International Edition Volume 11 (2021)


The Formation of Bloodstains Following Head Injuries. Gross, Piotrowski and the first blow

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Silke M.C. Brodbeck

The formation of bloodstains following head injuries shows all possible bloodstain patterns and is multifactorial. The earliest systematic publications on bloodstains can be found in Hans Gross (Gross 1893, 1) and Eduard Piotrowski (Piotrowski 1895, 2), although Piotrowski’s work deals specifcally with head injuries in rabbits. 126 years after the work of Hans Gross and 124 years after the work of Eduard Piotrowski, the progressive development of bloodstain pattern analysis and neurosurgery makes it necessary to reconsider the question of when bloodstains form in cases of head injuries and on which factors they depend. This is the purpose of this work.

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Islamist and Right-Wing Extremist Propaganda. A literary analysis on the mechanisms and impact of violent extremist narratives online

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Victoria Steinek, Birgit Zetinigg

The fundamental aim of this article is to critically examine the mechanisms and impact of extremist propaganda on the Internet. This will be done by mapping the frames and identity concepts portrayed online as they occur in radicalization processes among individuals who are in some way engaged in Islamist and right-wing extremist scenes. A literature review will be conducted in order to provide a better understanding of ways in which narratives with an emphasis on violent extremism work, and why and to what extent they cause an impact on the target audience being exposed to extremist content on social media platforms. Taking into consideration a number of concepts and evidence-based studies from recent years, alleged parallels and differences between Islamist and right-wing extremist narratives in German-speaking countries will be discussed, including their key messages and media strategies of disseminating propaganda material and mobilizing potential members online. It will be argued that not only the inner workings and dynamics of co-existing narratives between these two forms of violent extremism share fundamental commonalities, but also reinforce and complement each other by promoting the sense of an enemy through the other group and giving credibility to their extremist narratives in the process. This analysis has been carried out by the authors in the context of the project DECOUNT (“Promoting democracy and fighting extremism through an online counter narratives and alternative narratives campaign”), which is funded by the European Union’s Internal Security Fund-Police.

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From Loss of Authority to Resistance. When interaction with the police escalates

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Johannes Luff

Resistance is an ambivalent behaviour, which, on the one hand, is necessary in certain situations to maintain democratic conditions, but on the other hand, it can also lead to anarchic conditions in society. After a brief historical summary of the resistance of the population in post-war Germany against political decisions and social authorities, the author concentrates on the resistance against police officers who can no longer rely on the natural authority of their office in the 21st century: Any form of direct coercion must be reflected in the present with regard to legal consequences. The comparative example of petty theft shows that resistance to police officers is not an offence typical of young people. Resistance is concentrated in the night hours at weekends on public streets, paths and squares, and the perpetrators are very often under the influence of alcohol. In the further course, the stages in the escalation process between citizen and police officer are followed in a differentiated way, taking into account the reason for the intervention. The first level of analysis is the announcement of the police action at the scene and the citizen’s reaction to it. The second level examines the implementation of police action and the subsequent reaction of the citizen. The third level evaluates further police actions and the subsequent reactions of the counterpart. As a result, it can be noted that from the time the police use physical violence, it can hardly be expected that the situation will calm down. De-escalation measures must therefore be introduced prior to initial acts of physical aggression; on the one hand, the focus is on verbal communication, and, on the other hand, on the replacement of the police officer by a colleague during a verbally intensified interaction process with the citizen.

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Relevance of Authority and Respect for Police Action. How do police authority and respect arise and how can they be integrated into police action?

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Matthias Weber

It is still a priority for police officers to respond in an appropriate manner to disrespect from citizens. The research emphasises a correlation between perceptions of police authority and the use of force in response to so-called disrespect. In order to deal with challenging situations in everyday police life, it is worth integrating the relevant curriculum in police training. A curriculum of this kind should first provide a theoretical basis of what forms of authority exist, what forms of authority may appear in police actions, and a theoretical basis of how the use of police authority and the respect that police officers demand are correlated. This article discusses these theoretical foundations in order to create a comprehensive training curriculum and it also shows the initial steps taken in which the contents have already been taught to police officers in rudimentary form in their studies.

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Do Personal Crises Change Attitudes to Corruption?

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Angelika Schäffer

This study deals with the issue of whether there is a connection between attitudes to corruption and personal mental/physical stress. In order to answer this question, 52 students of the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna were interviewed online using the standardised questionnaires HKS 38 A (Hanover Corruption Scale 38 – Austria Version) and BSI 53 (Brief Symptom Inventory 53). Sociodemographic data were also collected. The findings show that a total of 21 percent was identified as noticeably mentally stressed. The evaluation of the HKS 38 A showed that the HKS 38 A PR (percentile rank) total value is above 50 per cent and the population is therefore presumably more susceptible to corruption. The covariates for gender and age had no influence on attitudes to corruption. The hypothesis that greater physical and/or mental stress of the students results in increased susceptibility to corruption can be accepted, but the contribution of the individual predictors must be differentiated for each criterion and the overall effect of the predictors studied is generally rather weak. It should also be noted that the sample is relatively small and probably quite homogeneous. It is therefore advisable to study additional samples from different faculties and at different stages of study.

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Children in Prison? The legal framework for placing children under the care of their mothers who are serving a prison sentence

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Sebastian Gölly, Nina Kaiser

Gentrification is one of the central areas of conflict in current urban development. The term describes the replacement of lower-status residents in a neighborhood by higherstatus groups. While the criminogenic effects of socio-spatial segregation are empirically well documented, the connection between gentrification and crime-rate trends in German-speaking countries has not yet been studied. Criminological approaches and theories suggest both falling and rising crime rates in gentrifying areas. In US studies, there are conflicting findings that also point in both directions. However, the results are only applicable to the situation in Germany and Austria to a limited extent. Starting from an overview of the current state of research, the present article aims to contribute to the conceptualisation of gentrification processes in the context of spatial criminology.

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Gentrification and Crime. Theoretical explanations and methodological problems

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Tim Lukas, Jan Üblacker

Gentrification is one of the central areas of conflict in current urban development. The term describes the replacement of lower-status residents in a neighborhood by higherstatus groups. While the criminogenic effects of socio-spatial segregation are empirically well documented, the connection between gentrification and crime-rate trends in German-speaking countries has not yet been studied. Criminological approaches and theories suggest both falling and rising crime rates in gentrifying areas. In US studies, there are conflicting findings that also point in both directions. However, the results are only applicable to the situation in Germany and Austria to a limited extent. Starting from an overview of the current state of research, the present article aims to contribute to the conceptualisation of gentrification processes in the context of spatial criminology.

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Similarity in Faces and How it is Influenced by Proximity

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Ján Janek

The aim of this work was to attempt to replicate the finding by Casasanto (Casasanto 2008) who studied the relationship between similarity and proximity in abstract words, unfamiliar faces and common objects and one of his findings (upon which this research paper is built) was that the closer faces are to each other, the more dissimilar they appear. And to test a possible explanation. Casasanto’s paper used the conceptual metaphor theory that similarity is closeness, however his results suggested that while words are judged to be more similar when presented spatially close, faces are judged to be more different. This project explored this phenomenon further and studied it in two separate experiments by testing both similarity of pairs of faces and accuracy in deciding whether they are of the same person over two experiments. Next, this experiment was to try and provide a potential explanation for this effect, which is the secondary hypothesis: faces distort their immediate surrounding which was studied by testing the point of subjective equality of two vertical and straight lines – one near and one further from an unfamiliar face. Should the line closer to the face be distorted, it would help provide an explanation as to why faces that are closer together might be judged as different. Regarding the primary hypothesis, no effect of distance was found for either the similarity rating or the matching task. Bayesian analysis provided support of the null hypothesis. However, there was evidence for the secondary hypothesis. There appears to be no effect present on similarity and accuracy when manipulating the distance between two unfamiliar faces. There is an effect however when the face distorted the line that was closer to it. A second experiment replicated the original study by Casasanto more exactly, presenting the two faces sequentially, rather than simultaneously. Again, however, no effect of distance was found; results were consistent with the first experiment.

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