Here are a few notes from NCJRS's Weekly Accessions List:

Henry Brownstein, editorial board member of the Criminal Justice Policy Review on researchers as advocates: "[I]n increasing numbers, criminologists are entering the policymaking arena as researchers are casting off old notions of scientific objectivity in an effort to influence the direction of criminal justice policy." Just because a notion is old doesn't mean it's wrong.

Jeanine Baker & Samara McPhedran on the effects of Australia's 1996 gun control law, in the May issue of British Journal of Criminology: "Overall, there was insufficient evidence to support the argument that simply reducing the number of legally held civilian firearms will reduce either firearm homicides or accidental deaths.... Rates of homicide and accidental death did not significantly decrease following the 1996 NFA legislation."

John Lieberbach, et al., in the June issue of Criminal Justice Review on the political demand for racial profiling studies: "The findings of the pilot project expose the folly associated with mandating large-scale data collection on traffic stops absent sufficiently rigorous methodologies."

Jill Levenson and David D'Amora in the June issue of Criminal Justice Policy Review: "This literature review analyzes the history of current sexual offender policies, their development, and their implementation."

The prize for the most weirdly morbid publication goes to the July issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences. Schellenberg, Racette, and Sauvageau report: "This paper presents the case of a 34-year-old man who died of asphyxia, secondary to body wrapping in the largest and most complex plastic bag ever involved in a published case of autoerotic death." The latter two have another article in the same issue: "Agonal Sequences in a Filmed Suicidal Hanging: Analysis of Respiratory and Movement Responses to Asphyxia by Hanging."