminals, 45% had a history of two or all of the triad behaviors (Hellman & Blackman, 1966). It was suggested that the presence of this triad was due to a child’s “lack of internal controls” (Wax & Haddox, 1974, p. 69). The triad was used as a screening device to test for abnormal personality structures. It was conceptualized as a marker for “developmentally arrested infantile character formation” (Wax & Haddox, 1974, p. 68). Treatment for children and adolescents presenting with the triad included personality development. Over the years of research regarding violent behavior, the significance of this triad of behaviors has decreased. For example, Heath and his colleagues (1984) reported that no significant association was found among the three behaviors in a sample of children admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Past researchers who have reported its significant association to future aggression have argued that the triad “was prematurely oversold as predictive of future violence; today most authorities would argue against its predictive value” (Felthous & Kellert, 1986, p. 55-56). In contrast, the focus on the crueltyto-animals behavior of this triad has continued. In particular, a recent study reported that although the association between firesetting and enuresis did not emerge in a sample of juvenile firesetters, the presence of cruelty to animals did predict recidivistic firesetting (Slavkin, 2001). Prevalence. Conduct disorder has become more prevalent over the last several decades (APA, 1994). Approximately 2% to 9% of children in the United
States are diagnosed with the disorder (McMahon & Estes, 1997). Rates tend to be higher in boys than girls. Symptoms are typically exhibited beginning in late childhood to early adolescence and can continue into adulthood. Of children diagnosed with conduct disorder, 25% of them have been, or currently are, cruel to animals (Arluke et al., 1999). Children with conduct disorder also report the highest rates of cruelty to animals out of other groups (Achenbach, Howell, Quay, & Conners, 1991). Moreover, as previously mentioned, this symptom is one of the earliest reported conduct-disorder symptoms and may predict a worse prognosis, as well as an increased risk for adult antisocial personality disorder (APA, 1994). Research regarding the prevalence of childhood animal cruelty has employed clinical and non-clinical adult retrospective accounts and child/adolescent reports. Most of the research concerning childhood animal cruelty has utilized retrospective accounts from violent and nonviolent criminal populations (Felthous & Yudowitz, 1977; Hellman & Blackman, 1966; Kellert & Felthous, 1985). The earliest study to report the prevalence of animal cruelty in a male prisoner population was conducted by Hellman and Blackman (1966). These authors found that prisoners charged with a violent crime were three times as likely to report an incident of animal cruelty having occurred in their childhood compared to prisoners charged with nonviolent crimes. One of the few studies that compared childhood animal cruelty in female and male criminals reported that the prevalence of animal torture was similar in both samples (Felthous & Yudowitz, 1977). Moreover, women with a history of violent convictions reported significantly more animal abuse during their childhoods than nonviolent female offenders. However, male criminals were more likely to have killed animals as children than were female criminals. Among a sample of 152 male crimi-
nals and non-criminals, 373 cruel acts against animals during childhood were reported (Kellert & Felthous, 1985). Over half of the sample described at least one type of animal violence. Offenders classified as aggressive (i.e., current chronic and recurrent aggressive behavior) identified significantly more cruel acts than moderate and non-aggressive criminals. High rates of childhood animal cruelty have also been reported in a sample of male rapists and child molesters (Tingle, Barnard, Robbins, Newman, & Hutchinson, 1986). Regarding the onset of animal cruelty in this type of sample, Ressler et al. (1988) reported that 46% of rapists began abusing animals during adolescence, while 36% began as children. Findings from these retrospective studies suggest that childhood animal cruelty is prevalent among adult offenders and may be more frequent in violent criminals. However, it is difficult to determine whether retrospective accounts of animal cruelty are accurate. Few studies have examined the prevalence of animal cruelty among samples of children. In one of the first reports, Tapia (1971) described case histories of children ages 5 to 15 who were referred for clinical evaluations. He found that each child engaged in various forms of animal abuse, including killing small animals (age 12), crushing the heads of rats (age 10), snapping animals’ backs by kicking them (age 8), and engaging in sadistic acts with various animals (age 10). In a six-year follow-up of these children, 62% continued to abuse animals (Rigdon & Tapia, 1977). In another study, rates for animal abuse were measured in a sample of children and adolescents at a mental health clinic and also in a non-clinical sample (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1981). Maternal reports of cruelty to animals using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) were gathered. The clinical sample evidenced rates between 10% and 25%, compared to 5% for the nonclinical sample. Research involving
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incarcerated adolescents ranging from 14 to 18 years of age found that 14% to 22% had tortured animals within the past year (Ascione, 1993). In general, animal cruelty in clinical child and adolescent samples is present in a large minority of cases. A recent study compared rates and characteristics of animal cruelty in clinic-referred and community samples (Luk et al., 1999). Parents reported their children’s presence of animal cruelty behaviors, their children’s severity of conduct disorder and oppositional defiance disorder, and general family functioning. Children completed the Harter pictorial/normal self-perception profile assessing competence in different domains and general self-esteem. Cruelty to animals was present in roughly one-third of the clinic sample, while less than 1% of the community sample was identified as behaving cruelly toward animals. The researchers found that male children were most likely to have been cruel to animals. In addition, children who were cruel tended to have a greater number of and more severe conduct disorder symptoms, poorer family functioning, and higher perceptions of themselves, in particular in the domains of scholastic and athletic competence. We suggest that the association between cruelty to animals and an elevated sense of self may support the link between childhood cruelty and adult psychopathology, as posited by Frick, O’Brien, Wootton, and McBurnett (1994). These findings help identify some of the descriptive differences among clinical samples of animal-abusing children, clinical samples of children who do not abuse animals, and community samples of children not abusing animals. Childhood experiences of animal cruelty are not limited to samples of delinquent children and adolescents. Surprisingly, the prevalence of animal cruelty is also somewhat common in non-clinical samples. In a study of late adolescents, approximately 50% reported experiencing animal cruelty (Flynn, 2000). Half
of these adolescents reported witnessing others abuse animals, while 20% had actually perpetrated abuse. Killing strays and torturing animals were the most common types of animal cruelty. Males were significantly more likely to have experienced animal cruelty. Moreover, males were over three times as likely to be perpetrators of animal abuse compared to females. Late adolescents were most likely to first witness an act of animal cruelty between the ages of 6 and 12. Regarding the onset of perpetration, those who had killed a stray did so during their teens, while those who hurt/tortured an animal were most likely to have done so between the ages of 6 and 12. Individuals who witnessed animal cruelty most often reported one incident, whereas those who perpetrated abuse most often reported more than one incident. These findings provide a thorough descriptive account of the prevalence of animal cruelty in a nonclinical sample of late adolescents. Another study compared reports of childhood animal cruelty exposure in a sample of undergraduate students and incarcerated felons (Miller & Knutson, 1997). Sixty-three percent of inmates and 20.5% of undergraduates reported abusing animals. Interestingly, no differences were found between male and female incarcerated felons regarding exposure to animal cruelty. However, in the undergraduate sample, men were much more likely to have been exposed to animal cruelty. The majority of exposure occurred between the ages of 6 and 12 years of age. Childhood animal cruelty behavior is not atypical among clinical and nonclinical populations of children and adolescents. In fact, the prevalence for animal abuse in clinical and non-clinical samples of adolescents and children is noteworthy, with rates at roughly 20% across studies (some lower ranges (5%) were reported for non-clinical samples). Considering that the behavior causes undeserved suffering and distress for animals, and that such high prevalence
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rates of abuse are reported, there is no doubt that animal cruelty should be considered a serious social issue. Etiological Factors Self-Reported Motivations. In addition to understanding the prevalence of animal cruelty, it is important to understand the reasons children give for abusing animals. The first classification scheme, offered by Kellert and Felthous (1985), was based on adult criminal and non-criminal accounts of childhood animal cruelty. Based on statements from males with a history of childhood animal cruelty, nine motives were identified: “1) to control the animal, 2) to retaliate against the animal, 3) to satisfy a prejudice against a species or breed, 4) to express aggression through an animal, 5) to enhance one’s own aggressiveness, 6) to shock people for amusement, 7) to retaliate against another person, 8) displacement of hostility from a person to an animal, and 9) nonspecific sadism” (Kellert & Felthous, 1985, p. 11221124). Although this classification system is helpful, it is based on retrospective accounts of animal cruelty; it is therefore difficult to determine what these individuals’ motivations were at the time the abuse was occurring. Other researchers have focused on children’s reported motivations for animal abuse (Ascione, Thompson, & Black, 1997; Boat, 1995). It is argued that parents or other adults can use education on the humane treatment of animals to eliminate animal abuse that is perpetrated by younger children either unknowingly or for the sake of curiosity (Ascione, 1999). However, other motivations appear more menacing. For example, a sample of at-risk children identified several reasons, including an attempt to identify with an aggressor, to imitate witnessed cruelty, to change one’s mood, to submit to force or perceived peer pressure, and to achieve sexual stimulation (Ascione et al., 1997). It has even been found that animal abuse is a requirement for initiation into certain
gangs (Ascione, 1999). The plethora of identified reasons for cruelty to animals points toward the need for in-depth assessments rather than simple behavioral checklists for the proper conceptualization of animal abuse in children and adolescents. In addition to gathering information regarding the individual’s history of abusing animals, it is useful to understand how children explain this behavior. The next section reviews some of the factors associated with childhood animal cruelty that lie outside of the child’s explanations. Specific Factors. Most often, studies concerning the development of childhood animal cruelty have implicated the family context and, to a lesser extent, child factors. For example, histories of child abuse are often reported in samples of adults who were cruel to animals (Felthous, 1980; Kellert & Felthous, 1985; Prentky & Carter, 1984; Tapia, 1971). General family dysfunction has differentiated animal-abusing children and non-animal-abusing children (Luk et al., 1999) and inmates (Kellert & Felthous, 1985; Miller & Knutson, 1997). Moreover, animal-abusing lateadolescents report more negative family, parental, and peer environments than non-abusing late-adolescents (Miller & Knutson, 1997). It is also more common to find cruelty to animals in homes characterized by domestic violence (Ascione, 1993) and parental alcoholism or drug abuse (Felthous & Kellert, 1987). To our knowledge, few studies have focused on factors specific to the child in the development of cruelty to animals. One study found low cerebral spinal fluid levels of a serotonin metabolite (5HIAA) in a 12-year-old girl who abused birds and hamsters (Kruesi, 1989). It can be argued that it is difficult to separate the effects of a poor family environment from genetic contributions to deviance; therefore, specific child factors are always impacted by family context and surrounding variables. Regardless, these findings have led to more compre-
hensive theories of the development of animal cruelty in children. Theories of Animal Cruelty Development in Children. Prior to explaining theories specific to animal cruelty, various general theories regarding the development of conduct disorder are described (Dodge, 1990; Goldstein, 1988; Lytton, 1990; Slutske et al., 1997). Lytton (1990) endorses a transactional model for the development of conduct disorder in children. He posits that child effects (e.g., genes, autonomic reactivity) primarily interact with environmental factors (e.g., parental monitoring and rejection) in contributing to the development of conduct disorder. This general developmental model of conduct problems has a longstanding history. Another interaction model posited by Goldstein (1988) is called the vulnerability-stress model. This theory of conduct disorder is primarily a diathesis stress model in that environmental stressors may predict the onset of the disorder when a genetic predisposition is present in the child. Dodge argues that theories of the development of conduct disorder should focus on integrating child and environmental effects rather than placing more emphasis on one effect or “pitt(ing) them against each other” (Dodge, 1990, p. 701). Slutske and her colleagues (1997) found evidence for the multiple-threshold model of conduct disorder using a large sample of male and female adult twin pairs. Compared to other models of conduct disorder, they reported that genetic and environmental effects were equally important contributors. Moreover, their theory suggested that risk factors were present in normal and subclinical individuals, not only children with the disorder. However, those with conduct disorder represented the extreme continuum of childhood conduct disorder. These general theories of conduct disorder help researchers understand how a child might come to meet a diagnosis for
conduct disorder. However, there is noted heterogeneity within the population of children with conduct disorder (Frick et al., 1994). Moreover, certain factors may be strongly associated with certain clusters of conduct disorder behavior, rather than the disorder as a whole (Frick et al., 1993). Some researchers have combined some of the specific factors previously discussed in the development of etiological theories of cruelty to animals (Arluke & Levin, 1999; Ascione & Lockwood, 2001; Dunlap, 1989). Ascione and Arkow (1999) suggest that the ecology theory, as posited by Bronfenbrenner and Marris (1997), may best describe how animal abuse develops in children. In this respect, a child’s biology, proximal processes (interactions in the immediate environment), and distal environment that are specific to animal treatment interact to develop the child’s own conceptualization of animal treatment. In one report, Kohlberg’s (1984) theory of how moral reasoning develops in children was extended to the moral thinking concerning the treatment of animals (Dunlap, 1989). This theory posits that individuals proceed through six stages of moral reasoning from childhood to adulthood. Male children solved hypothetical human dilemmas (e.g., should a man steal to save his wife’s life) and animal dilemmas (e.g., should a boy steal to save his pet dog’s life). Dunlap (1989) found that abilities to resolve human and animal treatment dilemmas develop concurrently. This finding suggests a connection between how children treat animals and how they treat humans, lending support to the prediction that crimes against persons stem from animal abuse. Perhaps there is a link between children’s cruelty to animals and their experiences with non-animal abuse. Several theories suggest that animal cruelty develops from an abusive family context and witnessed adult violence. Also, serious antisocial behavior often begins with minor transgressions. Similar to the
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gateway phenomenon in substance abuse, animal cruelty may be part of the early developmental process of more serious criminal transgressions. The etiology of childhood animal cruelty is no doubt complex and multidetermined, as is any human behavior. However, several theories provide insight into how children who grow up in abusive family contexts may become more vulnerable to behaving violently toward animals. For example, Patterson, DeBaryshe, and Ramsey’s (1989) developmental learning theory of antisocial behavior in children suggests that family contexts characterized by punitive parenting styles and generally lacking social techniques may model this behavior for their children. In regard to childhood animal cruelty, children may employ these punitive and aversive styles of controlling their animals. A more direct link between family context and animal abuse in children is in the form of witnessing a parent abusing animals. In fact, many children who often witness animal cruelty inflicted by parents eventually engage in such behavior themselves (Ascione, 1998; Boat, 1995). Clearly, parental animal cruelty provides modeling of inappropriate behaviors with animals for the children. For example, in the case presented at the beginning of this article, Lucas watched his mother’s live-in boyfriend stab a calf and have sex with it at age 10 prior to engaging in similar behavior himself (Merz-Perez et al., 2001). Felthous (1980) hypothesized a psychoanalytic conceptualization that explained the impact of parental abuse on the child and subsequent childhood animal cruelty. In a sense, a child may project his/her aggressiveness toward the parent onto an animal. “A physically abusive parent becomes an aggressive object of identification and a model for learning aggressive behavior” (Felthous, 1980, p. 175). In one example, after a male child was beaten by his mother, he hid under the front porch with his cat and strangled it to death. Other
researchers have supported a displacement of hostility onto an animal in an abusive environment (Boat, 1995; Schowalter, 1983). Another theory associated with animal cruelty development that is somewhat removed from family context is that of empathy development. Essentially, exposure to violence leading to interfer-
“In a sense, a child may project his or her aggressiveness toward the parent onto an animal. In one example, after a male child was beaten by his mother, he hid under the front porch with his cat and strangled it to death.”
ences in a child’s development of empathy may predict animal abuse. Frick et al. (1994) identified a callous/unemotional trait in children with conduct disorder. As previously mentioned, Luk et al. (1999) found some support for the higher perceived-self-worth in children who abused animals versus those who did not abuse animals. It is believed that this lack of empathy and high perceptions of the self may generalize to other areas of the individual’s life. These characteristics involve a lack of empathy, lack of guilt, and superficial charm. For example, Flynn (1999) found that late adolescents who reported abusing animals were also most likely to endorse wife-beating and the corporal punishment of children. He suggested that engaging in animal cruelty as a child might have led to a child’s lack of empathy and subsequent attitudes regarding the treatment of children and wives. However, this lack of empathy may have been present prior to the
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cruel behavior toward animals. Although it is unclear whether a lack of empathy and an elevated sense of self develop as byproducts of animal cruelty or prior to such behavior, it is clear that a child’s empathy development is related to animal cruelty, and both are associated with the approval of violent behavior toward persons. In general, in order to fully understand why a child behaves violently toward animals, it is useful to measure various factors. It is important to gather information regarding the child’s stated motivations, past experiences with animals, attitudes about animals, family atmosphere, and history of experienced violence. In addition, it is important to determine the predictive efficacy of childhood animal cruelty behavior, in particular on adult criminal behavior. For example, the effect of conduct disorder should be controlled for when evaluating the strength of animal cruelty behavior in predicting criminal behavior. Data must be gathered from the child and the family/social environment. Although research regarding the etiology of childhood animal abuse using child samples is still emerging, the theories described provide researchers with potentially important pathways to consider. Assessment of Childhood Animal Cruelty Animal abuse displayed by children should be addressed like any symptom of conduct disorder (Ascione et al., 2000). Unfortunately, little research has been done on its assessment compared to other symptoms (Duncan & Miller, 2002; Miller, 2001). Furthermore, global measures of childhood behavior, such as the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978), have been used most often. A limitation of this measure resides in the fact that parents report their children’s treatment of animals. One study found that only 2% to 4% of mothers endorsed children’s cruel behavior towards animals, whereas 10%
of their children self-reported this behavior (Offord, Boyle, & Racine, 1991). Therefore, it is necessary to obtain child self-reports in all cases. Another global self-report that measures adolescents’ treatment of animals is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for Adolescents (MMPIA); however, little research has been conducted using this self-report instrument. As noted previously, interviews may be more successful in conceptualizing a child’s cruel behavior toward animals. The Interview for Antisocial Behavior addresses how severe and chronic a child’s animal abuse is, as well as other antisocial behaviors (Kazdin & EsveldtDawson, 1986). Unfortunately, it relies solely on parental reports of overt behaviors, thereby significantly limiting its assessment of covert behaviors and the complex nature of animal cruelty. Several measures have recently been developed that focus on assessing animal cruelty (Arluke, 1997; Ascione et al., 1997; Boat, 1999; Guymer, Mellor, Luk, & Pearse, 2001; Lockwood, 1998; Zimmerman & Lewchanin, 2000). The Children and Animals (Cruelty to Animals) Assessment Instrument (CAAI) (Ascione et al., 1997) is a semi-structured interview for parents and children who are at least 4 years of age. Several dimensions of animal cruelty are measured, including severity, frequency, duration, recence, diversity across/within categories of animal types, animal sentience level, whether the cruelty is covert, whether the cruelty is isolated, and empathy factors. Although the instrument may be more suitable for research rather than clinical settings due to its long administration (Boat, 1995), child and parent interviews, good interrater reliability, and rich qualitative information make the CAAI a valuable addition to the assessment of childhood animal cruelty. A shorter checklist format of the CAAI is currently being developed. Boat (1999) developed the Boat Inventory on Animal-Related Experiences (BIARE) as a screening instrument
for children’s experiences with and attitudes toward animals. A child’s attitudes regarding support from animals during times of stress, loss of animals, and abuse to animals are measured. Although this measure has not been standardized and normed in comparison to the CAAI, it has been used in clinical settings for trauma indictors in a sample of hospitalized adolescents. Arluke’s (1997) semi-structured interview was created primarily for research purposes. The interviews focus on children and their parents’ accounts of general experiences with animals, antisocial behaviors, family context, and effects of animal abuse. However, it does not consider the impact of these factors on future behavior. The Assessment of Dangerousness in Perpetrators of Animal Cruelty developed by Lockwood (1998) attempts to measure a child’s risk of future violent behavior. This latter scale also assesses animal cruelty behaviors and motivations. Recently, Guyer and her colleagues (2001) developed a screening questionnaire for childhood cruelty toward animals called the Children’s Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Animals (CABTA). The measure was piloted in a large sample of elementary school children and their parents. Factor analyses revealed two main scales, typical and malicious cruelty to animals. The authors present the CABTA as a reliable and valid tool for detecting childhood animal cruelty behaviors, arguing that it is quick to administer and user-friendly. However, it lacks the qualitative information that more involved instruments provide (e.g., CAAI). It may be useful to administer the CABTA as a general screening device for children who have been referred for certain services and then proceed with an interview if such behavior is detected. The Clinical Assessment of Juvenile Animal Cruelty developed by Zimmerman and Lewchanin (2000) is quite possibly the most comprehensive measure of juvenile animal cruelty yet developed. It was intended for mental health clini-
cians who work with children and adolescents referred for animal cruelty. The manual integrates many of the features of the previously described assessments as tools for scoring information. The interviewer gathers information regarding child, environmental, familial, and situational factors, as well as motives for the mistreatment of animals. Once all of the information is collected, several assessment tools are used to integrate the information and develop appropriate treatment strategies. For example, Ascione et al.’s (1997) CAAI dimensions ratings are employed and Lockwood’s (1998) previously described assessment is used to measure the dangerousness or future risk of violence. In addition to these tools, the following coding devices are used to capture a comprehensive picture of the animal cruelty: 1) a summary sheet regarding injuries, deaths, circumstances, reactions, and history of cruelty to animals; 2) a Juvenile Culpability Assessment (Hindman, 1992) tapping intellectual, social, sexual, victimization, and criminality domains; 3) resiliency factors (e.g., insight, independence, creativity); 4) child’s and parent’s readiness for change; and 5) motivations behind the animal cruelty. Each of these tools is used to summarize the information gathered from the assessment. Ultimately, the clinician is provided with an overall picture of the child and can subsequently determine the dynamics of childhood animal cruelty and develop successful, unique interventions for the child. Although several assessments exist for childhood problems, only recently have researchers and clinicians developed measures for childhood animal cruelty. The Clinical Assessment of Juvenile Animal Cruelty developed by Zimmerman and Lewchanin (2000) is the most comprehensive form of its assessment. However, the other measures provide sufficient formats for simple screening of such problematic behavior, as opposed to in-depth information gathering. Regardless, more research is needed to utilize these specif-
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ic, rather than global, measures of antisocial behavior that contain few items assessing animal cruelty. Such research would certainly provide a better conceptualization of childhood animal cruelty and possibly its links to future violent criminal behavior. Treatment of Childhood Animal Cruelty There are few interventions for childhood animal cruelty and therefore a lack of research on treatment outcomes. This section briefly reviews some of the recent treatments that have been developed. A cognitive behavioral intervention approach was developed to treat childhood animal cruelty based on techniques used to treat batterers (Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PSYETA], 1999). The program, called AniCare Child, was developed by the Doris Day Animal Foundation and PSYETA. AniCare Child is the first treatment that focuses on juvenile animal cruelty behavior. The treatment also incorporates attachment theory and psychodynamic elements. Children are taught how to connect to animals and express their emotions appropriately. Corrective interventions are also described. In general, children are taught to acknowledge the accountability of their behavior. AniCare Child is also unique in that it treats children who witness animal abuse. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, there has been no research regarding its efficacy to date. Although cognitive-behavioral treatments have been cited as adequate forms of treatment for aggressive children, it is important to mention some of the specific interventions for childhood animal cruelty that are centered chiefly on the social development of children. Perhaps the most researched intervention for childhood animal cruelty involves the use of animals and the instruction of humane treatment of animals. In general, humane education treatment has helped enhance children’s understanding of and attitudes about
animals (for a review see Ascione, 1992). This type of treatment involves teaching basic concepts of animal care and welfare to children in classrooms. Ascione (1992) found that this type of treatment was related to more humane treatment of animals and increased empathetic tendencies in a sample of low-risk community children. Despite this research, to our knowledge, the efficacy for this treatment has not been demonstrated in a clinical sample of child animal abusers. Moreover, given the evidence for the impact that a child’s family context has on conduct disorder behavior, and more specifically animal cruelty behavior, the effectiveness of this treatment is clearly contingent upon the child’s family atmosphere. It is also important to evaluate when the use of animals in therapy is inadvisable (Lockwood & Ascione, 1998). It is also important to mention other programs that involve children with histories of aggressive behavior and their treatment of animals. The People and Animals Learning (PAL) program (De Grave, 1999) is a three-week program for inner city at-risk youth aged 10 to 13. Although it was not designed as an intervention for children who are cruel to animals, youth are taught respect for animals in addition to responsibility, accountability, and respect for self and others. In this program, children learn the importance and benefits of being kind to animals. Green Chimneys is a separate program that is a year-round home school and farm designed for aggressive children (Ross, Jr., 1999). At Green Chimneys, children who have been cruel to animals are taught humane practices for caring for animals and they learn how to describe their feelings while working with animals, discuss their anger, and build empathy. The program has been successful in targeting and working with aggression toward animals (Ascione et al., 2000). These types of programs provide promising alternative treatments for
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children who abuse animals. Clearly, treatment outcome studies are necessary to determine what types of interventions are effective in decreasing animal abuse among children. Summary and Future Directions This article addresses the research regarding one of the symptoms for conduct disorder in children—animal cruelty. Historically, childhood animal abuse has largely been ignored. With its inclusion in the revised DSM-III as a symptom for conduct disorder, human service professionals, criminologists, researchers, and other mental health workers are beginning to realize that it is a critical factor in the conceptualization of children’s problems and possibly a predictor of future violent criminal behavior (Flynn, 1999). Exposure to childhood animal cruelty is too familiar in clinical samples of children and adolescents. It is also related to negative family contexts (Duncan & Miller, 2002), more severe conduct disorder symptoms (Luk et al., 1999), and possibly adult interpersonal violence (e.g., Merz-Perez et al., 2001; Miller 2001). Recently, a few assessments of childhood animal cruelty have been developed, while only a small number of treatments have been designed to treat this violent behavior. In general, it appears that the research on childhood animal cruelty has just begun. Overall, researchers need to employ recent assessments of childhood animal cruelty (e.g., CAAI, Ascione et al., 1997) in addition to the global measures for assessing child conduct (e.g., CBCL, Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978) to adequately study the epidemiology, etiology, characteristics, and effective treatment of childhood animal cruelty. Treatment outcome studies using AniCare Child and humane education approaches should also be conducted using clinical samples of children. In particular, several recommendations for future research are provided. First, it is
worthwhile to assess the developmental progression of animal abuse in children. Does early accidental abuse of animals lead to more intentional forms of violence? Are certain age groups more likely to inflict certain types of violence? Second, researchers might examine child factors that differentiate children with conduct disorder who abuse animals from those who do not. For example, perhaps low serotonergic functioning is more prevalent in children who are cruel to animals. Do children who are cruel to animals hold immoral beliefs concerning animal and human treatment? Third, it is important to explore how certain aspects of the child and the environment might serve as protective factors in the development of animal cruelty. Does a supportive, proactive family environment protect a child with conduct disorder from being violent toward animals? How does the child’s peer group affect this type of behavior? Research in these areas requires the cooperation of multiple types of agencies (veterinarians, law enforcement, psychologists, psychiatrists, general practitioners, etc.) in order to treat children who are abusive to animals. This review should encourage researchers in the field of child and adolescent behavior to continue their work on understanding animal cruelty; it should also serve as an alert for clinicians and criminologists of the importance of screening for this particular type of childhood aggression. References Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1978). Manual for the child behavior checklist and revised child behavior profile. Burlington, VT: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont. Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1981). Behavioral problems and competencies reported by parents of normal and disturbed children aged four through sixteen. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 46(1). Achenbach, T. M., Howell, C. T., Quay, H. C., & Conners, C. K. (1991). National survey of problems and competencies among four to sixteen-year-olds. Monographs of Society for Research in Child Development, 56.
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (4th ed.). Washington, D.C.: Author. Arluke, A. (1997). Interviewer guides used in cruelty research. Anthrozoos, 10(4), 180-182. Arluke, A., & Levin, J. (1999). The relationship of animal abuse to violence and other forms of antisocial behavior. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 963-975. Arluke, A., Levin, J., Luke, C., & Ascione, F.R. (1999). The relationship of animal abuse to violence and other forms of antisocial behavior. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 963-975. Ascione, F.R. (1992). Enhancing children’s attitudes about the humane treatment of animals: Generalization to human-directed empathy. Anthrozoos, 5(3), 176-191. Ascione, F. R. (1993). Children who are cruel to animals: A review of research and implications for developmental psychopathology. Anthrozoos, 6(4), 226-247. Ascione, F. R. (1998). Battered women’s report of their partners’ and their children’s cruelty to animals. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 1, 119-133. Ascione, F. R. (1999). The abuse of animals and human interpersonal violence: Making the connection. In F. R. Ascione & P. Arkow (Eds.), Child abuse, domestic violence and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention (pp. 50-61). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Ascione, F. R., & Arkow, P. (1999). Child abuse, domestic violence and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Ascione, F. R., Kaufmann, M. E., & Brooks, S. M. (2000). Animal abuse and developmental psychopathology: Recent research, programmatic, and therapeutic issues and challenges for the future. In A. Fine (Ed.), Handbook on animalassisted therapy: Theoretical foundations and guidelines for practice (pp. 325-354). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Ascione, F. R., & Lockwood, R. (2001). Cruelty to animals: Changing psychology, social, and legislative perspectives. In D. Salem & A. Rowan (Eds.), State of the animals (pp. 39-53). Washington, D.C.: Humane Society Press. Ascione, F. R., Thompson, T. M., & Black, T. (1997). Childhood cruelty to animals: Assessing cruelty dimension and motivation. Anthrozoos, 10(4), 170-173. Boat, B. W. (1995). The relationship between violence to children and violence to animals: An ignored link? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 10, 229-235. Boat, B. W. (1999). Abuse of children and abuse of animals: Using the links to inform child assessment and protection. In F. R. Ascione & P. Arkow (Eds.), Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse (pp. 83-100). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Bronfrenbrenner, U., & Marris, P. A. (1997). The ecology of developmental processes. In W. Damon (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1 (5th ed., pp. 993-1028). New York: Wiley. De Grave, J. (1999). People and animals learning: The PAL Program. In F. R. Ascione & P. Arkow, (Eds.), Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention (pp. 410-423). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Dodge, K. A. (1990). Nature versus nurture in childhood conduct disorder: It is time to ask a different question. Developmental Psychology, 26(5), 698-701. Duncan, A., & Miller, C. (2002). The impact of an abusive family context on childhood animal cruelty and adult violence. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 7, 365-383. Dunlap, J. J. (1989). Moral reasoning about animal treatment. Anthrozoos, 2(3), 2450-258. Felthous, A. R. (1980). Aggression against cats, dogs, and people. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 10(3), 169-177. Felthous, A. R., & Kellert, S. R. (1986). Violence against animals and people: Is aggression against living creatures generalized? Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 14(1), 55-69. Felthous, A. R., & Kellert, S. R. (1987). Childhood cruelty to animals and later aggression against people: A review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 710-717. Felthous, A. R., & Yudowitz, B. (1977). Approaching a comparative typology of assaultive female offenders. Psychiatry, 40, 270-276. Flynn, C. P. (2000). Why family professional can no longer ignore violence toward animals. Family Relations, 49, 87-95. Frick, P. J., O’Brien, B. A., Wootton, J. M., & McBurnett, K. (1994). Psychopathy and conduct problems in children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 700-707. Frick, P. J., Van Horn, Y., Lahey, B. B., Christ, M. A. G., Loeber, R., Hart, E. A., Tannenbaum, L., & Hanson, K. (1993). Oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder: A meta-analytic review of factor analyses and cross-validation in a clinical sample. Clinical Psychology Review, 13, 319-340. Goldstein, M. (1988). The family and psychopathology. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 283-299. Guymer, E. C., Mellor, D., Luk, E. S. L., & Pearse, V. (2001). The development of a screening questionnaire for childhood cruelty to animals. Journal of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, 42(8), 1057-1063. Heath, G. A., Hardesty, V. A., & Goldfine, P. E. (1984). Firesetting, enuresis, and animal cruelty. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 1, 97-100. Hellman, D. S., & Blackman, N. (1966). Enuresis, firesetting, and cruelty to animals: A
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triad predictive of adult crime. American Journal of Psychiatry, 122, 1431-1435. Kazdin, A. E., & Esveldt-Dawson, K. (1986). The interview for antisocial behavior: Psychometric characteristics and concurrent validity with child psychiatric inpatients. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 8, 289303. Kellert, S. R., & Felthous, A. R. (1985). Childhood cruelty toward animals among criminals and noncriminals. Human Relations, 38, 11131129. Kruesi, M. J. P. (1989). Cruelty to animals and CSF 5HIAA. Psychiatry Research, 28, 115-116. Lockwood, R. (1998). Factors in the assessment of dangerousness in perpetrators of animal cruelty. Washington, D.C.: Humane Society of the United States. Lockwood, R., & Ascione, F. R. (Eds.). (1998). Cruelty to animals and interpersonal violence. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Luk, E. S. L., Staiger, P. K., Wong, L., & Mathai, J. (1999). Children who are cruel to animals: A revisit. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 33, 29-36. Lytton, H. (1990). Child and parent effect in boys’ conduct disorder: A reinterpretation. Developmental Psychology, 26, 683-697. MacDonald, J. M. (1963). The threat to kill. American Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 125-130. McMahon, R. J., & Estes, A. M. (1997). Conduct problems. In E. J. Mash & L.Terdel (Eds.), Assessment of child psychopathology (3rd ed., pp.130-193). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Mead, M. (1964). Cultural factors in the cause and prevention of pathological homicide. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 28, 11-22. Merz-Perez, L., Heide, K. M., & Silverman, I. J. (2001). Childhood cruelty to animals and subsequent violence against humans. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 45(5), 556-573. Miller, C. (2001). Childhood animal cruelty and interpersonal violence, Clinical Psychology Review, 21(5), 735-749. Miller, K. S., & Knutson, J. F. (1997). Reports of severe physical punishment and exposure to animal cruelty by inmates convicted of felonies and by university students. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21(1), 59-82 Offord, D. R., Boyle, M. H., & Racine, Y. A. (1991). The epidemiology of antisocial behavior in childhood and adolescence. In D. J. Pepler & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Patterson, G. R., DeBaryshe, B. D., & Ramsey, E. (1989). A developmental perspective on antisocial behavior. American Psychologist, 44(3), 2935. Prentky, R. A., & Carter, D. L. (1984). The predictive value of the triad for sex offenders. Behavioral Science and the Law, 2, 341-354. Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Ani-
mals. Society and animals forum. Retrieved 1 May 2005 from http://www.psyeta.org. Ressler, R. K., Burgess, A. W., & Douglas, J. E. (1988). Sexual homicide: Patterns and motives. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Rigdon, J. D., & Tapia, F. (1977). Children who are cruel to animals—A follow up study. Journal of Operative Psychiatry, 8(1), 27-36. Ross Jr., S. B. (1999). Green chimneys: We give troubled children the gift of giving. In F. R. Ascione & P. Arkow (Eds.), Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention (pp. 367-379). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Schowalter, J. E. (1983). Clinical experience: The use and abuse of pets. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 22, 68-72. Shapiro, K. (Summer, 1996). Violence and animal abuse: All in the family. The Animal’s Agenda, 55-56. Slavkin, M. L. (2001). Enuresis, firesetting, and cruelty to animals: Does the ego triad show predictive validity? Adolescence, 36(143), 461466. Slutske, W. S., Heather, A. C., Dinwiddie, S. H., Madden, P. A. F., Bucholz, K. K., Dunner, M. P., Statham, D. J., & Martin, N. G. (1997). Modeling genetic and environmental influence in the etiology of conduct disorder: A study of 2,682 adult twin pairs. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106(2), 266-279. Solot, D. (1997). Untangling the animal abuse web. Society and Animals, 5, 257-265. Spitzer, R. L., Davies, M., & Barkley, R. A. (1990). The DSM-III-R field trial of disruptive behavior disorders. Journal of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29, 690-697. Tapia, F. (1971). Children who are cruel to animals. Clinical Psychiatry and Human Development, 2(2), 70-71. Tingle, D., Barnard, G. W., Robbins, G., Newman, G., & Hutchinson, D. (1986). Childhood and adolescent characteristics of pedophiles and rapists. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 9, 103-116. Wax, D., & Haddox, V. (1974). Enuresis, fire setting, and animal cruelty in male adolescent delinquents: A triad predictive of violent behavior. Journal of Psychiatric Law, 2(1), 45-72. Wright, J., & Hensley, C. (2003). From animal cruelty to serial murder: Applying the graduation hypothesis. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 47(1), 7188. Zimmerman, E., & Lewchanin, S. (2000). Clinician assessment of juvenile animal cruelty. Brunswick, Maine: Biddle Publishing Company.
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About the Authors Sara Chiara Haden, MA, is currently a doctoral degree candidate in clinical psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and Italian from the University of Virginia and her master’s degree in general psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She is currently working on several projects that include the neurochemical bases of aggression, injury’s role in the distress of sexual assault survivors, and risk/protective factors associated with the development of PTSD in trauma survivors and community violence exposure victims. She is interested in treating violent criminals in the future in order to reduce the recidivism rate of this population. Angela Scarpa, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a clinical psychologist with training in individual and group psychotherapy for youth, adults, couples, and families. Before teaching at Virginia Tech, she held faculty positions at the University of Georgia and Eastern Washington University and obtained postdoctoral training at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Southern California in 1993. Her research interests center on the causes and consequences of violence, with a focus on both biological and social perspectives. Emotional and biological aspects of childhood aggression, developmental consequences of child physical abuse, and outcomes of community violence victimization are her current areas of research. Her recent publications appear in the Journal of Community Psychology, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Pediatric Annals, and Trauma, Violence, and Abuse: A Review Journal.
Earn CE Credit To earn CE credit, complete the exam for this article on page 64 or complete the exam online at www.acfei.com (select “Online CE”).
By Marie Wright, PhD, CHS-III
Key Words: information assurance, critical infrastructure, President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP), Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE), Scholarship for Service (SFS)
This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates. ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for those Certified in Homeland Security.
Abstract Before heightened fears of terrorism became the norm and the phrase “homeland security” became part of our everyday vernacular, the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) issued a report that provided the impetus behind two of the federal government’s information security (IS) education initiatives: the Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE) program and the Federal Cyber Service Scholarship for Service (SFS) program. The PCCIP recognized that the protection of our critical infrastructures was a matter of national security and recommended that their protection be a shared responsibility between the public and private sectors. This article examines the evolution of these programs, explains their inadequacies in protecting the nation’s critical infrastructures, and suggests modifications to improve the quality of information assurance (IA) education and to provide a more security-knowledgeable private sector labor force.
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Introduction In the 1980s, university-level computer science programs started to address the public and private sectors’ needs for individuals educated in the technical aspects of computing security—in particular, operating system security. During the next decade, these programs evolved into more broadly focused IS programs, which included the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data stored in and transmitted between computer systems. Today, these programs are more often referred to as IA programs; their scope has expanded to include the authentication of computer users and transmitted messages over networks, as well as non-repudiation services (i.e., ensuring that the sender of a transmitted computer message cannot deny having sent that message). Academic programs and research in security experienced slow growth from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, largely due to a lack of financial support. It was not until the mid-1990s, when the PCCIP undertook a landmark study, that the federal government recognized the need for IS/IA education in promoting national security. The PCCIP and Presidential Decision Directive 63 Former President Bill Clinton formed the PCCIP in 1996. The 20 commissioners who comprised the PCCIP were charged with studying the nation’s critical infrastructures, determining their vulnerabilities, and formulating a comprehensive strategy for protecting them. In a report issued in 1997, the PCCIP identified eight critical infrastructures—those goods and services that the nation depends upon to sustain its security, economy, social well-being, and quality of life.1 These are described below. Transportation infrastructure. The network of highways, rail lines, mass transit systems, ports, inland waterways, pipelines, airports, trucking companies, and delivery services that facilitate the movement of goods and people. Oil and gas production and storage
infrastructure. Industries that produce, store, and distribute oil and natural gas. Water supply infrastructure. Lakes, reservoirs, rivers, aquifers, water treatment facilities, aqueducts, tunnels, piping facilities, distribution systems, and wastewater collection and treatment systems. Emergency services infrastructure. Police, fire, rescue, and emergency medical service units in communities across the country. Government services infrastructure. Federal, state, and local agencies that provide necessary public services and promote the general welfare of citizens, including non-emergency services such as Social Security payments, unemployment and disability compensation, and the management of vital records. Banking and finance infrastructure. Banks, non-bank financial service companies, payment systems, electronic funds transfer systems, electronic data interchange systems, investment companies, mutual funds, stock exchanges, and securities and commodities exchanges. Electrical power infrastructure. Industries that generate, transmit, and distribute electricity. Telecommunications infrastructure. Public computer networks including the internet, private computer networks, and the public telecommunications network, including local and long distance carrier landline networks, cellular networks, and satellite communications. The PCCIP recognized that there were significant challenges in ensuring the reliability and security of these vital infrastructures. Once physically and logically separate, these infrastructures had become interconnected and interdependent on computer networks and information technology. These linkages created vulnerabilities that could be exploited through cyber attacks and new threats that could be launched by hostile governments, terrorists, disgruntled employees, and other malicious intruders.1 With 85% of the infrastructure owners and operators residing in the private sector, the PCCIP recognized that the federal government alone could not provide crit-
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ical infrastructure security; it had to be a shared responsibility between the public and private sectors. The PCCIP recommended a strategy of greater communication and cooperation based on partnerships between the federal government, business and industry, and higher education. It also identified the need for educational programs as a key objective in order to elevate national awareness of infrastructure threats, vulnerabilities, and interdependency assurance issues.1 In 1998, building on the recommendations of the PCCIP, President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD 63), which outlined a framework for critical infrastructure protection that mandated federal government actions and emphasized public-private partnerships to reduce the likelihood of infrastructure attack. The federal government was reorganized so that it could serve as a model for the private sector on how critical infrastructure assurance should be achieved.2 Each infrastructure sector was assigned to a single federal government department that would act as the lead agency in addressing problems related to critical infrastructure protection. Special functions related to critical infrastructure protection, such as national defense, foreign affairs, intelligence, and law enforcement, were each assigned to a federal government agency. A Critical Infrastructure Coordination Group was established to ensure interagency communication and cooperation, and the National Infrastructure Assurance Council was established to enhance the partnership between the public and private sectors in protecting the nation’s critical infrastructures.2 PDD 63 also outlined a series of tasks, several of which were specific to higher education. Vulnerability awareness and education programs were called for within both the federal government and the private sector to educate people on the importance of security and to train them in security standards, particularly with respect to cyber systems. Federally sponsored research and development efforts in support of infrastructure protection were to be coordinated and adequately funded.
The White House and the National Infrastructure Assurance Council would bring together academic leaders from engineering, computer science, and business and law schools to review the status of IS education to identify changes in curricula and resources necessary to meet the national demand for professionals in this field, and to discuss issues pertaining to computer ethics as they relate to general university populations. In addition, the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering would convene a round table of federal, state, and local officials and leaders in industry and academia to develop national strategies for enhancing infrastructure security.2 Milestones for accomplishing these and other related tasks were to be incorporated within a national infrastructure assurance plan. This plan was released in 2000 as the National Plan for Information Systems Protection, Version 1.0.3 It outlined a series of programs, one of which helped jump-start academic interest in the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) CAE/IAE program. The CAE/IAE Program In 1998, the NSA responded to PDD 63 by announcing the establishment of the NSA CAE/IAE program. The goal of this program was to reduce vulnerabilities in the U.S. information infrastructure by promoting higher education in IA and by producing a growing number of professionals with IA expertise in various disciplines.4 From its inception in 1998 until 2004, the NSA CAE/IAE program was administered solely by the NSA’s National Infosec Education and Training Program. On April 24, 2004, the NSA/Central Security Service and the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that the NSA CAE/IAE program would be renamed the National CAE/IAE program, and that it would be jointly sponsored by the NSA and the DHS.5 Four-year and graduate-level colleges and universities are eligible to apply for designations as CAE/IAE educational
organizations. A prerequisite for this designation is that the college or university applicant must demonstrate that its IA curriculum maps completely to at least two standards of the National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Instruction (NSTISSI)/Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS). Mapping to NSTISSI/CNSS Standard 4011, “National Training Standard for Information Systems Security Professionals,” is required, as is mapping to at least one of the following NSTISSI/CNSS standards: 4012, “National Training Standard for Designated Approving Authority;” 4013, “National Information Assurance Training Standard for System Administrators;” 4014, “National Training Standard for Information Systems Security Officers;” and 4015, “National Training Standard for System Certifiers.”6 The CAE/IAE application consists of 10 criteria designed to address the scope and breadth of IA education and practice throughout the college or university.6 Through 2004, the review process required the applications to be independently reviewed by two individuals from the NSA’s review board. Using a preestablished numeric point system in which higher point ratings were allocated to graduate programs, each reviewer assigned points to the information provided by the college or university applicant in response to the 10 criteria. In the event of a disparity between the point ratings assigned by the two reviewers, a third reviewer from the NSA’s review board would independently review the application. It was the responsibility of the reviewers to decide whether the applicant should be designated a CAE/IAE institution. It is not known whether, or how, this review process will change now that the NSA and DHS share joint sponsorship of the CAE/IAE program. Until 2000, there was relatively little academic interest in the CAE/IAE program, as the rewards of such a designation consisted of limited bragging rights and a framed certificate. It was the National Plan for Information Systems
Protection, Version 1.0, that added financial incentives to the rewards of a CAE/IAE designation.3 The National Plan, which was developed in accordance with PDD 63 and released in January 2000, was designed around three objectives: to prepare for and prevent a successful attack on the nation’s critical information networks and infrastructures; to detect, respond to, and recover from an attack; and to enhance research and development, training, public awareness, and legislative efforts in order to improve the nation’s ability to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from such an attack.3 The national plan outlined 10 programs for achieving these objectives, although the program with the greatest impact on higher education was Program 7, “Developing a Cadre of Highly Skilled Computer Science and Information Security Personnel.”3 This program established a training and education initiative known as the Federal Cyber Service, which was designed to address the lack of skilled IS specialists within the federal government. The Federal Cyber Service initiative introduced several plans to help solve the federal government’s information technology security personnel problem, although the main effort to educate new federal IS employees was the SFS program. Federal Cyber Service: SFS Program The SFS program provides funding to selected colleges and universities so that they produce graduates knowledgeable in IA. Administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and leveraged against the CAE/IAE program, the SFS program consists of two tracks: the Scholarship Track and the Capacity Building Track. The Scholarship Track provides funding to designated CAE/IAE institutions to award scholarships to selected students studying in the IA field. The scholarships may be used to support two years of graduate study (at the masters or doctoral level) or the last two years of undergrad-
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uate study. Upon graduation, the scholarship recipients must work for a federal government agency for 2 years to fulfill their Federal Cyber Service commitment.7 Following the completion of this commitment, these individuals may choose to remain in government service, or they may make a transition to business/industry or academia. The Capacity Building Track provides funding to institutions seeking to become designated CAE/IAE institutions. Funding is given to support the professional development of IA faculty (e.g., conferences, seminars, workshops, and distancelearning opportunities), as well as to the development, adaptation, and implementation of CAE/IAE education and training materials, courses, and curricula. In fiscal year (FY) 2001, the first year in which the NSF awarded SFS program grants, $9 million in scholarship funds were given to six CAE/IAE institutions, and $1.6 million in capacity building funds were awarded to eight other institutions.8 In FY 2002, $10 million in scholarship funds were given to five CAE/IAE institutions, and $1.5 million in capacity building funds were awarded to nine other institutions. Shortly after these grants were announced, President George W. Bush signed the FY 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act (Public Law 107206), which provided an additional $19.3 million to the SFS budget.9 This allowed the NSF to award scholarship funds to four additional CAE/IAE institutions, and to offer additional funds to nine of the existing scholarship programs.10 In FY 2003, $10 million in scholarship funds were given to four CAE/IAE institutions, and $1.2 million in capacitybuilding funds were awarded to 20 other institutions.11 The SFS funding appropriation for FY 2004 was approximately $16.2 million.12 At the time of this writing, the FY 2004 grants had not been awarded, although it appeared that four institutions would be given scholarship funds and 25 institutions would be given capacity-building funds.11
Assessment The CAE/IAE and SFS programs have their origins of purpose rooted in the PCCIP’s report.1 It was this report that enabled the federal government to view critical infrastructure protection as a matter of national security and to recognize that the protection of these infrastructures required a partnership between the public and private sectors. To date, the CAE/IAE and SFS programs have had a negligible impact on the ability of the private sector to protect the nation’s critical infrastructures. The reasons for this are numerous, including a lack of emphasis on undergraduate programs, an inconsistency in IA program quality among the CAE/IAE institutions, an almost exclusive focus on the federal government, and a cost-ineffective scholarship program. Each of these is discussed below. Lack of emphasis on undergraduate programs. The private sector owns and operates 85% of the nation’s critical infrastructures and requires a workforce knowledgeable in IA to enact the necessary security measures. Although business/industry tends to hire more individuals with undergraduate degrees than with graduate degrees, the CAE/IAE program favors graduate-level programs. Of the 59 institutions that are currently identified as centers of academic excellence in IAE, 90% received this designation on the basis of their technical (e.g., computer science or electrical engineering) graduate-level programs or certificate programs.13 The PCCIP’s recommendation that the federal government should promote and support the development of IS programs in the nation’s business schools has largely been ignored.1 There remains an acute shortage of skilled IA personnel in business.14 Inconsistency in IA program quality among the CAE/IAE institutions. Existing CAE/IAE institutions have been designated based on criteria established by the NSA and evaluations performed by members of the NSA Review Board. Most of the review board members have no full-time experience in academia and, more recently, all have been
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government employees. This is not a peer-reviewed process. The decision as to whether an applicant will be designated a CAE/IAE institution is based on an independent appraisal made by two or three review board members. The decision of the reviewers is final, and there is no appeal process, even when errors occur. Members of the review board do not verify the self-reports submitted by applicants, which raises the probability that an applicant may exaggerate the scope and breadth of its IA programs and practices. The reviewers also have varying levels of expertise in IA, which has led to inconsistent interpretations of the NSA criteria. As a result, some CAE/IAE-designated institutions offer only certificate programs, while others have well-established graduate-level IA programs. Focus on the federal government. The SFS program, which awards most of its funding to CAE/IAE-designated colleges and universities, focuses on the training of students as IA professionals “to meet a critical need for the government to protect the nation’s information infrastructure in the public and private sectors in a post-September 11 environment.”15 Due to the two-year Federal Cyber Service work commitment required of all SFS scholarship recipients, all of the graduates must be placed in federal agencies. To date, between 60% and 70% of the placements have been related to the NSA.16 None of the graduates are working in the private sector. Cost-ineffective scholarship program. By the end of FY 2003, the National Science Foundation had awarded $48.3 million to 19 CAE/IAE institutions to provide scholarship support to 357 students.16 While scholarship support to students studying IA is important and should be provided, it is difficult to justify the $135,000-plus average cost per student. Furthermore, it is unlikely that most of the graduates will want to move from the public to the private sector.
Conclusion If critical infrastructure protection is to improve within the private sector, higher education and business/industry must assume leadership positions, and the federal government must reevaluate its criteria for IA scholarship support. Higher education accreditation boards must become responsible for assessing IA program quality in colleges and universities. Specifically, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business are well positioned to become the accrediting authorities for IA programs in computer science/engineering and business, respectively. These specialized accrediting organizations follow a rigorous, non-governmental peer-review process.17 IA program accreditation would serve several purposes. It would notify employers that the graduates are prepared for employment in IA. It would also advise faculty, deans, and administrators of the IA program’s strengths and weaknesses and would provide methods of improvement. In addition, it would inform parents and prospective students that the IA program has met rigorous academic standards, and would assure taxpayers that their money is well spent.17 Business/industry must play a more active role in helping local colleges and universities develop, improve, and expand IA programs. Business/industry professionals should be guest lecturers in IA classes to share their practical experiences and interact with students who may become future employees. Business/industry leaders should volunteer to become members of departmental or school-wide advisory boards so they can regularly interact with faculty/administration members. Organizations should donate computer equipment they no longer need to local colleges/universities. Academic institutions, particularly those that are publicly funded, have limited funds to purchase the equipment needed to keep the classrooms and labs up-todate. IA internship opportunities should also be provided for students who need and want relevant, practical work experi-
ences. Finally, business/industry should establish scholarships for local college/university students studying IA. Financial support for IA education should not just be the responsibility of the federal government. The federal government must re-examine the criteria it uses for IA scholarship support. NSF awards should not be leveraged against the CAE/IAE program. Instead, the funds should be more widely and equitably distributed among all academic institutions that offer IA education, and the scholarship recipients should be encouraged to seek IA employment in the private sector. Notes 1. President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, Critical Foundations: Protecting America’s Infrastructures. The Report of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (Washington, D.C.: Author, 1997). 2. Department of Justice, “Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-63,” http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/white_pr.htm (accessed July 15, 2004). 3. The White House, “National Plan for Information Systems Protection, Version 1.0,” http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd/CIPplan.pdf (accessed August 1. 2004). 4. National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Centers of Academic Excellence,” http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/caeiae.cfm (accessed July 17, 2004). 5. ___, “National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Form New Partnership to Increase National Focus on Cyber Security Education,” http://www.nsa.gov/releases/relea00077.cfm. 6. ___, “Centers of Academic Excellence Criteria for Measurement,” http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/caeCriteria.cfm (accessed August 1, 2004). 7. National Science Foundation, “Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service (SFS) Overview,” http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/due/programs/sfs/ (accessed August 2, 2004). 8. Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, “NSF Scholarship for Service Awards Announced at Information Security Colloquium,” http://www.nsf.gov/od/Ipa/news/press/01/pr014 5.htm (accessed August 2, 2004). 9. ___, “Scholarship for Service Awards Expanded After President Signs Supplemental Budget Bill,” http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0266.htm (accessed August 2, 2004). 10. ___, “NSF Announces New Scholarship for Service Awards,” http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/ news/03/pr0321.htm (accessed August 2, 2004). 11. National Science Foundation, “Award
Information,” http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/due/awards/ (accessed August 2, 2004). 12. ___, “Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service (SFS),” http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ ods/getpub.cfm?nsf04505 (accessed August 2, 2004). 13. National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Centers of Academic Excellence Institutions,” http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/ caemap.cfm?MenuID=10.1.1.2 (accessed August 3, 2004). 14. Sakar, D, “Expert Calls for Better Security,” http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0531/ web-secure-06-03-04.asp (accessed August 3, 2004). 15. National Science Foundation, “NSF Announces New Scholarship for Service Awards,” http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/pr0321.htm (accessed August 3, 2004). 16. ___, “Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service (SFS) Student Placement Issues: Exploration of the Solution Space,” a report from an NSF workshop held August 5-6, 2003, http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04008/nsf040 08.pdf (accessed August 2, 2004). 17. Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc., “ABET Accreditation, Frequently Asked Questions About Accreditation,” http://www.abet.org/about_ac.html (accessed August 5, 2004).
About the Author Marie Wright, PhD, CHS-III, is a professor of management information systems at Western Connecticut State University. She received her doctorate in information and control systems from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. She was a review board member for the NSA’s CAE/IAE program from 1999-2003. From 2001-2004, she was a panel review member for the NSF’s Federal Cyber Service SFS program. She has authored more than three-dozen articles and has been published in numerous professional journals. She is an ACFEI and CHS member, and is a member of the American Society for Industrial Security, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association for Information Systems, the Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society, the Computer Security Institute, the Information Systems Security Association, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Earn CE Credit To earn CE credit, complete the exam for this article on page 65 or complete the exam online at www.acfei.com (select “Online CE”).
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 37
Mark your calendars for the fifth Certified in Homeland Security (CHS) Conference, to be held in San Diego, California, on Sept. 28-29, 2005. This conference will feature two full days of advanced Homeland Security certification courses, presentations, and workshops presented by some of the nation's top Homeland Security experts. At the heart of the nation’s Homeland Security efforts are the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the National Response Plan (NRP) The NRP and the NIMS, a prerequisite for anyone working within the Homeland Security arena, provide a nationwide template to enable all government and private-sector organizations to work together to prevent or respond to threats and incidents of terrorism. An eight-hour workshop on the NIMS/NRP will be offered on Thursday, Sept. 29, at the CHS Conference. The workshop will be taught by Stephen L. Hermann, CHS-V, a recent senior executive fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Hermann is the chief instructor at the Huntsville Training Institute (HTI), which trains U.S. Postal Service employees. The workshop will cover the main NIMS principles, as well as how to locate information within the NRP, the organizational structure used for NRP coordination, and the field-level organizations and teams activated under the NRP. Attendees are eligible for FEMA completion certificates for IS700 - National Incident Management System (NIMS), and IS 800 - National Response Plan (NRP), upon successful completion of the exams. A one-day American Red Cross (ARC) Disaster Mental Health Workshop will be presented by Linda Whitten, BC, FAPA, LPN, MSN, APRN, an advanced practice nurse psychotherapist, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on
Thursday, Sept. 29. The ARC Mental Health course prepares licensed mental health professionals to work on local and national disaster action response teams. The workshop is open to all participants, although only those who hold a state-issued license to practice in a mental health specialty will receive the ARC certificate. Among the noted professionals who will be presenting at the conference are Floyd P. Horn, PhD, international agroterrorism expert and former director of food, agriculture, and water security at the White House Office of Homeland Security; and Colonel LZ Johnson (Ret.), BSBA, CHS-V, former director of the Center for Domestic Preparedness, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Horn’s presentation on agroterrorism will be featured on Sept. 28. Dr. Horn’s career spans more than three decades with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including 10 years as the administrator of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the USDA’s primary research arm. Dr. Horn also served as the director of food, agriculture, and water security at the White House Office of Homeland Security. During this assignment, Dr. Horn worked as part of the staff under Governor Tom Ridge, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Col. Johnson will present at the CHS Luncheon on Thursday, Sept. 29. Col. Johnson is the former director of the Center for Domestic Preparedness, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s only federally chartered weapons of mass destruction training center. In this position Col. Johnson was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the national training center and also served as the senior executive advisor to the director of the Office of Domestic Preparedness on all matters pertaining to the domestic preparedness national training program.
38 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
Col. Johnson, a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer, specializes in the areas of strategic planning, homeland defense, crisis management, and military installation management. He is the corporate vice president of homeland security programs for the Applied Technology Business Unit of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where he is responsible for identifying and qualifying new opportunities for Applied Technology Business Unit services within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and other federal, state, and local agencies conducting homeland security and homeland defense responsibilities. The courses and examinations for CHS level-IV and CHS level-V will also be offered at the conference, providing qualified CHS members an opportunity to earn these pinnacle levels of Certification in Homeland Security. The CHS-IV course will be “Incident Command Management and Terrorism” and the CHS-V course will be “CBRNE Preparedness.” Register today in one of the following ways: 1.) Call toll free (800) 423-9737, 2.) E-mail homelandsecurity@acfei.com, 3.) Register online quickly and easily at www.acfei.com. To find out more about the conference and how you may become Certified in Homeland Security, call (800) 423-9737 or e-mail homelandsecurity@acfei.com.
The Fifth Certified in Homeland Security, CHS, Conference San Diego, California •
Wednesday & Thursday, Sept. 28–29, 2005
(Please type or print your name as you would like it to appear on your badge.) Name _________________________________________________Designation (e.g., PhD)_____________ Member ID #__________ Address __________________________________________City____________________________ State_______ Zip______________ Phone (
) ______________________ Fax (
) _______________________ E-mail ____________________________________
I. CONFERENCE REGISTRATION You must select either Category A or Category B registration; select only one—some program courses and workshops run concurrently. Select Category A if you prefer to attend the CHS general sessions and workshops on Wednesday and Thursday. This registration includes the full-day FEMA National Incident Management System (NIMS)/National Response Plan (NRP) workshop on Thursday. Select Category B if you prefer to register for the certification courses for CHS-IV on Wednesday and/or CHS-V on Thursday. Note: Both registration categories include a full breakfast both days, a CHS P&R Team Meeting and buffet Wednesday evening, and a luncheon Thursday afternoon. Separate registration is required for the CHS Banquet on Thursday evening, which features a four-course dinner and a keynote speaker (see item II below). For planning purposes, please check below if you plan to attend the Wednesday evening CHS P&R Team Meeting and buffet from 6:30pm–10pm. ❑ YES, I will attend the Wednesday evening CHS P&R Team Meeting and buffet.
❑ Category A: General Sessions & Workshop Registration ❑ Member ❑ Life Member (10% discount) ❑ Non-Member ❑ Spouse/Guest* (name)__________________ ❑ Student (undergraduate) *Guests are ineligible for CE credits. ❑ Guest—Luncheon and/or Banquet Only
Early-Early Bird Early Bird (Before 6/15) (6/16-8/1) $375 $425 $335 $380 $425 $475 $200 $250 $100 $150 (Luncheon) ____x$25=______
Regular (8/2-9/29) $475 $425 $525 $295 $195
Late (After 9/29) $525 $475 $575 $345 $245
(Banquet) ____x$50=______
Total
$________ $________ $________ $________ $________ $________
Full-day FEMA NIMS/NRP Workshop (Thursday 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.) This workshop includes IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS) and IS-800 National Response Plan (NRP). This workshop is free with conference registration, but space is limited and pre-registration is required. Check below if you will attend this workshop. ❑ YES, I will attend Thursday’s full-day FEMA NIMS/NRP workshop on IS-700 and IS-800. Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Workshop (Thursday 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.) Instructor: Linda Whitten, APRN, BC, FAPA; 8 credits for APA, NBCC, CBBS, CME, CE. This workshop is free with conference registration; pre-registration is required. You must be a mental health professional with a state license to practice independently to receive the ARC certificate. Others may participate but will not receive the certificate. ❑ Yes, I will attend the Disaster Mental Health workshop. License number:______________________________ Licensed in (state):_______
❑ Both Category CHS-IV CHS-V Advanced Certification Courses and Exams courses are B: instructed by Lt.and Col. Alicia Tate-Nadeau ❏ CHS-IV: Incident Command Management and Terrorism (Wednesday, Sept. 28) Note: You must be Certified in Homeland Security at Level III to take the CHS-IV Course and Exam
$425
❏ CHS-V: CBRNE Preparedness (Thursday, Sept. 29th) $495 You may enroll in both the CHS-IV and CHS-V courses at the conference, but you must successfully complete BOTH courses to earn CHS-V.
$_________ $_________
II. BANQUET REGISTRATION ❑ CHS Banquet: This four-course banquet, featuring the keynote speaker, will be held Thursday evening, Sept. 28
III. PAYMENT PROCESSING
$50
Total Amount Due:
$_________
$________
❑ Check enclosed ❑ Am. Express ❑ Purchase Order ❑ Master Card/Visa
Card Number ____________________________________________ Exp___________ Name (as it appears on card)_______________________________________________ Signature _______________________________________________________________ All requests for cancellation of conference registration must be made to CHS headquarters in writing by fax or mail. Phone cancellaHotel Information tions will not be accepted. All cancelled/refunded registrations will be assessed a $50 administrative fee. All refunds will be issued in the The conference will be held at the luxurious Manform of credit vouchers and are pro-rated as follows: cancellations received four or more weeks prior to the conference = 100% refund (less $50 administrative fee); cancellations received less than four weeks but more than one week prior to the conference = 50% refund chester Grand Hyatt on San Diego Bay (less $50 administrative fee); cancellations received one week or less prior to the conference = no refund. For more information on (see www.manchestergrand.hyatt.com). administrative policies, such as grievances, call (800) 423-9737, ext. 125. The performance of this conference is subject to the acts of Call (619) 232-1234 and mention the group God, war, government regulation, disaster, strikes, civil disorder, curtailment of transportation facilities, or any other emergency makcode “G-AMCF” to reserve your room. Space in ing it impossible to hold the conference. In the event of such occurrences, credit vouchers will be issued in lieu of cash. Conference schedule is subject to change. Please be prepared to show photo identification upon arrival at the conference. Special Services: ❑ Please this hotel is limited, so reserve your room now. check here if you require special accommodations to participate in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Attach a writ(The guaranteed group rate ends Aug. 25, 2005.) ten description of your needs.
FAX YOUR REGISTRATION FORM TODAY to (417) 881-4702 (Attn: Marianne Schmid); APPLY ONLINE at www.acfei.com; MAIL TO 2750 E. Sunshine Springfield, MO 65804; PHONE toll free (800) 423-9737, ext. 220
In his presentation at the 2004 Certified in Homeland Security National Conference in Washington, D.C., Nick Bacon, CHS-V, Chair of the American Board for Certification in Homeland Security, Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient and Past NICK BACON, CHS-V President of the Congressional Director, Homeland Security Veterans Corps; Medal of Honor Society, former Chair, ABCHS Director of the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs, and Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, asked the audience to imagine what could be accomplished by harnessing the incredible collective power, energy, and skills of our Veterans and directing them into efforts to help make our communities and nation more secure. The American College of Forensic Examiners Institute (ACFEI), the world’s largest forensic membership association, and its Certified in Homeland Security (CHS) program, the nation’s leading private sector Homeland Security membership organization dedicated to the certification, training, and continuing education of Homeland Security professionals from across the nation, did imagine the enormous contribution that our nation’s Veterans could make to Homeland Security efforts. Accordingly, CHS created the CHS Veterans Corps to provide Veterans a means to channel their
efforts into improving the safety and security of our nation. The main function of the CHS Veterans Corps is to assist the Certified Homeland Security Preparation and Response Teams (CHS P&R Teams), which are being developed, positioned, and readied in communities in all 50 states. The purpose of these teams is to bring together Veterans and others with experience in Homeland Security within the same geographical areas. These individuals have a variety of different backgrounds, experiences, training, skills, specializations, and talents that will be invaluable in helping their local communities prevent, prepare for, and respond to incidents of terrorism. These proactive support units will reach out to assist, supplement, and collaborate with all first responder agencies, groups, and organizations to achieve the goal of making their communities as safe as possible.
For more information or to join the CHS Veterans Corps, call toll free (800) 423-9737 or e-mail homelandsecurity@acfei.com.
Join the CHS Veterans Corps An arm of CHS, the nation’s leading private sector Homeland Security membership organization
CME
This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates. ACFEI is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing professional education for psychologists. ACFEI maintains responsibility for the program. ACFEI is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to sponsor continuing medical education for physicians. ACFEI designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1 hour in category 1 credit towards the AMA Physicians Recognition Award.
By Nelson Hendler, MD, MS; Ann Cashen; Sam Hendler; Christopher Bringham, MD; Phillip Osborne, MD; Peirre LeRoy, MD; B. Todd Graybill, PhD; L. Catlett, MD; and Mats Gronblad, MD, PhD Key Words: psychological tests for pain, back pain, neck pain, measuring pain, validating pain, predicting organic pathology, misdiagnosis of chronic pain
Abstract A retrospective chart review was conducted in seven private practice offices in order to evaluate the ability of the Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test (PVT) to predict the presence or absence of physical abnormalities in patients with chronic back, neck, or limb pain. In this study, 251 patients with complaints of chronic back and/or limb pain were evaluated. A study seeking correlation between the scores on the Mensana Clinic PVT and objective measures of organic pathology was conducted. Results of X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), electromyograms (EMGs), nerve conduction studies, bone scans, nerve blocks, and other medical tests were graded in terms of severity of physical abnormality. Patients who scored 17 points or less on the Mensana Clinic PVT had moderate or severe physical abnormalities 94% of the time. Patients scoring 21 points or more had mild or no physical abnormalities 85% of the time. The PVT significantly correlates with the presence or absence of organic pathology (r = 0.554; p < .0001).
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 41
Introduction Chronic pain (constant pain lasting 6 months or longer) is a subjective experience that is influenced by many premorbid (before the onset of pain) psychological problems. However, chronic pain often causes depression, anxiety, and marital difficulties.1 Although physical examination and other studies, including X-ray studies, 3D-CT, electromyograms (EMGs), nerve conduction velocity studies, and thermography,2-4 in many cases may document an organic basis of chronic back pain, some organic syndromes defy definition by objective tests.5 This may be a greater problem for women, for whom physician prejudice can result in a significantly less-extensive evaluation of their complaints of back pain.6 Also, any litigation may influence symptoms7 and the type of litigation may influence outcomes.8 Therefore, there is a need to differentiate between organic and functional (negative physical and laboratory examination) back pain.9 In an effort to provide a consistent method of assessing patients with chronic pain, one must bear in mind that patients with severe personality disorders may also have organic disease. In fact, it would be prudent to think of these two types of disorders as existing on two separate and independent intersecting axes.10,11 Complicating this is the psychological response to chronic pain, which changes over time. Hendler has termed this “The Four Stages of Pain.”1,12,13 Therefore, one must not only consider the pre-morbid psychological adjustment of the chronic pain patients, but also the chronological stages of their chronic pain in order to determine the appropriateness of their psychological response to pain. Many psychological tests have been used to evaluate the validity of the complaint of pain.9 One frequently employed test is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a 566-question self-administered test consisting of true-false answers. By using
this test, researchers have identified several clusters of personality traits that occur commonly in chronic pain patients.14-17 However, the only criterion for inclusion of patients in these reports was the complaint of pain. With the exception of one study from the Mayo Clinic, there have been no MMPI studies that observe patients with chronic pain on a longitudinal basis.18 Other researchers have used the MMPI to differentiate between organic and functional groups of chronic back pain patients with varying degrees of success.19-21 In these articles, functional pain is defined as a pain for which there is no organic pathology, while organic pain is defined as pain that does have a medical explanation. This lack of reliability of the MMPI led to the development of other subtests of the MMPI, which were also unreliable.21-23 In counter-distinction to the MMPI, The Mensana Clinic PVT (previously called the Hendler 10-Minute Screening Test and the Mensana Clinic Back Pain Test) was developed by the recording of a patient’s normal physical and psychological response to documented chronic back, neck, and limb pain regardless of any pre-existing personality disorder.24 Specifically, it was not validated on facial, abdominal, or genital pain. This 15-question test, which is essentially a structured psychiatric and medical interview, established a psychological and medical profile that retrospectively correlated with objective physical findings 83% of the time and predicted a positive outcome to surgery or pain-related procedures 77% of the time in a group of 315 men and women.24 Prospective studies found that the test could predict the presence of organic pathological conditions 77% of the time for women, 91% of the time for men, and 85% of the time overall.25-27 No attempt has been made to correlate MMPI findings with the presence or absence of objective physical findings other than work by Hendler and his colleagues. They found scale 2 (depression)
42 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
had a weak correlation with physical findings in men and, in a combined study, found that the F scale (faking) correlated with physical findings.25,27 However, despite the fact that a relationship could be established between these two scales of the MMPI, the correlation was barely statistically significant. The MMPI was designed to measure personality traits and the SCL-90 to measure psychological states. However, the PVT was designed to measure the validity of the complaint of pain, regardless of the personality traits or psychological states of patients. The PVT is not designed to measure pain, but rather the impact of pain on a patient’s lifestyle. Hendler categorized chronic pain patients into four broad categories, as described below. Objective pain patients: Good premorbid adjustment, changes in lifestyle over time because of pain, and a definable organic syndrome, with positive objective tests. Exaggerating pain patients: Poor pre-morbid adjustment, no change in lifestyle, avoidance of unpleasant tasks, and definable medical syndrome, without positive objective tests. Undetermined pain patients: Good pre-morbid adjustment, changes in lifestyle over time because of pain—similar to the objective pain patients—and a difficult-to-diagnose clinical syndrome, without positive objective tests. Affective pain patients: Poor premorbid adjustment, no change in lifestyle, no recognizable organic syndrome, without positive objective tests.13,24 By using these categories, both organic and psychological factors can be considered concurrently.10,11 This study was designed to investigate the validity of the PVT for predicting the presence or absence of documented organic pathological conditions in patients with chronic back, neck, and limb pain. This research differs from earlier articles on a similar topic since additional objective measures of organic
pathology, which were not available when the earlier studies were published, were included in this research (MRI, MRI with gadolinium, provocative discograms, 3D-CT, and quantitative flow-meter studies, as well as the use of iohexol myelograms, Indium III studies, and gallium studies). Also, expansion upon earlier research to include primary and secondary care centers as well as a tertiary referred center was needed to test the efficacy of the Mensana Clinic PVT on a general pain population. Methods Patients. Patient charts were derived from various sources. Mensana Clinic, a tertiary referral center, provided 122 charts, of which 120 were used. Of these 120 patients, 76% were from 25 states, while the remainder were from the state of Maryland. Chris Brigham, MD, from Occupational Health Excellence provided 50 charts representing patients from Maine, of which 35 were used. Philip Osborne, MD, from the Willis Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, provided 49 charts of patients from Louisiana, of which 33 were suitable for inclusion. Pierre LeRoy, MD, from the Delaware Pain Clinic provided 25 charts, of which 24 were used. These patients were referred by Delaware doctors to the Delaware Pain Clinic for evaluation and treatment. B. Todd Graybill, PhD, from Muskogee, Oklahoma, provided 25 charts of patients from Oklahoma, of which 24 were suitable for inclusion. L. Catlett, MD, from Lewiston, Maine, provided 10 charts of patients from Maine, of which 8 were suitable for inclusion. Mats Gronblad, MD, PhD, from the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, supplied a synopsis of 7 patients, and all were suitable for inclusion. All of these patients were from Finland. A total of 251 charts were selected for inclusion in the study. Since PVT was designed only to assess the impact of the complaint of chronic back and limb
pain, all the patients with the chief complaint of consistent pain in the back, back and legs(s), neck, neck and arm(s), or all the combinations thereof of 6 monthsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; duration or longer were included in the study. In addition, all of those who had received the appropriate objective physical tests (see below) were included. Excluded from the study were patients with too few tests, pain of less than 6 monthsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; duration, and inappropriate location of the pain (headache, gastrointestinal pain, facial pain, etc.). For the 251 patients, demographic data was derived from chart review, if the information was available. The average age of all patients was 40.3 (n = 251, range 17-70). There were 133 males and 118 females in the study. Racial data was available on 195 patients, of which 178 were Caucasian, 16 were African American, and 1 was Asian. Socioeconomic data was available for 199 patients, which included employment information as well as educational level. Using the methodology described by Hollingshead, patients were (a) assigned a numerical scale to various categories of jobs, then this score was multiplied by a weighting factor of 7, and (b) cataloged by educational achievement into cells with a numerical value, and this was multiplied by 4. The sum
of educational and employment scores results in a total score, which is then grouped into socioeconomic classes ranging from I, the highest level of education and professional attainment, to V, the lowest level.28,29 Of the 199 patients, 3 were class I, 11 were class II, 76 were class III, 104 were class IV, and 5 were class V. Physical Tests. Objective physical tests were divided into two groups based on the ability of these tests to assist in the diagnosis of chronic back and/or back and limb pain. The first group consisted of electromyography, nerve conduction studies, quantitative flow-meter studies (Doppler), provocative discometry, and thermography. The second group consisted of myelogram and/or iohexolenhanced CT of the back or a combination of the two tests. Also in this group were MRI, with or without gadolinium
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 43
enhancement; 3D-CT; CT; flexionextension X-rays with obliques; bone scan; gallium scan; or Indium III scan. A patient had to receive at least two tests in the first group or two more tests in the second group to be included in the study. Results Analysis of Physical Test Results. Dr. Nelson Hendler (NH), Ann M. Cashen (AMC), and Sam Hendler (SH) reviewed the patientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; medical charts. Two of the researchers (AMC and SH) had never seen the patients clinically. The third researcher (NH) had treated 120 of the patients. These three researchers, analyzing the medical charts, graded the severity of physical findings based on a simplified ranking system. Their scores were confirmed by an outside consultant (Donlin Long, MD, PhD, professor and chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine). Physical tests in which there were no abnormal findings were assigned a score of 0; those with equivocal and minimal findings were scored as a 1. Tests interpreted as moderate or severe were given scores of 2 or 3 respectively. The ratings were based on the reported results from the various laboratories in which the objective tests were performed. Assessment of the physical values for the objective tests was standardized. Thermography was considered either a 0 or 1 if interpretations of thermography showed mild or no abnormalities. However, if there was a significant temperature difference of 1 degree centigrade from one side to the other of the same anatomical distribution, this was given a score of 2. If the difference exceeded 1.5 degrees centigrade, it was given a score of 3. Gradients from the upper arm to the lower hand that exceeded 2 degrees centigrade from the shoulder to the hand were considered abnormal. They were scored as 2 if they exceeded 2 degrees and 3 if they exceeded 3 degrees. On EMG nerve conduc-
tion velocity studies, any mild abnormalities were considered a 2 and moderate and severe abnormalities were considered a 3. No findings were given a 0. On MRIs, a bulging disc was considered a 1, a bulging disc with nerve root displacement and/or impingement on the spinal cord was considered a 2, and any mention of a herniated disc was considered a 3. On CT scans, the same criteria applied. On MRI and CT scans, as well as X-rays, minimal facet hypertrophy was considered a 1, while moderate and severe facet hypertrophy was considered a 2 or 3 respectively. Foraminal stenosis, if mild, was considered a 1; if moderate, considered a 2; and if severe, considered a 3. Likewise, all spinal stenosis considered mild, moderate, and severe were scored 1, 2, or 3 respectively. It should be noted that spinal stenosis (abnormal narrowing of the spinal canal) could be caused by a triad of hypertrophy of the ligamentum flavum, facet hypertrophy, and a bulging disc. Likewise, facet hypertrophy and a bulging disc could cause foraminal stenosis. Quantitative flow-meter studies were considered mildly abnormal if there was a 10% or greater reduction of blood flow when the arm was elevated compared with the neutral position; moderate if there was a 20% reduction in blood flow; and severe if blood flow was reduced 30% or more. These were scored 1, 2, or 3 respectively. Any chiropractic X-rays were discounted. Myelograms were considered abnormal using the same criteria as a CT scan, MRI, and X-ray. In addition, nerve root filling was considered on myelogram with mild blunting of the nerve root filing being considered a 1, and moderate and severe amputation of the nerve root considered a 2 or 3 respectively. It is important to note that a patient might have a herniated disc that showed on MRI, CT, or a myelogram and was scored in the abovementioned manner, but the level of herniation was not compatible with the patientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s symptoms. Therefore, in this fashion, test results were biased against
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the researchers since an asymptomatic herniated disc could occur in an exaggerated pain patient, resulting in a high physical score in a patient who was not having symptoms. After all physical tests were scored, the number value for the test with the most severe physical abnormality was used to represent the degree of objective physical findings in a particular patient. For example, if a patient had no abnormalities on X-ray (a score of 0), but had mild abnormalities on CT (a score of 1), mild findings on EMG nerve conduction velocity studies (a score of 2), and a herniated disc on MRI (a score of 3), based on the combination of findings, the patient would be given a physical finding score of 3, the highest (most severe) physical abnormality. Test Interpretation. Each scale score on the PVT, when available, was recorded for analysis, as well as the total score on the PVT. In the past, the PVT was administered by five persons at a single center, previously reported as having a 91% rate of interrater reliability.24 However, in this study, interrater reliability between centers was not tested. Several errors occurred in scoring the PVT. The most common error consisted of scoring the question dealing with the patientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response to sleep. In this question, the patient was asked to rank his or her difficulty with falling asleep at night or waking during the night as a result of chronic pain. The lower of the two scores should have been used, not the combined total of the two scores. Other errors consisted of applying the test to headaches and other types of pain for which the test was not designed, which invalidated several sets of data. The other complication occasionally found was the utilization of the test for patients who had pain less than 6 months. Tests administered by non-clinicians without medical expertise, such as secretaries or assistants, were found to have errors on evaluating medication or correct anatomical location of pain. In one set of data, 9 out of 24 tests had to be cor-
rected because the question pertaining to sleep was scored incorrectly. Several of the researchers did not include the actual test results, but only total scores on the test. Therefore, there are several potential sources of error. For patients scoring 21 points or greater and having a score of 2 or 3 on objective physical findings: (1) the questions pertaining to sleep medication or location of pain might have been inaccurately scored, resulting in a false elevation of their score on the PVT, or (2) these patients might have had a herniated disc or some other physical abnormality that was asymptomatic but resulted in a high physical score. On the other hand, the patients scoring 17 points or less with 1 or 0 points rating their physical abnormalities could have had errors that were the result of incomplete medical evaluations and an absence of exhaustive physical testing. In
fact, 6 of 7 patients who fell within the category of 17 points or less and had scores of 0 or 1 on physical testing had the minimum number of tests performed as defined above. A set of 25 tests had to be completely discarded because the physician who submitted this group of tests had used only X-ray and/or thermography in evaluating his patients. Another physician submitted 50 tests, 15 of which had to be discarded since there were no physical tests or only X-rays were obtained. Data Analysis. A correlation coefficient using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Test (R Test) was computed between the most severe objective physical test rating of each patient and the total of the Mensana Clinic PVT score. Scattergrams were plotted for the Mensana Clinic PVT versus the most severe physical finding. A chi-square test was used to analyze
the significance of the frequency distribution of the scattergram, despite its limitations.41 Results The scattergram for PVT scores compared with the severity of physical findings is shown in Figure 1. PVT scores for each patient were compared with scores for the most severe objective physical finding. A correlation of r = 0.554 was obtained, which is significant at the level of p < 0.0001. Figure 2 shows a tabulation of the chisquare test for the Mensana Clinic PVT. The chi-square test result was 113, which was significant at p < 0.00001. On PVTs, the cut-off score considered to be an objective pain patient is 17 points or less. If a patient had 17 points or less, 94.2% of the time he or she had a physical abnormality that could be documented using objective testing
Figure 1. The Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 45
Figure 2. The Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test
*Severity of objective physical abnormality, 0=none, 1=mild, 2=moderate, 3=severe described under physical tests (146/155). A score between 18 and 20 points, inclusively, was considered a mixed objective-exaggerating pain patient, and 75% of the time these patients had objective physical findings (43/57). This group may represent patients with a poor pre-morbid physiological adjustment who had documented physical pathological conditions. If a patient scored 21 to 29 points, inclusively on PVT, he or she was considered an exaggerating pain patient, and 83.3% of the time had only mild findings on objective tests of organic pathology or no positive tests (30/36). However, this group consisted of patients with definable organic syndromes, with only mildly abnormal or absent objective findings, such as those found in myofascial syndrome or facet syndrome. Only three of the patients had scores of 30 or more points on the PVT. This is consistent
with earlier reported low incidence of functional pain patients, which would have placed them in the affective-pain patient category.30 When combining exaggerating and affective pain patients, 84.6% (33/39) of these patients either had mild or absent objective measures of organic pathology. Discussion Much of the confusion that has arisen in the diagnosis of patients with chronic pain is based on the failure to recognize that organic pathology and psychiatric disorders may exist independently and do not necessarily have a cause and effect relationship.10 Although much has been written about psychiatric disorders presenting as pain problems,31,32 the incidence of this occurrence has never been clearly defined. However, the clinician must consider that chronic pain may create anxiety and depression.30 In a
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study conducted in the psychiatry department of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Edwin and his co-workers were surprised to find that 80% of the 67 patients admitted to a psychiatry ward because of their complaint of chronic pain had physical abnormalities to explain their complaints.33 Also, the incidence of psychiatric diagnosis using the American Psychiatric Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual criteria or the Symptom Checklist 90 Test was nearly the same in these pain patients whether or not they had documented physical disorders. Rosenthal lends credence to the concept that pain complaints and psychiatric disturbance exists on two separate axes and a clinician may not automatically assume that the coexistence of psychiatric disease and the complaint of pain means functional pain.34 Indeed, chronic pain may create psychiatric problems, such as
depression, in a previously well-adjusted individual.1,10,13 The F scales of the MMPI correlated with the severity of objective organic pathologic conditions.27 However, in two other test populations, it was found that either the depression scale (scale 2) of the MMPI negatively correlated with physical pathology,26 or that none of the scales of the MMPI correlated with the severity of objective organic pathological conditions.25 The variability in MMPI results suggests this test is unreliable for determining the validity of physical complaints. Over 300 articles have been published using the MMPI to assess chronic pain patients. However, only one research report ever followed patients prospectively. From a pre-operative sample of 50,000 MMPIs, Hageron and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic found 59 patients who subsequently had back surgery over a 20-year follow-up.18 This group concluded that the MMPI abnormalities noted after the onset of back pain were the result of pain rather than a reflection of pre-existing personality traits.18 In the absence of longitudinal studies, one cannot determine whether or not the MMPI scales are elevated prior to or as a result of the chronic pain syndrome.35 In summary, it seems that the MMPI cannot differentiate organic from functional low back pain with any degree of validity or reliability. In addition, it would be imprudent and irresponsible for a clinician to label any patient with chronic pain who happens to have elevations of MMPI scales as functional, since the MMPI cannot predict the presence or absence of an organic pathological condition with any degree of certainty in patients with chronic back pain.36 Additionally, elevated MMPI scores in pain patients seem to be the result of pain rather than the cause of the complaint.18,30 Other psychological tests may correlate with the presence or absence of physical abnormalities, but, with the
exception of PVT, no articles report any psychological tests capable of predicting the presence of absence of organic pathology. DSM-IV defines somatization disorder as a disorder that occurs in patients whose “multiple somatic complaints cannot be fully explained by any known general medical condition…”37 However, this definition suffers from circular logic since many patients with concurrent psychiatric disease and chronic pain receive inadequate physical evaluations and are medically misdiagnosed 40% to 71% of the time.38,39,40 This high misdiagnosis rate creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to inappropriate psychiatric diagnoses, when in truth, the patient never received a proper medical diagnosis. In counter-distinction to the use of the DSM-IV criteria, the PVT assesses the impact of pain on the patient’s life regardless of pre-existing abnormal personality traits or reactive psychological states. When comparing the results from the research reported in this paper with earlier results, an improvement was noted in the ability of the PVT to predict the presence of abnormal physical findings on objective measures of organic pathology. This improvement is attributable to the increased number of objective tests that were ordered, as well as the addition of several previously unavailable, objective tests. Specifically, in three previous articles I authored25-27 only results of EMG, nerve conduction velocity studies, thermography, CAT scans, myelograms, or X-rays were used. In addition to those tests, this current research utilized MRI, both with and without gadolinium enhancement, quantitative flow-meter studies, provocative discometry, 3D CT, bone scans, and Indium scans. This may explain the improvement in the overall predictability of the objective patient component of the test, which increased from 85%27 to 94% as reported in this article. On the other hand, in three previously reported studies, none of the patients (N = 13) who scored 21 points
or greater had abnormal physical findings on objective measures of organic pathology.25-27 With the increased number of patients who scored above 21 points as reported in this research, as well as the utilization of patients from clinics other than the Mensana Clinic, the predictive component of the exaggerating part of the test dropped from 100% to 86%.27 This may be attributable to the small numbers, inaccurate scoring of the PVT on several questions that may give spuriously high readings on the overall test score, and/or the possibility that asymptomatic disc herniation and other abnormalities were scored as being positive physical findings but did not relate to the complaints that the patient had, but were included for the sake of completeness. Additionally, since the interrater reliability seemed to be a variable that introduced a number of erroneous PVT scores, a method to reduce score variability was needed. Several self-scored versions of the PVT were developed, and the final version produced a 97% correlation of tests scores, with tests administered by Hendler, the developer of the PVT (unpublished data). The PVT is now available in a computeradministered version, and computerscored forms and will soon be available over the Internet. Only two other tests in the medical literature try to correlate the verbal history with actual findings on medical testing, the Ottawa ankle rules and the Ottawa knee rules. These tests were found to correlate with the presence and absence of organic pathology, and resulted in cost savings of over $50 million a year in preventing unnecessary X-rays for the Ottawa province of Canada.42,43 The PVT differs from these two verbal tests since it can be used to predict the presence or the absence of abnormal laboratory tests of all types, not just X-rays, in patients with back, neck, and limb pain. This could result in even larger savings for health care systems. The PVT may offer a viable objective
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 47
alternative to the more subjective psychiatric evaluation, independent medical evaluation, or the inappropriate use of the MMPI for differentiating organic from functional disorders. These current methods of evaluating the validity of a patient’s complaint have a lesser chance of meeting the Daubert criteria since they do “not meet the applicable ‘general acceptance’ standard for the admission of expert testimony.”44 Furthermore, “expert opinion based on a scientific technique is inadmissible unless the technique is ‘generally accepted’ as reliable in the relevant scientific community.”44 With five published articles in peer-reviewed medical journals describing the accuracy of the Mensana Clinic PVT, medical evaluations utilizing this test are more likely to be accepted than just a medical evaluation alone or those that employ the MMPI. Additionally, the PVT may provide cost savings for insurance carriers in the same fashion as the Ottawa ankle and knee rules do while improving the quality of health care. By employing a multidisciplinary model rather than just a medical or psychological model for diagnosing chronic pain patients, a clinician may improve the accuracy of his or her evaluation to the benefit of all parties involved in the health care process. Notes 1. N. Hendler, The Four Stages of Pain: Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Pain (Littleton, MA: Wright-PSG Publishing Co., 1982), 1-8. 2. N. Hendler, S. Uematsu, D. Long, “Thermographic Validation of Physical Complaints in ‘Psychogenic Pain’ Patients,” Psychosomatics 23, no. 3 (1982): 283-287. 3. N. Hendler, J. Zinreich, J. Kozikowski, “Three-Dimensional CT Validation of Physical Complaints in ‘Psychogenomic Pain’ Patients,” Psychosomatics (forthcoming). 4. S. Uematsu et al., “Thermography and Electromyography in the Differential Diagnosis of Chronic Pain Syn-
dromes and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy,” Electrolyo and Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (1981): 165-182. 5. BR Brown Jr., “Diagnosis and Therapy of Common Myofascial Syndromes,” Journal of the American Medical Association 239, no. 7 (1978): 646648. 6. KJ Armitage, LJ Schniederman, RA Bass, “Response of Physicians to Medical Complaints in Men and Women,” Journal of the American Medical Association 241 (1970): 2186-2187. 7. AT Daus et al., “Psychological Variable and Treatment Outcome of Compensation and Auto Accident Patients in a Multidisciplinary Chronic Spinal Pain Clinic,” Orthopedic Review 13 (1984): 596-605. 8. S. Talo, N. Hendler, J. Brodie, “Effects of Active and Completed Litigation on Treatment Results: Workers’ Compensation Patients Compared With Other Litigation Patients,” Journal of Occupational Medicine 31, no. 3 (1989): 265-269. 9. SM Southwick, AA White, “The Use of Psychological Tests in the Evaluation of Low-Back Pain,” American Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery 65 (1983): 560-565. 10. N. Hendler, S. Talo, “Chronic Pain Patient Versus the Malingering Patient,” in Current Therapy of Pain, ed. K. Foley, R. Payne, 14-22 (Philadelphia: B.C. Decker, Inc., 1989). 11. N. Hendler, “Exaggerated Pain Caused by Personality Disorders: The Histrionic Personality Versus the Hysterical Neurosis,” in Diagnosis & Nonsurgical Management of Chronic Pain, 54-79 (New York: Raven Press, 1981). 12. N. Hendler et al., “EMG Biofeedback in Patients with Chronic Pain, Dis Nervous Sys 38, no. 7 (1977): 505-509. 13. Hendler, N. “Objective Pain Patients,” in Diagnosis & Nonsurgical Management of Chronic Pain, 54-79 (New York: Raven Press, 1981). 16-25. 14. DP Armentrout et al., “PainPatient MMPI Subgroups: The Psychological Dimensions of Pain,” Journal of
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Behavioral Medicine 5, no. 2 (1982): 201-211. 15. F Leavitt, DC Garron, “Patterns of Psychological Disturbance and Pain Report in Patients with Low Back Pain,” Journal of Psychosomatic Resonance 26 (1982): 201-211. 16. JC McGill et al., “The Relationship of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Profile Clusters in Pain Behaviors,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 6 (1983): 77-92. 17. L. Pilling, TL Brannick, WM Swenson, “Psychologic Characteristics of Psychiatric Patients Having Pain as a Presenting Symptom,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 97 (1967): 387-394. 18. SD Hagedorn et al., “Premorbid MMPI Profiles of Low Back Pain Patients: Surgical Successes vs. Surgical Failures,” Pain 2 (1984): 258. 19. C. McCreary, J. Turner, E. Dawson, “Differences Between Functional Versus Organic Low Back Pain Patients,” Pain 4 (1977): 37-38. 20. JC Rosen, JW Frymoyer, JH Clements, “A Further Look at Validity of the MMPI with Low Back Patients,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 36 (1980): 994-1000. 21. WS Towne, WT Tsushima, “The Use of the Low Back and the Dorsal Scales in the Identification of Functional Low Back Patients,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 34 (1978): 88-91. 22. F Leavitt, “Comparison of Three Measures for Detecting Psychological Disturbance in Patients with Low Back Pain,” Pain 13 (1982): 299-305. 23. WT Tsushima, WS Towne, “Clinical Limitations of the Low Back Scale,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 35 (1979): 306-308. 24. WH Hendler et al., “A Preoperative Screening Test for Chronic Back Pain Patients,” Psychosomatics 20 (1979): 801-808. 25. N. Hendler et al., “A Comparison Between the MMPI and the ‘Hendler Back Pain Test’ for Validating the Complaint of Chronic Back Pain in Men,” Journal of Neurological & Orthopaedic Medicine & Surgery 6, no. 4 (1985): 333-
337. 26. N. Hendler et al., “A Comparison Between the MMPI and the ‘Mensana Clinic Back Pain Test’ for Validating the Complaint of Chronic Back Pain in Women,” Pain 23 (1985): 243-251. 27. N. Hendler et al., “A Comparison Between the MMPI and the ‘Mensana Clinic Back Pain Test’ for Validating the Complaint of Chronic Back Pain,” Journal of Occupational Medicine 30, no. 2 (1988): 98-102. 28. A. Hollingshead, F. Redlich, Social Class and Mental Illness (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1958), 398-407. 29. A. Hollingshead, Two Factor Index of Social Position (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 3-11. 30. NH Hendler, “Depression Caused by Chronic Pain,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 45 (1984): 30-36. 31. GL Engle, “Psychogenic Pain and the Pain Prone Patient,” American Journal of Medicine 25 (1959): 899-918. 32. T. Maruta, D. Swanson, W. Swanson, “Pain as a Psychiatric Symptom: Comparison Between Low Back Pain and Depression,” Psychosomatics 17 (1976): 123-127. 33. DH Edwin, GD Pearlson, DM Long, “Psychiatric Symptoms and Diagnosis in Chronic Pain Patients,” Pain 2 (1984): 180. 34. R. Rosenthal et al., “Chronic Pelvic Pain: Psychological Features and Laparoscopic Findings,” Psychosomatics 25 (1984): 833-841. 35. BD Naliboff, MJ Cohen, AN Yellen, “Does the MMPI Differentiate Chronic Illness From Chronic Pain?” Pain 13 (1982): 333-341. 36. R. Sternback et al., “Traits of Pain Patients: The Low Back Loser,” Psychosomatics 14 (1973): 226-229. 37. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994), 446-450. 38. N. Hendler, J. Kozikowski, “Overlooked Physical Diagnosis in Chronic Pain Patients Involved in Litigation,” Psychosomatics 34, no. 6 (1993): 494-
501. 39. N. Hendler, C. Bergson, C. Morrison, “Overlooked Physical Diagnoses in Chronic Pain Patients Involved in Litigation, Part 2,” Psychosomatics 37, no. 6 (1996): 509-517. 40. N. Hendler, “Differential Diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome,” Pan Arab Journal of Neurosurgery (Oct. 2002). 41. JW Kuzma, ed. Limitations in the Use of the Chi-Square: Basic Statistics for the Health Sciences (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1984), 155. 42. IG Stiell et al., “Decision Rules for the Use of Radiography in Acute Ankle Injuries: Refinement and Prospective Validation,” Journal of the American Medical Association 269, no. 9 (1993): 1127-1132. 43. IG Steill et al., “Prospective Validation of a Decision Rule for the Use of Radiographs in Acute Knee Injuries,” Journal of the American Medical Association 275, no. 8 (1996): 611-615. 44. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993). Retrieved from: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/ html/92-102.ZS.html. Acknowledgement The authors wish to thank Donlin Long, MD, PhD, professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, for reviewing the physical data of the charts and confirming the ratings of physical abnormalities. Additional thanks go to Jan Nissly; Sheldon Levin, PhD; Adrienne Scally, MS; Brian Gordon; and all of the Mensana Clinic who assisted in the preparation of the data. About the Authors Nelson Hendler, MD, MS, graduated from Princeton University and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland School
of Medicine. He served as assistant director of the Pain Treatment Center of Johns Hopkins Hospital and later founded the Mensana Clinic, which has been listed in Business Week as one of the eight best pain clinics in the United States. Dr. Hendler has served as the president of the Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Association of America and is on the board of directors of The Lightning Strike and Electrical Shock Survivors International. He is the current clinical director of the Mensana Clinic, and is also an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and associate professor of physiology at the University of Maryland School of Dental Surgery. Dr. Hendler has written three books, 32 medical textbook chapters, and 52 articles in the medical literature. He has lectured in numerous countries and at more than 50 medical schools and hospitals in the United States. He is a Diplomate of ACFEI, and has been a member since 1999. Dr. Hendler also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The Forensic Examiner. Ann Cashen and Sam Hendler are research assistants at the Mensana Clinic. Christopher Bringham, MD, currently serves as president of Occupational Health Excellence in Portsmouth, Maine. Phillip Osborne, MD, is a doctor at Willis Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana. Pierre LeRoy, MD, is a doctor at Delaware Pain Clinic in Wilmington, Delaware. B. Todd Graybill, PhD, is in private practice in Muskogee, Oklahoma. L. Catlett, MD, is in private practice in Lewiston, Maine. Mats Gronbald, MD, PhD, is a senior lecturer of physical medicine and rehabilitation in the back pain research unit of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland. Earn CE Credit To earn CE credit, complete the exam for this article on page 65 or complete the exam online at www.acfei.com (select “Online CE”).
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 49
By Dale L. Lunsford, PhD, and Walter A. Robbins, DBA, CPA, Cr.FA Key Words: cyber-criminal, disk sanitization, disk wiping, discarded computers, retired computers
Abstract Forensic accountants are typically involved in fraud prevention/detection. However, their expertise may also be needed to protect sensitive/confidential information that may become accessible through an organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discard-
This article is approved by the following for continuing education credit: ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Diplomates. ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for Certified Forensic Accountants. ACFEI provides this continuing education credit for those Certified in Homeland Security.
ed computers. Cyber-criminals (CCs) acquire old discarded computers with the intention of collecting sensitive/confidential information for illegal purposes. Deleted files, recovery partitions, configuration files, password storage, and special hardware devices are areas targeted by CCs. Forensic accountants should be aware of this potential danger and understand that the process of sanitization, if followed correctly, can prevent future users of retired computers from gaining access to sensitive/confidential information.
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Introduction While forensic accountants are typically involved in fraud prevention/detection, another area where their expertise may be needed is in the protection of sensitive/confidential information that may become accessible through an organization’s discarded computers. The reality of this potential danger was highlighted in 2002, when the U.S. Veterans Administration Medical Center in Indianapolis discarded 140 desktop computers, many of which were sold on the open market. It was later discovered that several of these computers’ hard drives contained sensitive medical and financial information, including active government credit card numbers and information identifying patients diagnosed with AIDS and mental health problems.1 Most people believe that by deleting files, information will be permanently removed from discarded computer equipment. This belief is dangerous and simply untrue. Consequently, forensic accountants can provide a valuable service to organizations that retire old computer systems by advising clients regarding the inherent risks and outlining the steps necessary to ensure the confidentiality of information stored on the discarded equipment. Areas of Hidden Data CCs usually look for information in five areas of a computer: deleted files, recovery partitions, configuration files, password storage, and special hardware devices. Deleted files. When disposing of an old computer, the user often deletes all documents containing confidential information and empties the recycle bin, believing this process erases the files. However, delete/erase commands do not actually remove a file’s information from the hard disk. Instead they rewrite the metadata that pointed to the file, leaving the disk blocks containing the file’s contents intact. Thus, such information is still vulnerable to cyber theft. Usually, a CC will simply use file recovery software to undelete files and then examine the contents for confidential
information. Even if the computer user has reformatted the disk or removed the drive partitions, the CC can use un-formatting and partition-recovery software to recover data. These programs are inexpensive and easy to use; in some cases, free trial versions are available on the Internet. As a result, even an amateur can search a used computer and easily recover confidential files. In addition to user-maintained files, confidential data may also exist in cached files and application-generated backup files. Normally, users are unaware of and do not delete these files when retiring old computers. File caches are located in operating system (OS) directories or hidden locations (to prevent users from accidentally deleting them). Computer users are usually not aware that many application programs store back-up files in the same directories where the applications are located. Unfortunately, most CCs know exactly where applications put such back-up files and can copy and search them for useful information. Recovery partitions. Personal computer OSs organize a hard disk into one or more logical sections called partitions. This allows the user to have multiple OSs on the same hard disk or create the appearance of having multiple hard disks. Some data recovery tools, such as IBM Rapid Restore, Farstone RestoreIt!, and Altiris Local Recovery, use hidden partitions to store a backup copy of personal files and to protect these files from unexpected computer disasters that might otherwise lead to data loss. These products enable quick local data recovery. Because these recovery partitions are generally hidden from the user, users may forget to delete the backup copies of files, allowing a future user to gain access to unauthorized information. Configuration files. Any software purchased today will include a number of configuration options that determine how the software works, which features are available, and other information intended to simplify the user’s life. Starting with Microsoft Windows 95, all OSs’ configuration information is consolidated
and stored in one central database called the registry. Also, application-specific initialization files maintain information about the configuration of each associated application program. Microsoft encourages application developers to use the registry to store their individual program’s configuration information. The registry organizes configuration information hierarchically, with actual settings at the lowest levels of the hierarchy stored as name and value pairs. Ideally, by centralizing this information in one database, configuration settings common to all applications need only be stored once, the installation of applications will be simplified, and the overall system will be more stable. Unfortunately, the registry and initialization files provide substantial details about the configuration of the hardware, the OS, and applications on the computer. The registry also contains a number of most recently used lists showing files opened by various applications, as well as the location of application files and network resources accessed by the user. Consequently, these files serve as a rich source of useful information. If a CC wants to recover data on a retired computer, knowing the file locations used by various applications simplifies the task of recovery. Perhaps more importantly, information in the registry and initialization files can be of great value to a CC wishing to misuse a company’s network resources. For instance, the configuration files can provide information about the security measures employed by the company and the organization of files on servers. Passwords. Many users become overwhelmed trying to remember all of the login identification and passwords needed to access e-mail, applications, databases, and web sites. In an attempt to reduce this problem, some versions of Microsoft Windows and many other programs, including e-mail software and web browsers, provide the capability to store login identification and passwords so that the user does not need to remember these identifiers. Often the OS or applications store identifiers and password data in the OS’s registry or application-specific configura-
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 51
tion files. Ideally, the application encrypts the password so that it is not easily accessible; however, developers often do not use strong encryption techniques to protect the passwords. If the encryption technique used is weak, or the user selects a poor password, then password recovery or cracking software can determine the password and provide such information to the CC. In the case of popular applications, sometimes a user develops a password recovery program and distributes the program on the Internet as a service to the user community. Unfortunately, CCs can also use this utility. Even worse, some applications automatically log users in if the user tells the application to remember the password. Popular web browsers offer to remember passwords to web sites, which can include the password to the company’s local area network. In these cases, the CC is not required to spend any time cracking the password. Special hardware devices. Computer hardware can provide a CC with important information about the network architecture and security measures used by the company discarding the equipment. For example, the presence of a wireless network card tells the CC that the prior user accessed a wireless network. Thus, the criminal will look for configuration information related to the wireless network, including the network name and the encryption keys it uses. Also, the presence of network code identification and authentication hardware may alert the CC to special security measures employed by a company. Moreover, the CC may move the hardware device to a computer that will be used in an attack on the company’s information system. Safety Measures and Their Implementation The forensic accountant should understand the process to follow to prevent future users of retired computer systems from gaining access to sensitive/confidential information, as well as information about the network architecture and company security measures. The four-step
procedure, known as sanitization, should be followed each time a computer is retired from service. The focus of this process is on wiping all information from the disk drives in the old computer and removing any sensitive hardware. Figure 1 illustrates the sequential steps in the sanitization process. Step 1: Create Archive of Documents The first step in the sanitization process is to make a backup copy of all data files contained on the computer, a difficult task due to the way applications store data. By default, most Microsoft applications store files in a directory called My Documents. Other applications may use Microsoft’s My Documents directory, create their own directories, or even save new files to the location where the applications’ installations are located. Tracking these diversely located files can be challenging; as a result, it is best to use a diskimaging tool to make a copy of all files on a high-capacity removable disk (e.g., an Iomega Zip disk), compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD), or highcapacity external drive. Applications for performing this task include Norton Ghost, Paragon Drive Backup, NovaStor Instant Recovery, and Acronis True Image, as well as other commercial, shareware, and freeware products. It is also suggested that when moving to a new computer it is a good time to reorganize files. One approach is to consolidate the files in one location and point the applications to this location. While this is a good practice, remember that using Microsoft’s My Documents directory can be risky, since some computer viruses focus on this directory during attacks. One way to minimize this risk is to use a different directory to store personal documents (e.g., a directory called “My Stuff ”). Simply point each application to the directory you designate for your documents, be it My Documents or some other location. Within this directory, you may have created subdirectories based on whatever organizational scheme you find appropriate. A good practice is
52 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
Figure 1. The Four-Step Sanitization Process Step 1 Create Archive of Documents
Step 2 Move Documents to New Computer
Step 3 Boot Computer from Diskette and Run Wipe Disk Program
Step 4 Remove Sensitive Hardware from Old Computer
to organize your files on your computer in a manner similar to the way you organize paper documents. Step 2: Transfer Documents After the backup process is complete, all files need to be copied to the new computer. This activity is presented as step 2 in Figure 1. There are software packages that make this process rather easy. For instance, IntelliMover, created by Detto Technologies, provides the software and data transfer cables (either USB or parallel) necessary to transfer all computer settings and data along with personal files and folders. Once the copy process is finished, it is necessary to delete all files from the old computer, including operating system files, so that there is no information about application settings, passwords, or other encryption keys. However, just deleting these files is not sufficient. The computer drive must next be sanitized. Step 3: Sanitization Sanitization, represented as step 3 in Figure 1, is the process of wiping clean all data stored on a computer hard drive. There are three methods for sanitizing a computer: disk shredding, disk degaussing, and disk wiping. Disk shredding: Disk shredding is the
process of physically shredding a disk, similar to shredding paper, so that the disk hardware is no longer usable. This method provides the most secure means of destroying data on a disk. The primary disadvantages of this method are that a technician must remove the disk from the computer, special equipment is required to actually shred the disk, and the ability to transfer the computer to a new user is limited because the computer no longer has a hard disk. Disk degaussing: Disk degaussing is the process of exposing the disk to strong magnetic fields to destroy the data on the disk. This method provides a high level of security by eliminating any residual magnetic data on the disk. The primary disadvantages of this method are that a technician must disassemble the disk before degaussing, and the manufacturer must reformat the disk before reuse. Also, special equipment is required to degauss a disk, and the degaussing equipment can damage or destroy other components if improperly used or stored. Disk wiping: The final method, disk wiping, applies a four-step process to each addressable location on it. The steps consist of writing a character, writing the character’s binary complement, writing a random character to the addressable location, and then verifying the last write. This process results in filling every addressable memory block. The primary disadvantages of this method are that it requires special software and is generally not appropriate for top-secret information. Fortunately, the software is inexpensive, generally in the $25 to $50 price range, and most users do not store topsecret information, so this method is sufficient for most confidential data and can be performed by the user before transferring the computer to the information systems department. A number of products exist to wipe the contents of a disk, including KillDisk (Active), Disk Wiper (Paragon), BCWipe (Jetico), CyberScrub (CyberScrub), WipeDrive (WhiteCanyon Software), Ghost (Symantec), Wipe Info (Norton), and 12-Shredder (SuperGee). Most com-
mercial versions of disk-wiping products comply with U.S. Department of Defense 5220.22-M, which defines data destruction standards for information below the top-secret security level.2 Some venders provide free versions of the software for non-commercial entities. The free versions generally perform a one-pass wipe process, while the commercial versions can perform multiple-pass wipes. As shown in step 3 of Figure 1, the disk-wipe process consists of two major steps, booting the computer from a diskette or CD and wiping the disk clean. It is important to note that before the disk sanitation process begins, all necessary files must be successfully copied to either a new computer or to a permanent archive. Once a computer has been sanitized, no files can be recovered from it. Microsoft Windows and other OSs generally do not permit the deletion of critical operating system files. To get around this, you can boot the computer from a diskette. In some cases, the diskwiping software includes a utility to create a bootable diskette with all of the necessary software. If not, simply put a blank diskette in the diskette drive and use Windows Explorer to format the diskette. Select “Create an MS-DOS start-up disk” so the format process will add the necessary system files to the diskette. After the format process is complete, copy the wipe-disk program to the diskette. The instructions included with the wipe-disk product you select should identify any files that you must copy to the diskette. In most cases, the wipe-disk program is in a small, self-contained executable file so that it will fit on a diskette. You should clearly label the diskette (e.g., “Disk Wiper”) so that no one accidentally uses it in a way that leads to undesired data destruction. To sanitize computers without diskette drives, use a wipe-disk program that comes on a CD or that can create a bootable wipe-disk CD; recent releases of commercial disk-wiping software include this capability. Once you have a boot diskette with the wipe-disk program installed, shut down the computer, place the diskette in the
diskette drive, and restart the computer. Many older computers automatically attempt to boot from the diskette drive if a diskette is in the drive. If the computer loads Microsoft Windows automatically, the computer has booted from the hard disk. In this case, consult the reference material for your computer to see how to change the boot sequence to boot from the diskette drive. Once you have made this change, restart the computer. After booting from the diskette, run the wipe-disk program. Wipe-disk programs generally are either command- or menudriven. If the wipe-disk program is command-driven, you must enter the name of the program at the MS-DOS prompt, followed by a series of parameters. The parameters specify the drive to wipe (e.g., C:), the number of times to wipe the drive, and other options. If the wipe-disk program is menu driven, you can specify the same information using menus and text prompts. Some products support both menus and commands so that each user can select his or her preferred method; this is especially useful for information systems departments that want to create diskettes to wipe numerous computers. The time required to wipe a hard disk can vary substantially depending on the age and capacity of the drive. Step 4: Remove Sensitive Hardware The end of the process is shown in step 4 of Figure 1. Since the disk-wiping program eradicates all files on the computer, including data files, applications, and OS files, this significantly reduces the likelihood of a CC gaining access to useful information. However, before disposing of the computer, the information systems department should remove any add-in hardware related to the company’s local area network and security systems. This denies the CC access to the one remaining source of information about the company’s network architecture and security systems. Case Illustration In 2003, a colleague’s computer was earmarked for retirement. Prior to removing
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 53
the computer from service, he transferred all data files to his new computer. He then deleted all files on the old machine using utilities included with Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. Because he was particularly concerned about unauthorized access to confidential data that might still remain on his old computer, he asked us to examine the machine. We explained that he had not followed appropriate procedures and his old computer was still vulnerable to a CC attack. We applied the following steps to ensure information confidentiality. First, we logged on to the computer as an administrator. Since we did not know the password for the administrator account, we used a free cracking tool available on the Internet to reset the administrator account’s password to a new value and then logged on to the computer. We also set the password of the owner’s account to a known value. We now had unrestricted access to the computer. Instead of booting the computer and logging on as we did, we could have installed the hard drive from the target computer in a different computer as a secondary drive and set the drive to a readonly state. This would have given us access to the drive without risking the loss of important data during the boot process. This approach requires a second computer and additional hardware knowledge. Assuming a would-be attacker would have minimal hardware resources available, we opted for the more direct-attack approach. Next, we ran a commercially available file recovery program (approximately $30) from a diskette. We used the file recovery program to locate any recoverable data files on the computer. Based on the file names, we identified files that we believed might contain confidential information. We transferred these files to a high-capacity removable disk. We had the computer owner review the files to determine if they contained confidential information; he confirmed that they did. In a live setting, the cracker would have examined the files to identify locations of other useful information; however, to protect
the confidentiality of the information we did not do this. At this point, we used the sanitization process described earlier to destroy all data on the computer’s hard drive. We created a boot diskette, copied the diskwiping software to the diskette, booted the computer using the diskette, and ran the program to wipe the disk. The software we used can perform the wipe process repeatedly, as specified by the user. We selected the option to perform the wipe process one time. It took approximately 1 hour to wipe the 20gigabyte hard disk. Since the computer did not contain any sensitive hardware, we did not have to perform the last step of the sanitization process. To verify that the computer no longer contained any recoverable data files, we attempted to boot it. Since the wipe process removed all operating system files, as expected, the first boot failed. Next, we booted the computer using a boot diskette. We used a partition and file recovery program to scan the computer for any recoverable files. This scan failed to find any partitions, programs, or other files on the disk. Finally, we used a sector editor to search the surface of the disk for any usable data; this search also failed to find any remaining data files. Based on these results, we concluded that the sanitization process had sufficiently sanitized the computer, and as a result we had successfully preserved information confidentiality. Conclusion Organizations are coming under increased scrutiny when it comes to privacy and the safeguarding of sensitive/confidential information. Because this information is often stored on personal and company computers, entities must take special precautions when disposing of old computers. Because of their training and skills, forensic accountants are in an excellent position to provide assistance to organizations regarding the security of information on discarded computers. The forensic accountant can ensure that confidential
54 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
information is removed from all old computers through the process of sanitization before disposal. Forensic accountants can also advise organizations about the inherent dangers associated with their confidential information inadvertently being left on old discarded computers and the procedures necessary to ensure the safety of such information. Using a procedure such as sanitization can dramatically reduce the likelihood of a company facing lawsuits, criminal prosecution, or other embarrassing situations.
Notes 1. J. Hasson, “V.A. toughens security after PC disposal blunders.” F4 (26 August 2002). 2. Department of Defense (January 1995), National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual, retrieved July 1, 2003 from http://www.dss.mil/isec/nispom_0195.htm.
About the Authors Dale L. Lunsford, PhD, is an associate professor of information systems at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina. He holds a doctorate in information systems management from Ohio State University. He has published papers examining emerging technologies, ethics, web application development, and computer security. Walter A. Robbins, DBA, CPA, Cr.FA, earned his doctorate of business administration from the University of Tennessee. He is currently a professor of accountancy for the Culverhouse School of Accountancy at the University of Alabama. His research has appeared in a number of academic and professional journals. Dr. Robbins also provides litigation support services as a consultant and has worked on a number of civil cases. He is a Certified Forensic Accountant and has been an ACFEI member since 2002.
Earn CE Credit To earn CE credit, complete the exam for this article on page 66 or complete the exam online at www.acfei.com (select “Online CE”).
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By Bruce Gross, PhD, JD, MBA, FACFEI, DABFE, DABPS, DABFM, DAPA
T
he United States has more than its share of infamous murderers. Perhaps one of the best known, Gary Gilmore, did not rise to the forefront of public consciousness for the heinousness of the crime that landed him on death row (on separate occasions he robbed and then killed two men in 1976).1 Rather, Gary Gilmore is generally remembered within the forensic community for demanding that he be put to death (by firing squad) on the execution date set by the court, refusing all appeals and every effort to commute his sentence. To his death, Gilmore effectively maintained control over his own life and in doing so, forced the state of Utah to relinquish the very control the correctional system is designed to take from and hold over its inmates, especially those on death row. With capital punishment re-instituted in the United States less than one year earlier,2 in 1997 Gilmore heralded its return as the first
person executed in America since 1967. Gilmore is perhaps more widely remembered as the subject of Norman Mailer’s 1979 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Executioner’s Song.3 From the Inside Out In 1978, while doing research for The Executioner’s Song, Mailer received a letter from Jack Henry Abbott, an inmate who had learned of Mailer’s project and offered to provide him an insider’s view of life in prison.4 The two began a lengthy correspondence, and Mailer was moved by what he saw as Abbott’s exceptional insight and eloquence. Mailer facilitated the publication of some of Abbott’s letters in The New York Review of Books.5,6,7 His published letters soon led to the 1981 publication of Abbott’s first book, In the Belly of the Beast.8 Essentially a compilation of his letters to Mailer, In the Belly of the Beast is a poignant chronicle (albeit, of challenged accuracy) of prison life from the per-
56 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
spective of an insider. Although rather vague about his early years, Abbott, who was born on a military base in 1944, was placed in foster care (as was his sister) shortly after birth, moving from one home to another over the ensuing years. At the age of 12 he was sent to the Utah State Industrial School for Boys, putting an end to his formal education in the 6th grade. Six months after his release from the reform school at the age of 18, Abbott was sentenced to prison for passing bad checks. At the age of 21, Abbott’s sentence was extended when he was convicted of the assault of one inmate and the stabbing death of another during a prison fight. In 1971, when he was 27, Abbott escaped from the penitentiary and managed to remain free for 6 weeks. Abbott’s time on the outside came to an end when he was arrested and convicted of bank robbery, adding 19 years to the sentence he was serving when he escaped.
Although Abbott’s initial request for parole was denied, by the time he was again eligible Abbott had spent 3 years corresponding with Mailer, who had facilitated the publication of four of Abbott’s letters (in 1980 and 1981). Mailer, and others influential in the literary world, wrote letters on Abbott’s behalf, urging that he be paroled in order that his literary genius might better serve society. With Mailer going so far as to ensure that Abbott would be gainfully employed, in June of 1981 Abbott was paroled and transferred to a halfway house in New York City. There, he enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame as the center of attention of New York’s elite social scene. Six weeks after arriving in NYC, after a night on the town, Abbott stabbed to death Richard Adan, a 22-year-old waiter (who, ironically, was an aspiring writer) when Adan would not allow Abbott to use the small restaurant’s bathroom. Receiving the maximum sentence of 15 years to life for Adan’s murder, Abbott returned to prison at the age of
37 and completed his second book (aptly titled, My Return) by the age of 43.9 In February of 2002, at the age of 58, Abbott, who described himself as a state-raised child and who spent all but 9 months of his adult life in prison, committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell.10 A View From the Sidelines While Abbott’s description of living in the belly of the beast may only have been a more-or-less distorted reflection of his own prison experience, any insight he may have had as to what led him there is absent in his work. With some degree of irony Mikal Gilmore (who acknowledges that he may always be best known as Gary Gilmore’s little brother) wrote the public dissection of a life in search of the key to the intense loss and violence suffered and caused by the Gary Gilmores and Jack Henry Abbotts of our nation. In Shot in the Heart, Mikal Gilmore offers a profoundly and painfully revealing exploration of the
Table 1: Risk Factors for Serious, Violent Offenders Individual Factors Prenatal: Tetragens (drugs, alcohol, nicotine) Maternal malnutrition Chronic maternal stress Physical abuse of mother during pregnancy Maternal accident/injury affecting fetus Other sources of brain damage Physical abnormalities Genetic factors Perinatal: Teenage parenthood Prematurity Birth trauma Low birth weight Postnatal: Accidents, head injuries Malnutrition, nutritional deficiencies Lead poisoning
Individual Factors General: Low verbal IQ ADHD Psychopathology Exposure to violence in entertainment (TV, movies, video games, music, etc.) Antisocial attitudes and beliefs Early & persistent antisocial behaviors Early onset of substance abuse Aggression Access to weapons/firearms Gang membership/association Peer rejection Being male Runaway behavior
Familial Factors Maternal rejection/abandonment Parent-child separations Lack of consistency in caretakers Multiple caretakers Inadequate parenting skills Poor or no supervision Harsh, lax, or inconsistent discipline Witness to domestic violence Family conflict Divorce/separation Single mother Low maternal IQ Maternal depression Parental psychopathology Multigenerational mental illness Parental substance abuse Multigenerational substance abuse Family history of criminal behavior, especially father Parental attitude toward criminal activity Delinquent siblings Large family Multiple relocations Extreme economic deprivation
Social Factors School: Poor attitude toward school Lack of commitment to school Poor performance Failure Moving from school to school Truancy Dropping out Child abuse and/or neglect Community: Impoverished, racially mixed, violent neighborhood Community disorganization (high crime, drugs, gangs, availability of firearms, etc.) Manifest prejudice Lack of involved adult who values child
(This table represents a 2005 integration of data from OJJDP and The Office of the Surgeon General by mitigation specialist, Holly Jackson, JD)
roots of evil in the Gilmore family tree.11 Mikal believed that Mailer’s account of the last 3 months of Gary’s life was somewhat fictionalized and did little to explain what led up to the end of his brother’s life. In Shot in the Heart, Mikal Gilmore presents the serial disasters that propelled Gary to his death. He offers haunting accounts of mental illness, rage, domestic violence, child abuse, emotional neglect, parental criminal activity, repeated abandonment, family secrets, and multiple sudden relocations amongst other early traumas that evoke pathos without the expectation of pardon. From within the world that gave rise to a serious, violent, and chronic criminal, Mikal Gilmore, whether knowingly or not, wrote an exemplar of the type of psychosocial history that must be presented at the penalty phase of all capital cases since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Wiggins in June of 2003.12 With Wiggins, the Court concluded it was tantamount to ineffective assistance of counsel for a defense attorney to forego or fail to thoroughly investigate and present the jury with mitigating evidence from his or her client’s background. Such evidence should be collected from as many sources as possible, cover all spheres of functioning, and be multigenerational in nature. Through lay and expert witnesses, the defense team is responsible for helping the jury understand what factors, influences, acts, and omissions resulted in the defendant being the person he or she was at the time of the offense, along with what conditions and interventions are apt to reduce the likelihood of future threat. The overriding purpose and objective is to humanize the defendant for the jury, to offset ingrained social stereotypes regarding criminals, to show that the defendant is not the demon for which the death penalty is intended, and to allow the jury cause to deliver a sentence less than death.13
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 57
From the Outside In From a defense perspective, it is an ironic blessing that some of the best information for structuring the presentation of a capital defendant’s history in social context has been provided by the Department of Justice, specifically from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).14-17 Incorporating over 30 years of research, the OJJDP has identified specific risk and protective factors for serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders. While many exist, perhaps the most concise definition of risk factors is that provided by the Office of the Surgeon General when it describes a risk factor as, “anything that increased the probability that a person will suffer harm.”18 Three longitudinal studies conducted by the OJJDP’s Program of Research on Causes and Correlates of Juvenile Delinquency (total sample size of 4,000) found that only 6-14% of delinquent youth (depending on the study region) are responsible for 51-75% (again, depending on the study) of all delinquent acts and virtually all serious, violent offenses.14,17 Risk factors contributing to the development of this small percentage of delinquents who are considered chronic, serious, violent delinquents are listed in a variety of tables from a number of sources, including the OJJDP and the Office of the Surgeon General.14-18 In addition to the extensive research supporting the risk factor tables or lists developed by the OJJDP and the Office of the Surgeon General (see Table 1), from a defense perspective, the very fact that the risk factors were identified by the Department of Justice makes it all the more difficult for the prosecution to even attempt to discredit their validity and application in the context of a capital case. The OJJDP’s longitudinal studies found that of the above risk factors, two had unique associations with delinquency: child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or neglect) before age 18 and gang involvement.17 Amongst
Table 2: Protective Factors for Serious, Violent Offenders Individual Factors: Being a girl High intelligence Positive social orientation Resilient temperament Ability to perceive opportunities Ability to develop skills Ability to obtain recognition Intolerant attitude toward deviance Perceived sanctions for transgressions
Social Bonding Factors: Early interventions Presence of positive role models Opportunity to form and maintain warm, supportive relationships with positive adults and/or groups who model and reinforce healthy beliefs and clear standards Parent's positive evaluation of peers Friends who engage in pro-social behavior Parental monitoring/supervision Being taught skills needed to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves Commitment to school Involvement in extracurricular activities Meaningful and challenging opportunities to contribute to their families, peers, schools (and other organizations), and communities Receiving recognition for their efforts Reduced exposure to violent media and interactive media with violent themes
(This table represents a 2005 integration of data from OJJDP and The Office of the Surgeon General by mitigation specialist, Holly Jackson, JD)
those youth reporting general (versus serious) delinquent behavior between the ages of 16 and 18, perhaps surprisingly, those who were maltreated only during childhood did not have a greater risk for delinquency than did those who had not been maltreated. A significantly greater risk was found in those youth who were maltreated during adolescence, with the highest risk found in those youth who were maltreated through childhood and adolescence. Gang involvement at some time between the ages of 14 and 18 was found in approximately 30% of both males and females in the study groups. For 50% of those, gang membership lasted one year or less with only 7% (all males) having gang affiliations lasting all four years studied. The 30% involved in gangs were responsible for 63% of all delinquent acts, 82% of serious delinquent acts, and 54% of all arrests. Balancing Act Offsetting these deleterious risk factors are protective factors that range in definition from the absence of risk factors, to the opposite of each given risk factor, to the presence of “characteristics or conditions that interact with risk factors to reduce their influence on violent behavior.”18 While there has been less research on protective (versus risk) factors, several protective factors have been identified (see Table 2) that are statisti-
58 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
cally significant in their ability to buffer the effects of risk factors for serious, violent delinquency. Two of those factors appear to be particularly effective: the individual child’s intolerance of all forms of deviance (especially violence) and his or her commitment to school. It is important to note that the effect/influence of risk and protective factors vary with age and that years of research have failed to find that a single risk factor is responsible for chronic and serious delinquency and violence. Rather, risk factors are thought to be cumulative and interactive; that is, when multiple risk factors are present in an individual, the resulting level of risk and dysfunction is significantly greater than would be predicted by an additive model. The Rochester Youth Development Study found that of their high-risk youth (those with five or more risk factors), the 80% who had less than six protective factors manifested serious delinquent behavior.17 On the other hand, 25% of high-risk youth who had nine or more protective factors were classified as serious delinquents. The presence of multiple individual protective factors may protect a youth exposed to multiple risk factors; on the other hand, the absence of those individual protective factors in the presence of risk factors can be offset by the single social protective factor of a strong relationship with a positive adult.
Conclusion Knowledge of risk and protective factors plays a crucial role in forensic psychology in the structuring of a defendant’s psychosocial history as mitigating evidence at sentencing (most significantly in capital cases). However, risk and protective factors have broad application in the areas of program development, prevention, and intervention in an array of fields, including education, public health, mental health, and juvenile justice, amongst others. It is through applied understanding of the interactive effects and balancing of risk and protective factors (in every branch of human services) that society will benefit from a steady decline in the horrific crimes perpetrated by chronic, serious, and violent delinquents. Considering just one risk factor, prenatal exposure to alcohol, the prevalence rate in the general public is 0.3 to 5 per 1,000 live births.19 However, a study in British Columbia found that 23% of all youth remanded by the court for inpatient psychiatric treatment had suffered prenatal exposure to alcohol, as had 25% of all inmates in juvenile detention.20,21 One study of Texas prisons reportedly found that 75-85% of all inmates suffered symptoms indicative of prenatal exposure to alcohol.22 It’s unknown whether Jack Henry Abbott was exposed to toxins (drugs, alcohol, or nicotine) or otherwise harmed while in the womb. Ironically, the answer to Mikal Gilmore’s driving search for the key to the loss, violence, and serial disaster suffered by his brother can be found in the title of Abbott’s book. That is, the life of the most serious chronic, violent offenders literally begins – and ultimately ends – in the belly of the beast.
5. Abbott, JH, “Solitary Confinement,” The New York Review of Books 27 (1980): 15. 6. Abbott, JH, “The Condemned,” The New York Review of Books 28 (1981): 3. 7. Abbott, JH, “Two Notes By Jack H Abbott,” The New York Review of Books 28 (1981): 10. 8. Abbott, JH, In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison (New York: Vintage Books, New York: 1981). 9. Abbott, JH, My Return (New York: Prometheus Books, 1987). 10. Jackson, B, The Buffalo Report (2002) Available online at: http://www.buffaloreport. com/020301abbott.html. 11. Gilmore, M, Shot in the Heart (New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995). 12. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. ___ (2003). (No. 02-311). 13. Haney, C, “The Social Context of Capital Murder: Social Histories and the Logic of Mitigation” 35 Santa Clara L. Rev. 547 (1995). 14. Howell, JC (Ed.), “Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). 15. Wasserman, GA, et al. “Risk and Protective Factors of Child Delinquency,” Child Delinquency Bulletin Series, (NCJ 193409) U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: Washington, D.C. (2003). 16. Shader, M, “Risk Factors for Delinquency: An Overview,” Child Delinquency Bulletin Series (NCJ 193409). U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: Washington, D.C. (2003). 17. Thornberry, TP, et al. “The Causes and
Correlates Studies: Findings and Policy Implications,” Juvenile Justice Journal 9, no.1 (2004): 319. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: Washington, D.C. 18. Office of the Surgeon General. Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary, Office of Public Health and Science, Office of the Surgeon General, (2001). 19. Northern Family Health Society, FASD and the Legal System (2003).Available online: http://www.nfhs-pg.org/legal/fasd.html 20. Connor, P, “Prison: A Warehouse for Individuals with FASD,” Iceburg 14, no. 2 (2004). 21. Moore, TE & Green, M, “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and the Criminal Justice System,” Criminal Reports 19, no. 1 (2004). 19 C.R. (6th) 99-108. 22. Beazley, D, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Leads to Violent Crime (Edmonton Sun, 2004). Available online: http://www.apolnet.org/Fetal-Sep30.pdf About the Author Bruce Gross, PhD, JD, MBA, FACFEI, DABPS, DABFE, DABFM, DAPA, is a Fellow in the American College of Forensic Examiners (ACFEI) and is an executive advisory board member on the American Board of Forensic Examiners. Dr. Gross is also a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Examiners, the American Board of Forensic Medicine, and the American Board of Psychological Specialties. He has been a member of ACFEI since 1996. Additionally, Dr. Gross is a Diplomate of the American Psychotherapy Association.
References 1. Gilmore v. Utah, 429 U.S. 1012 (1976)2. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) (USSC+). 3. Mailer, N, Executioner’s Song (New York, NY: Warner Books, 1979). 4. Abbott, JH, “In Prison,” The New York Review of Books 27 (1980): 11.
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 59
Expert Witness Manual By Jess E. Dines Expert witnesses are invaluable in our judicial system as they help determine the credibility of evidence. Expert Witness Manual, written by Jess E. Dines, who has served as an expert witness in over 100 cases, provides a comprehensive guide to how expert witnesses can be most effective. Dines offers practical advice and in-depth knowledge that can prevent readers from wasting time, effort, and money. Some of the most distinguished expert witnesses in the nation contributed to the text, sharing their personal experiences and expertise. The index, glossary, list of abbreviations, and directory of professional organizations make Dines’ book a convenient and valuable reference tool that no expert witness should be without. Written in a clear and concise manner, the straightforward text is easy to understand and encouraging to anyone interested in becoming an expert witness. Judges, attorneys, law enforcement officials, physicians, private investigators, nurses, accountants, psychologists, business professionals, and others can also benefit from understanding the field of forensic examination. Jess E. Dines earned a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering and is a graduate of the Andrew Bradley training and advanced forensic document examiner courses. He is a Diplomate of ACFEI, the National Sheriff ’s Association, the National Association of Document Examiners, and the Forensic Expert Witness Association. He authored the Document Examiner Textbook and has also
written articles that have appeared in criminal bar newsletters including Orange County Lawyer, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Citation, Ventura County Lawyer, and Riverside Lawyer. The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations: Critical Incidents and How to Respond to Them By Dr. James Greenstone The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations: Critical Incidents and How to Respond to Them will be an essential tool for all professionals in the law enforcement and crisis intervention arenas. Author James L. Greenstone, EdD, JD, FACFEI, DABECI, DABLEE, DABPS, DABFE, DAPA, CHS-V, CMI-I, a recognized expert in the field of law enforcement and crisis intervention, takes his readers through a detailed step-by-step guide of the entire crisis intervention and negotiation process. This text provides techniques that will be helpful to both novice and experienced negotiators; it may also be used as a supplementary textbook for criminal justice, crisis intervention, and psychology coursework. Dr. Greenstone’s text reviews the negotiation procedures for hostage, barricaded, and suicide incidents, providing an easy-to-use resource that will be instrumental for both training situations and on-the-scene use. Each chapter contains informative and practical checklists, procedural notes, strategy worksheets, and forms that break down each step in the various stages of the crisis negotiation process. Dr. Greenstone is a Police Mental
60 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
Health Consultant and Deputy Sheriff with the Tarrant County Sheriff ’s Department in Fort Worth, Texas. He has been in practice for 37 years and has been a police officer for 25 years. Dr. Greenstone is a Diplomate of APA and the American College of Forensic Examiners. He is Chair of the Executive Board of Crisis Intervention Advisors for the American Board of Examiners in Crisis Intervention. He is also a member of the Executive Board of Advisors for the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute, the Executive Board of Law Enforcement Advisors of the American Board of Law Enforcement Experts, and the Executive Board for Certification in Homeland Security within the American Board for Certification in Homeland Security (ABCHS). He is also a Diplomate of the American Board of Examiners in Crisis Intervention, the American Board of Law Enforcement Experts, the American Board of Psychological Specialties, and the American Board of Forensic Examiners. He is Certified in Homeland Security at Level-V (CHS-V) and is a Certified Medical Investigator at Level-I (CMI-I). Dr. Greenstone has served for many years as a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of The Forensic Examiner and Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association.
Members can have their books reviewed in The Forensic Examiner by sending a review copy to Editor, 2750 E. Sunshine, Springfield MO, 65804
People want a true, straight-talking, plain-speaking, “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me what I need to hear,” biblically accurate interpretation and exposition of God’s Word. The 150 topics covered by Word Pictures meet this desire with high-end visuals and contemporary illustrations that bring the Bible to life before the viewer’s eyes. May God bless the truth to your soul through this amazing one-of-a-kind Bible teaching series. Phone: 1-877-CROSSTV Email: production@crosstv.com
Mountain State University (MSU) *ACFEI members save 20%
Offer Continuing Medical Education (CME) through your organization by jointly sponsoring an activity with the American College of Forensic Examiners International (ACFEI). By jointly sponsoring activities with ACFEI, a nationally accredited provider of Continuing Medical Education, you can offer Continuing Medical Education to physicians in practice anywhere in the United States. For more information about how your organization can offer CME by jointly sponsoring an activity with ACFEI, call toll free (800) 423-9737 or send an e-mail to cedept@acfei.com.
MSU, a private, non-profit, North-Centrally accredited university, offers a variety of internet, distance learning, and onsite programs at both the bachelor’s and master’s levels. These degree programs A grave dig is part of MSU's forensics program. are focused on highdemand professional fields as well as the humanities and sciences. Thanks to an educational strategic partnership between ACFEI and MSU, ACFEI members can save up to 20% on tuition and related fees! For more information on MSU visit www.mountainstate.edu or send an email to Dr. Harvey Stone at hstone@mountainstate.edu.
www.acfei.com Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 61
ACFEI news Submit Your Writing to The Forensic Examiner! You probably already know that The Forensic Examiner accepts articles for peer review and possible inclusion in the journal, but did you know that you can also submit other types of writing? Fascinating case studies, forensic case profiles, and current issues in the field of forensics are all welcome! Fascinating Cases Tell us about your most fascinating forensic case and how forensic techniques were used to solve the mystery. The most informative, intriguing, and unusual cases will be published in upcoming issues of The Forensic Examiner. Forensic Case Profiles Tell your fellow ACFEI members what you and/or the forensic community learned from a particular forensic case. These might be cases your worked on, or they might be historical cases that had a major impact on the field. Current Issues in the Field of Forensics Is there a “hot topic” that the ACFEI membership needs to know about? The special section “Current Issues in the Field of Forensics” allows members to explore these topics to share vital information and spark debate. How to Submit Whether you wish to submit an article for peer review, a fascinating case, a forensic case profile, or an article on a current issue in the field of forensics, send your writing electronically (either in the body of an e-mail or as attachment) to editor@acfei.com. Or, send in your writing on a disk or CD to Editor, Association Headquarters, 2750 E. Sunshine, Springfield MO 65804.
Correction In the previous issue of The Forensic Examiner (vol. 14, no. 1) the article “A Review of FDR’s Mental Capacity During His Fourth Term and Its Impact on History” misquoted the number of Polish POWs murdered at the Katyn massacre. The article should read “…10,000 Polish POWs were murdered.”
62 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005
Teach an Online Course for ACFEI ACFEI invites you to submit a proposal for an online continuing education course to be offered to ACFEI’s membership via ACFEI-Online. Although ACFEI welcomes proposals on a variety of forensic topics, we are particularly interested in finding an instructor for an online ethics course, as well as introductory courses on general forensic topics such as beginning forensic dentistry, beginning forensic psychology, beginning forensic ophthalmology, etc. For more information on developing and teaching an online course for ACFEI, please see the insert in this journal or contact ACFEI’s continuing education director at cedept@acfei.com or call toll free (800) 423-9737, ext. 125. ACFEI Members Save on Stays at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts Summer is here, and it is the perfect time to take advantage of one of the most enjoyable benefits of ACFEI membership. As a current ACFEI member you are eligible to receive up to 50% off the published rack (undiscounted) rates at all participating Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Summerfield Suites by Wyndham. Simply call ahead to 1-800-WYNDHAM or (972) 915-7070 and ask for your ACFEI discount when booking your stay. For more information on this and other great benfits of membership in ACFEI visit www.acfei.com or call toll free (800) 423-9737.
Due to space limitations, members' academic degrees and professional designations are not listed.
Robert A. Abramowitz Jose Acobe Diane L. Adams Curtis Ake William S. Akel Karen M. Aloy Evaristo Alvarez Ghigliotti Irina Anissimova Jose A. Aponte David L. Atkins Carrie H. Bacon Eric Lee Baer Ruth Ann Baeumel Timothy A. Bailey Paul R. Baker Michael E. Barnes Carlos Barros-Villahermosa Danial E. Bartle Joseph S. Bauer Alan H. Baxter Steven Belau James W. Bell G. Eric Bergstrom Carlos E. Berroa William A. Best Bronson S. Bias C. King Bibby Willie Bido Jack D. Bouchier Michael W. Boyle Heather Bridle Dennis E. Bush Carol A. Cagno Samuel Edward Caldwell Terry Callendrillo James Alan Calvert Christopher M. Cannon Louis P. Cannon Stephanie A. CappettaJempolsky Frederick D. Carcione Jennifer Rebecka Carter Joseph Caruso Carlton E. Cash Jane Thomas Cash Brian K. Cescolini Matthew Chalmers David A. Chaplin Louis Preston Ciamillo Sogui Cisse James A. Civil, II Karla M. Cole Ernest G. Coley, Jr. Donald T. Condon James Hugh Craig George E. Cramer Lindsey Marie Crookshanks James W. Crosby Althea Da Silva Kim Johansen Day
Rosemarie de la Tour Steve J. Dean Timothy J. Decker Dana Devito A. Steve Diamond Stephen Mark Dickson Dan DiPierro Robert L. Dizon Charles O. Dowell, Jr. Freddie B. Dugger Joe A. Dziuban Michael D. Eaves Harry J. Edwards Joseph R. England Barry A. Esham Jason William Evanson Robert Fabrizio Cheryl Lee Farfalla Michael Walter Feinberg Gina M. Feletar Jeff W. Fields Eric Figueroa, Sr. Christine K. Finn John E. Fitzsimmons Steven Foster Jerry M. Fountain Hugh C. Fox Randall T. Francis Elroy J. Friesenhahn John M. Fritz Joli G. Garcia William T. Gaut William O. Gavin, Jr. Kenneth Edward Geiberras Robert David Goll Gregory Robert Gonthier Daniel Paul Gordon Dennis D. Graves Collin A. A. Greenland Tony A. Griego Travis A. Griffith Samuel Rick Hall Troy D. Hammond Kenneth Harman Patrick E. Harris Rainier C. Harvey, Sr. Anthony William Hebert Mike D. Hendershot Consuelo Herrera Margaret R. Hewitt James Benson Hill Edward J. Holub, II Charles G. Hudack James M. Ignaut David L. Ingram, Jr. Lawrence Iwanski Patrick C. Jackson Robyn D. Jaffers William A. Jetter Rick J. Johnson
Sasha N. Jordan Kevin F. Jura Vagish Kapila Rose A. Karam Keith C. Karamarkovich Edmund G. Kardauskas Kenneth A. Keen Edward Joseph Keenan, Jr. Craig Kelly Richard T. Kennedy Tiffany D. Kennedy Edward H. Kensler, Jr. Ronald J. Kilburg J. Graham King William T. King Andrew Kirkland Ronald Klinebriel Bruce O. Kozozenski Kori E. Kreiner Robert P. Kropp David J. Lambert Richard Riley Land Ernest J. Lanier, Sr. Joseph Lawless Katherine Phillips LeComte Paul Ledwitz Bruce Leeming Christopher J. Leigh Christine Leja Jonathan Levis Sean Michael Lewis Jacqueline L. Litzinger Elias Llabres Rodriguez Joe B. Lockman William B. Lovett Joseph L. Lynch, III Byron Robert Marshall Jennie Martin-Gall Jeannine B. Massey Polly H. McBean Michael William McGuinness Frank Edward McKissick Patrick J. McMahon Gregory W. Mekalip Melinda D. Merck Charles W. Miller Suzanne W. H. Miller Steve Minton Nancy Rajala Miskel Ronald Paul Molway, Jr. Ronald E. Monard Lyle E. Moore, Jr. Daniel Jon Moots Gary Wayne Morgan Stephen Lee Morgan Timothy B. Morris Paul Morris Calvin Estese Morris, Jr. Antonio Muniz Cruz
Antonio Muniz Lugo DeeAnna Merz Nagel Kimberly A. Nardi D. Logan Nelson LaRayne Annette Ness Kent Terrance Newcomb Loc Nguyen Marian Niedrauer Bruce Niedrauer Janet Nieves Paul M. Novak Michael Nuccitelli Cynthia B. Nwokocha Jay Stuart Olson Ralph Otero Daniel Pacheco Edwin A. Padilla Jimmy E. Parrilla-Raya Anthony J. Passaniti James Patterson Todd Christopher Patterson Laura Paukner Russell Pavich Jackie M. Penberthy Wallace A. Pennington Elizabeth M. Perius John Perkins Edward K. Pettapiece Lisa Diana Pickerill Jeffrey Lee Pinckard Brian Sean Pinkston Steven A. Pollio Miguel Antonio Ponce de Leon Dennis M. Popek Michael Postorino Robert L. Potts Edward Povlinski Linda Prince Ward Preston Pyles Tim S. Quinn Pedro J. Ramirez John D. Richardson Angel E. Rijos Fidel Angel Rijos-Ortiz Willaim Rivas-Colon Carl Joe Roberts Gerald F. Robinson Jose A. Rosa-Carrasquillo Michael W. Rouse Loraine B. Rutherford Debra Salvatore Nitin Salvi Marcelo J. Sanabria Theresa Marie Sandoval George J. Santa Cruz Dora Alicia Saucedo Falls Peggy Ann Schafale Gil Schmidt Kevin G. Sell
Harley Ray Sell Thomas C. Selvaggi Julio Serrano-Faria Robert F. Shearer Richard Geary Shinholt Todd G. Shipley Soraya F. Sina David Travis Smith Wayne Paul Speigel Linda Spencer Daniel R. Spillman Terry W. Staggs William J. Starbird Barry E. Stewart Melinda R. Stoflet Armando A. Suarez Noman Sultan Paul L. Summers M. Lawrence Sweeney Donald Paul Talenti Richard Tapia Laura J. M. Tarrant Christopher L. Terzich Domenic A. Tesoriero Arankanathan Thillainathan Thor Thomsen Patrick A. Thornton Rick W. Tidwell Julian Keith Tolver Carlos E. Torres Rafael E. Torres-Chavez Bob Tribble Margaret Tunstall Lydia Vandiver Cindy T. Vaughn Juli L. Verkler Tracy L. Von Aspen Patricia Claren Wagner Todd A. Walker Richard Walker Ricky Wayne Ward Tommy J. Warren Gary L. Watts Mark Weatherford Kathleen A. Weaver Jeannine L. Weiss Michael Dennis Welch James Richard Whitaker Joel Benedict White James Michael Wolfe Stephen K. Woltz Dana L. Wong Kimberly A. Yedowitz Verna A. Yocum Robert B. Young Robert E. Young Kara L. Zeimen John Zimmerling
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 63
CE TEST PAGE: FIVE TOTAL CREDITS AVAILABLE (WITH THE COMPLETION OF ALL 5 CE TESTS) In order to receive CE credit, each participant is required to do the following: 1.) Read the continuing education article. 2.) Complete the exam by circling the chosen answer for each question. 3.) Complete the evaluation form. 4.) Mail or fax the completed form, along with the $15 payment for each CE exam that you take. If you pass the exam with a grade of 70% or above, a certificate of completion for one continuing education credit will be mailed to you. Participants who do not pass the exam are notified as such and will have a second opportunity to complete the exam. Any questions, grievances, or comments can be directed to the ACFEI CE Department by phone at (800) 423-9737, faxed to (417) 881-4702, or e-mailed to cedept@acfei.com.
Learning Objectives for “Childhood Animal Cruelty...”
Learning Objectives for “Blood Spatter Interpretation at Crime Scenes”
After studying this article, the participant should understand the following: 1.) Childhood animal cruelty is prevalent among adult offenders and may be more frequent in violent criminals. 2.) Animal cruelty is considered to be one of the earliest reported symptoms of conduct disorder in children and is therefore typically associated with a poor prognosis. 3.) Several theories suggest that the development of animal cruelty is borne from an abusive family context, in particular, witnessing adult violence. 4.) Assessment can include self-reports, other reports, and interviews. 5.) Proper treatments for childhood animal cruelty are still under development.
After studying this article, the participant should understand how to do the following: 1.) Measure a bloodstain. 2.) Tell the directionality of blood spatter. 3.) Measure the impact angle of blood spatter. 4.) Discern the area of convergence of a blood spatter pattern. 5.) Classify the general velocity of blood spatter.
Article 1: CE Test for “Blood Spatter Interpretation at Crime Scenes” (See page 6 for article.)
Article 2: CE test for “Childhood Animal Cruelty...” (See page 23 for article.)
1.) To find the ratio of a single drop of blood spatter one needs to: A. Divide the length by the width. B. Divide the width by the length. C. Multiply the width by the length. D. Multiply the width by the circumfrance.
1.) Animal cruelty behavior is prevalent in: A. Juvenile firesetters. B. Adult violent criminals. C. Clinical samples of children/adolescents. D Non-clinical samples of college undergraduates. E. All of the above.
2.) To determine the degrees of the angle of impact of a single drop of spatter one must: A. Take the inverse TAN of the ratio. B. Take the inverse COS of the ratio. C. Take the inverse SIN of the ratio. D. None of the above. 3.) The point of origin (or hemorrhage) is a point that is: A. Perpendicular to the point of convergence. B. Parallel to the point of convergence. C. The central-most individual stain in the pattern. D. None of the above. 4.) The velocity of blood spatter caused by an object moving at 20 feet per second would be classified as: A. Low. B. Medium. C. High. D. Below average. 5.) Cast-off blood on a wall will most likely have been left by: A. A gunshot wound. B. A bleeding corpse slumped against the wall. C. Blood flung off a blunt or sharp instrument. D. A victim crawling on the floor.
2.) It is important to detect childhood animal cruelty early because: A. It is generally not an isolated incident. B. It suggests that there may be child and/or spousal abuse in the family. C It predicts a poorer prognosis for conduct disorder. D. It is linked with adult violence. E. All of the above. 3.) The strongest predictor of childhood animal cruelty is: A. Family abuse. B. Witnessing animal abuse. C. Criminal parents. D. Punitive parenting styles. E. Enuresis and firesetting. 4.) The most comprehensive assessment for animal cruelty is the: A. Clinical Assessment of Juvenile Animal Cruelty. B. Boat Inventory on Animal-Related Experiences. C. Children’s attitudes and behaviors toward animals. D. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. E. None of the above. 5.) Treatments for childhood animal cruelty include teaching children: A. Accountability for their behavior. B. How to express emotions appropriately. C. Humane practices toward animals. D. The importance and benefits of being kind to animals. E. All of the above.
Payment Information Evaluation for Article 1: (1-3 rating section) Please circle one (1=Poor 2=Satisfactory 3= Excellent) 1. The author presented material clearly. 1 2 3 2. The stated learning objectives were met. 1 2 3 3. New knowledge or technique was gained. 1 2 3 4. Additional comments:
Evaluation for Article 2: (1-3 rating section) Please circle one (1=Poor 2=Satisfactory 3= Excellent) 1. The author presented material clearly. 1 2 3 2. The stated learning objectives were met. 1 2 3 3. New knowledge or technique was gained. 1 2 3 4. Additional comments:
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Identifying information: Please print legibly or type the following: Name: Fax Number: Phone Number: Address: City:
State:
Zip:
E-mail:
Statement of completion: I attest to having completed the CE activity. Credit Card # Signature
Date
Please send the completed form, along with your payment of $15 for each test taken. Fax: (417) 881-4702, or mail the forms to ACFEI Continuing Education, 2750 E. Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804. If you have questions, please call (417) 881-3818 or toll free at (800) 423-9737.
64 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005 Take CE Tests online: www.acfei.com (select ”Online CE“)
Circle one: check enclosed
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CE TEST PAGE: FIVE TOTAL CREDITS AVAILABLE (WITH THE COMPLETION OF ALL 5 CE TESTS) Learning Objectives for “Information Assurance Education and the Protection of U.S. Critical Infrastructures” After studying this article, the participant should be able to do the following: 1.) Understand the origin and evolution of the CAE/IAE and the SFS programs. 2.) Describe the major characteristics and limitations of the CAE/IAE program and the SFS program. 3.) Identify ways to provide a more knowledgeable IA labor force in the private sector.
Article 3: CE Test for “Information Assurance Education and the Protection of U.S. Critical Infrastructures” (See page 33 for article.) 1.) Which of the following events occurred first? A. President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 63. B. The President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection report was issued. C. The Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service program was introduced. 2.) Which of the following were identified as U.S. critical infrastructures by the PCCIP? A. The electrical power infrastructure and the emergency services infrastructure. B. The government services infrastructure and the water supply infrastructure. C. Both of the above are correct. 3.) Through 2004, CAE/IAE designation has been based on: A. A non-governmental process of peer review. B. Assessment by a specialized higher education accreditation board. C. Independent evaluations made by individual members of the NSA Review Board. D. Criteria established by the PCCIP. 4.) The Scholarship for Service program: A. Focuses on the training of students as IA professionals to meet the private sector’s need for protecting the nation’s critical infrastructures. B. Provided more than $48 million in student scholarship support from FY 2001 through FY 2003. C. Provided scholarship support for fewer than 400 students from FY 2001 through FY 2003. D. Both B and C are correct. 5.) One way to increase the IA labor force in the private sector is by: A. Increasing business/industry participation in helping colleges and universities develop, improve, and expand their information assurance programs. B. Allocating more federal funding for the SFS program. C. Allowing only graduate-level colleges and universities to become designated CAE/IAE institutions. D. Awarding SFS scholarship and capacity-building funds only to CAE/IAE institutions.
Learning Objectives for “A Multi-Center Study for Validating the Complaint of Chronic Back, Neck, and Limb Pain Using the Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test” After studying this article, participants should be able to do the following: 1) Select the proper test to validate a patient’s complaint of pain. 2) Recognize that physical diagnoses are often overlooked in chronic pain patients. 3) Recognize the problems with the diagnosis of somatization disorder. 4) Select an appropriate and accurate method for evaluating chronic pain patients.
Article 4: CE Test for “A Multi-Center Study for Validating the Complaint of Chronic Back, Neck, and Limb Pain…” (See page 41 for article.) 1) Which of the following statements about the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is not correct? A. It has 566 true-false questions. B. It has a variety of subscales designed to differentiate functional from organic pain. C. It measures personality traits. D. It is reliable in predicting the presence or absence of organic pathology. 2) Somatization Disorder: A. Is a diagnosis found in the DSM-IV manual. B. Can be mistakenly used in patients who really are medically misdiagnosed. C. Is defined as occurring in patients in whom “multiple somatic complaints cannot be fully explained by any known general medical condition.” D. All of the above are correct. 3) Chronic pain: A. Is caused by depression. B. Is defined as a medical condition lasting more than three months. C. Is a common cause of somatization disorder. D. May cause anxiety and depression. 4) The Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test: A. Measures personality traits. B. Was originally called the “Clinical Chronic Pain Scale.” C. Can predict the presence or absence of organic pathology in a chronic pain patient. D. Measures psychological states. 5) The Mensana Clinic Pain Validity Test: A. Found that objective pain patients have real organic pathology 94% of the time. B. Correlates with the DSM-IV criteria for somatization disorder. C. Found that exaggerating pain patients have mild or no organic pathology 10% of the time. D. Correlates with MMPI findings.
Payment Information Evaluation for Article 3: (1-3 rating section) Please circle one (1=Poor 2=Satisfactory 3= Excellent) 1. The author presented material clearly. 1 2 3 2. The stated learning objectives were met. 1 2 3 3. New knowledge or technique was gained. 1 2 3 4. Additional comments:
Evaluation for Article 4: (1-3 rating section) Please circle one (1=Poor 2=Satisfactory 3= Excellent) 1. The author presented material clearly. 1 2 3 2. The stated learning objectives were met. 1 2 3 3. New knowledge or technique was gained. 1 2 3 4. Additional comments:
Amt: $15 per test
Identifying information: Please print legibly or type the following: Name: Fax Number: Phone Number: Address: City:
State:
Zip:
E-mail:
Statement of completion: I attest to having completed the CE activity. Credit Card # Signature
Date
Circle one: check enclosed
Please send the completed form, along with your payment of $15 for each test taken. Fax: (417) 881-4702, or mail the forms to ACFEI Continuing Education, 2750 E. Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804. If you have questions, please call (417) 881-3818 or toll free at (800) 423-9737.
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Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 65 Take CE Tests online: www.acfei.com (select ”Online CE“)
CE TEST PAGE: FIVE TOTAL CREDITS AVAILABLE (WITH THE COMPLETION OF ALL 5 CE TESTS) Learning Objectives for “Cyber-Criminals and Data Sanitization: A Role for Forensic Accountants” After studying this article, participants should understand the following: 1.) The importance of information security associated with retiring old computer equipment. 2.) The areas in retired computer equipment that cyber-criminals access when looking for confidential information. 3.) The process of sanitization and how it is used to clean disk memory before old computer equipment is retired.
Article 5: CE test for “Cyber-Criminals...” (See page 50 for article.) 1.) When a user deletes all files by using the delete command: A. The files will be permanently deleted from all disk memory. B. Cyber-criminals will not be able to access the deleted files. C. The disk blocks containing the files’ contents will remain intact. D. None of the above. 2.) Confidential data may remain when users are unaware of and fail to delete: A. Cached files and application-generated backup files. B. Operating system files. C. System boot-up files. D. Internet files.
4.) The first step in the process of preventing future users of retired computer equipment from gaining access to confidential information is to: A. Create an archive of documents. B. Delete all files. C. Sanitize the hard drive. D. Transfer all files to the new computer. 5.) One method of sanitization is: A. Disk wiping. B. File deletion. C. Disk mapping. D. Data shredding.
3.) When a cyber-criminal finds a wireless network card on a discarded computer, the criminal will look for: A. The name of the network. B. Encryption keys used by the network. C. The presence of network node identification and authentication hardware. D. All of the above.
Payment Information Evaluation for Article 5: (1-3 rating section) Please circle one (1=Poor 2=Satisfactory 3= Excellent) 1. The author presented material clearly. 1 2 3 2. The stated learning objectives were met. 1 2 3 3. New knowledge or technique was gained. 1 2 3 4. Additional comments:
Amt: $15 per test
Identifying information: Please print legibly or type the following: Name:
Credit Card # Circle one: check enclosed
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Name on card: Exp. Date:
Fax Number: Phone Number:
Statement of completion: I attest to having completed the CE activity.
Address:
Signature :________________________________________________ Date:____________________
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Zip:
E-mail: Please send the completed form, along with your payment of $15 for each test taken. Fax: (417) 881-4702, or mail the forms to ACFEI Continuing Education, 2750 E. Sunshine, Springfield, MO 65804. If you have questions, please call (417) 881-3818 or toll free at (800) 423-9737.
ACFEI invites you to submit a proposal for an online continuing education course to be offered to ACFEI’s membership via ACFEI-Online. Although ACFEI welcomes proposals on a variety of forensic topics, we are particularly interested in finding an instructor for an online ethics course, as well as introductory courses on general forensic topics such as beginning forensic dentistry, beginning forensic psychology, beginning forensic ophthalmology, etc. For more information on developing and teaching an online course for ACFEI, please see the insert in this journal or contact ACFEI’s continuing education director at cedept@acfei.com or toll free at (800) 423-9737, ext. 125. 66 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER Summer 2005 Take CE Tests online: www.acfei.com (select ”Online CE“)
Falsely Accused New and Improved DNA Testing Proves Man’s Innocence, Gives Him Hopes of Freedom In March, 32-year-old Juan Rivera was notified that new DNA test results excluded him as a person who could have committed the crime for which he has spent the last 12 years of his life in prison. On August 17, 1992, 11-year-old Holly Staker was babysitting a 5-year-old boy and his 2-year-old sister at an apartment three blocks from her home. At 8:00 p.m. that evening, a neighbor found the boy alone outside and locked out of his house. Alarmed, he drove the boy to where his mother, Dawn Engelbrecht, was working. Engelbrecht immediately called home, but no one answered. She contacted Holly’s mother and the two went to the apartment together where they found Engelbrecht’s daughter unharmed. They continued to search the house and found Holly brutally murdered. Medical evidence concluded that Holly had been stabbed 27 times and was raped as she died. A few days after the murder, Juan Rivera was taken into custody on an unrelated charge. An inmate reported to authorities that Rivera told him he knew who had murdered Holly. In late October of 1992, Rivera was heavily interrogated and signed two con-
fessions to the murder. Rivera later testified that he never committed the murder and was coerced into confessing to it. Rivera was convicted of the crime in 1993, a time when state crime lab analysis and DNA tests were inconclusive. When testing procedures improved, DNA expert Ed Blake reported that he was able to locate over 400 sperm from an empty vial that contained vaginal swabs taken from the victim. From the collected sperm, Blake identified a genetic profile of a male different from Rivera’s own genetic profile. Although Rivera has not yet been cleared of all charges, his attorneys are confident that he will be released, believing the new DNA evidence proves his innocence. After spending the last 12 years of his life in prison, Rivera, who wept for joy when he was notified of the tests results, will likely be a free man in the near future. New Evidence of a Motor Home Hit-and-Run Overturns Wrongful Murder Conviction In April, a federal court judge set 53-yearold Larry Souter free after serving 13 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. At 2:20 a.m. on the morning of August 25, 1979, 19-year-old Kristy Ringler left a party with several friends to attend another party at a nearby mobile home. At 2:55 that morning, Ringler was discovered by a truck driver lying in the road only 900 feet from the party she had attended; she died later that day. An autopsy concluded that Ringler had suffered a fatal brain injury; she had 5-inch lacerations on her forehead and the right side of her head. Investigators found a whiskey bottle on the side of the road that Larry Souter, one of the last people to see Ringer alive, admitted to discarding. Souter testified that he and Ringler were in the front yard when she decided to walk home along the highway. After following her for 20 to 25 feet and trying to convince
her to accept a ride, he gave up and returned to the party. A forensic pathologist working the case reported that he believed Ringler’s injuries resulted from being hit by a vehicle, so the Newaygo County prosecutor declined to press charges. However, a detective remained suspicious due to the truck driver’s testimony that Ringler’s body was free of blood and debris when he found her. Also, 12 years after Ringler’s death, the Newaygo County medical examiner wrote a report stating the shape of the whiskey bottle found at the scene matched the shape of Ringler’s wounds. In 1991, Souter was charged with second-degree murder in the case and was sentenced to 20 to 60 years in prison. After 13 years of state and federal appeals, Souter’s attorney and his investigators were able to counter the evidence against him. They proved the bottle did not have sharp edges and submitted photos that were unavailable at the original trial showing Ringler’s clothes covered in blood. A woman came forward and told authorities that her father might have killed Ringler with his motor home. (She had reported the same story to uninterested police in 1979.) She remembered her father had driven on the same road that Ringler was discovered on, and had removed the side mirror from his mobile home just a few hours after Ringler’s death. She reported that her father had acted strangely and had refused to talk about how the mirror got damaged. The assistant attorney in the case confirmed that Ringler was 2 1/2 inches taller than the motor home mirror, meaning it could have caused Ringler’s head trauma. After 13 years in prison, thanks to this woman’s story and supporting evidence, Souter was released from prison.
Summer 2005 THE FORENSIC EXAMINER 67
American College of Forensic Examiners International 2750 E. Sunshine Springfield, MO 65804