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The identification of deceased migrants is a global challenge that is exacerbated by migration distance, post-mortem conditions, access to ante-mortem data for comparison, inconsistent international procedures and lack of communication between arrival and origin countries. Due to low technology requirements, fast speed analysis and ease of transferring digital data, facial image comparison is particularly beneficial in those contexts, especially in challenging scenarios when this may be the only initial ante-mortem data available to identify the deceased. The Facial Identification Scientific Working Group (FISWG) professional guidelines for facial image comparison were developed for living facial appearance, and, therefore, a tailored protocol for the application of post-mortem to ante-mortem facial image comparison was proposed and evaluated in this research. The protocol was investigated via an inter-observer and an accuracy study, using 29 forensic cases (2001–2020) from the University of Milan, provided by the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology. In order to replicate a migrant identification scenario, each post-mortem subject was compared to all 29 ante-mortem targets (841 comparisons). The protocol guided the practitioner through stages of facial image comparison, from broad (phase 1) to more detailed (phase 3), eventually leading to a decision of ‘exclusion’ or ‘potential match’ for each post-mortem to ante-mortem case (phase 4). In phase 4, a support scale was also utilised to indicate the level of confidence in a potential match. Each post-mortem subject could be recorded with multiple potential matches. The protocol proved to be useful guide for facial image comparison, especially for less experienced practitioners and the inter-observer study suggested good reproducibility. The majority (82–96%) of ante-mortem subjects were excluded at the first stage of the protocol, and 71 full post-mortem to ante-mortem facial image comparisons were carried out. On average, two or three potential matches were recorded for each post-mortem subject. The overall accuracy rate was 85%, with the majority (79%) of ante-mortem non-targets correctly excluded from the identification process. An increased number and quality of available ante-mortem images produced more successful matches with higher levels of support. All potential matches involving non-targets received low levels of support, and for 73% of the post-mortem subjects, the ante-mortem target was the only recorded potential match. However, two ante-mortem targets were incorrectly excluded (one at the first stage of the protocol) and therefore changes to the protocol were implemented to mitigate these errors. A full protocol and a practical recording chart for practitioner use is included with this paper.
The identification of deceased migrants is a global challenge that is exacerbated by migration distance, post-mortem conditions, access to ante-mortem data for comparison, inconsistent international procedures and lack of communication between arrival and origin countries. Due to low technology requirements, fast speed analysis and ease of transferring digital data, facial image comparison is particularly beneficial in those contexts, especially in challenging scenarios when this may be the only initial ante-mortem data available to identify the deceased. The Facial Identification Scientific Working Group (FISWG) professional guidelines for facial image comparison were developed for living facial appearance, and, therefore, a tailored protocol for the application of post-mortem to ante-mortem facial image comparison was proposed and evaluated in this research. The protocol was investigated via an inter-observer and an accuracy study, using 29 forensic cases (2001–2020) from the University of Milan, provided by the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology. In order to replicate a migrant identification scenario, each post-mortem subject was compared to all 29 ante-mortem targets (841 comparisons). The protocol guided the practitioner through stages of facial image comparison, from broad (phase 1) to more detailed (phase 3), eventually leading to a decision of ‘exclusion’ or ‘potential match’ for each post-mortem to ante-mortem case (phase 4). In phase 4, a support scale was also utilised to indicate the level of confidence in a potential match. Each post-mortem subject could be recorded with multiple potential matches. The protocol proved to be useful guide for facial image comparison, especially for less experienced practitioners and the inter-observer study suggested good reproducibility. The majority (82–96%) of ante-mortem subjects were excluded at the first stage of the protocol, and 71 full post-mortem to ante-mortem facial image comparisons were carried out. On average, two or three potential matches were recorded for each post-mortem subject. The overall accuracy rate was 85%, with the majority (79%) of ante-mortem non-targets correctly excluded from the identification process. An increased number and quality of available ante-mortem images produced more successful matches with higher levels of support. All potential matches involving non-targets received low levels of support, and for 73% of the post-mortem subjects, the ante-mortem target was the only recorded potential match. However, two ante-mortem targets were incorrectly excluded (one at the first stage of the protocol) and therefore changes to the protocol were implemented to mitigate these errors. A full protocol and a practical recording chart for practitioner use is included with this paper.
In custodial contexts, the duty of states to protect the most fundamental right – to life – is heightened. Nevertheless, prisoner deaths are a universal and frequent concern. The mortality rate among the 11.5 million prisoners globally is up to 50% higher than amongst non-imprisoned persons, forming a human rights and health equity concern. It is therefore peculiar that prisoner deaths have attracted only piecemeal scholarly attention. In this article, we problematize epistemologies of prisoner death, highlighting obfuscations and agglomerations in existing datasets based on poor definitions, reductive statistics and constrained medico-legal categorizations. We provide a springboard towards a new epistemological approach that makes the scale and breadth of prisoner deaths and deceased prisoner characteristics more visible to facilitate prevention. We advance three tenets: count prisoners who die rather than deaths in prison, disaggregate prisoner death data through rights-informed dimensions and adopt explicitly defined, mutually exclusive categorizations.
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