Northampton Community College

About: Northampton Community College is a education organization based out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3410 authors who have published 4582 publications receiving 130398 citations. The organization is also known as: Northampton County Area Community College.

Tyrannical Spaces: Young people, bullying and urban neighbourhoods

Abstract: We consider the street experiences of a group of urban children living in a large East Midlands town in the UK. Our attention focuses upon an issue that has seldom been examined, neighbourhood bullying. We highlight how some children, through their propinquity within neighbourhood spaces, clash and collide to such an extent that their experiences of a locality become severely blighted. For these unfortunate young people local environments are tyrannical spaces, defined in terms of 'no-go areas', danger and threat. These are not remarkable geographies, however, and we suggest that like many school environments, where bullying has increasingly been recognised and disclosed, within many localities there is a 'hidden' geography of fear waiting to be uncovered. The paper is organised into five parts: first, we briefly examine the concept of bullying, particularly in relation to young people in schools; secondly, we extend these ideas into a neighbourhood context drawing upon recent ideas of 'self', 'other' and microgeographies; thirdly, we outline the research project from which this article emerges; fourthly, we look at some empirical evidence from an urban case study that draws attention to the form and consequences of neighbourhood bullying; lastly, we discuss the relevance of these findings to future policy and practice, particularly in relation to the management of neighbourhood spaces. We propose that systematically applied local strategies to tackle bullying within neighbourhoods are needed, particularly those which engage young people and adults together through a whole community approach.

The Value of DNA Material Recovered from Crime Scenes

Abstract: DNA material is now collected routinely from crime scenes for a wide range of offenses and its timely processing is acknowledged as a key element to its success in solving crime An analysis of the processing of approximately 1500 samples of DNA material recovered from the property crime offenses of residential burglary, commercial burglary, and theft of motor vehicle in Northamptonshire, UK during 2006 identified saliva and cigarette ends as the main sources of DNA recovered (approximately 63% of samples) with blood, cellular DNA, and chewing gum accounting for the remainder The conversion of these DNA samples into DNA profiles and then into matches with offender profiles held on the UK National DNA database is considered in terms of the ease with which Crime Scene Examiners can recover DNA rich samples of different sources, the location of the DNA at the crime scene, and its mobility A logistical regression of the DNA material recovered has revealed a number of predictors, other than timeliness, that greatly influence its conversion into a DNA profile The most significant predictor was found to be Crime Scene Examiner accreditation with offense type and DNA sample condition also being relevant A similar logistical regression of DNA samples profiled that produced a match with an offender on the UK National DNA database showed no significance with any of the predictors considered