Straight there,no detours: direct access to barristers

Modernity unsettles professional certainties. For centuries the Bar has enjoyed many privileges but there has been a hollowing out of its professional core as its reserved areas have come under threat. The gradual erosion of the referral aspects of barristers’ relationships with solicitors and others exposes barristers to the contingencies of the market in a raw form not usually experienced. The rising intervention of the state into the lawyer-client relationship through the control of the legal aid budget is accelerating these moves. These are moves to bureaucratic control and potential proletarianization. The Bar is losing its grip on its professional project. Or is it? One argument is that we are not observing the end of professionalism but rather various defensive manoeuvres by professionals to maintain their privileges.

Direct access by clients to barristers is one such response in a differentiated market for legal services. This has had a mixed reaction among barristers and barristers' clerks. Some see it as the route to a modern diverse profession while others see it as potentially harming these traditional relationships between barrister and solicitor that have been built up over many years. Among solicitors this has been met by their own moves to become advocates in the higher courts.

These changes are examined in the light of further changes anticipated by the Legal Services Act 2007 with the introduction of alternative business structures. These have the potential to affect traditional modes of practice with a consequent loss to barristers’ autonomy.     

Reshaping professionalism: branding,marketing and the new entrepreneurial barrister

Based on empirical evidence from in-depth interviews with barristers and other chambers’ staff, this paper investigates the development of marketing at the Bar of England and Wales since the removal of the advertising ban by the Bar Council in 1990. Marketing has developed in the context of an increasingly competitive market, structural reforms and legal aid cuts. The engagement of marketing consultants, together with a growing array of marketing initiatives, is transforming the cultural landscape at the Bar and is now integral to structural and organisational changes within chambers. This paper analyses the marketing models and techniques that are being deployed and how these developments are reworking traditional notions of legal professionalism. Barristers have had to acquire new skills, marking a shift from the notion of an independent, self-employed practitioner to the new ‘entrepreneurial barrister’. It further examines conflicting evidence on professional attitudes to marketing and its efficacy, despite heavy investment of time and money.     

Sexual Orientation,Race, and Trauma as Predictors of Sexual Assault Recovery

Sexual minorities and racial minorities experience greater negative impact following sexual assault. We examined recovery from sexual assault among women who identified as heterosexual and bisexual across racial groups. A community sample of women (N?=?905) completed three yearly surveys about sexual victimization, recovery outcomes, race group, and sexual minority status. Bisexual women and Black women reported greater recovery problems. However, Black women improved more quickly on depression symptoms than non-Black women. Finally, repeated adult victimization uniquely undermined survivors’ recovery, even when controlling for child sexual abuse. Sexual minority and race status variables and their intersections with revictimization play roles in recovery and should be considered in treatment protocols for sexual assault survivors.     

Bent into Security: Barrister Contribution to a Skewed Order in Two Terrorism Prosecutions in Australia

This article explores two terrorism prosecutions – R v. Benbrika and Ors and R v. Elomar and Ors – to probe how Australian lawyers approach the integration of national security interests into the heart of public law. A brief background is provided followed by an analysis of how the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002 (Cth), as amended, and the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 (Cth) deviate from the legal order to produce a ‘skewed blend’ between national security and criminal justice. We examine three ways in which barristers contribute to bending of process in counter‐terrorism trials: accommodation to the precautionary standard, the resetting of equality of arms expectations, and brokered agreements that depend on the deferential relationships within the court. Consequently, the moral asymmetry of terrorism is the backdrop for the ‘plausible legality’ of ‘just world’ derogations from liberal politics.     

‘Looking back,i wouldn’t join up again’: the lived experiences of police officers as victims of bias and prejudice perpetrated by fellow staff within an english police force

ABSTRACT

Women, ethnic minority and LGB police officers often experience prejudice, disadvantage and exclusion within police forces because of their perceived ‘otherness’ in a predominantly white, heterosexual, male organisation. In the context of an increasingly diverse service, the paper argues that the concept of intersectionality is important in order to understand the experiences of police officers who encounter bias and prejudice because of their multiple, intersecting identities. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 20 individuals based in an English police force, the paper examines their occupational experiences of bias, discrimination and exclusion perpetrated by their colleagues and supervisors. Utilising the ‘exit, voice and loyalty’ model, the paper analyses how police officers are affected by, and respond to these experiences. Taken together, these arguments lay the foundation for future work to further understand the experiences of police officers as victims of bias and prejudice due to their multiple, intersecting identities.     

Relationships and sexuality of imprisoned men in the German penal system--a survey of inmates in a Berlin prison

The lack of concrete scientific data on the sexual behavior of inmates in German prisons is surprising, especially given the extant international scholarship on prison culture and sexual violence. Historically, the most influential publications were Clemmer's "The Prison Community", and Sykes's "The Society of Captives", which both addressed the importance of sexual deprivation and analyzed the impact of sexual victimization on prisoners. Different forms of homosexual contact between inmates include prostitution and "protective pairing", both characterized as "dark" issues--nonconsensual sexual acts--which still have not been scientifically researched. The United States enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act, 2003, revealing nationwide data on the prevalence of sexual assault within correctional facilities. Prison inmates suffer not only from separation from their spouses or partners, but also from sexual harassment, extortion, and the threat of rape, which has multiple implications for their mental and physical health. This article presents the first German study to record data about the relationships and sexuality of imprisoned men, and was conducted in an adult correctional facility for long-term prisoners in Berlin-Tegel. The survey, which is based on results from a questionnaire taken by voluntary study participants, had a special focus on the occurrence of consensual homoerotic contacts between heterosexual inmates. The emphasis was on the potential impact of such contact on role behavior during confinement, as well as the impact on sexual identity after release. The survey revealed the first data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual violence and coercion within correctional facilities. This article presents the results of this survey for the first time.     

Sexual Identities and Protesting Among College Students: Exploring Political Distinctiveness Mediation Factors

This study examines the links between sexual identity and participation in political protests. Among a sample of college students (N?=?2175), we determined that sexual minority students were three times more likely to join a protest than heterosexual students. “Political distinctiveness” theories are used to explain this sexual identity gap in protesting. Following a series of path analyses, we conclude that marital status, exposure to discrimination (as a victim or observer), connections to LGB communities, participation in political groups, and liberal identities mediate the sexuality difference in protesting. Conversely, measures of educational attainment, exposure to multicultural classes, and internalized homophobia were not mediators.

     

Sex and Capacity: The Management of Monsters?

The first consideration by a civil court of the test of capacity to engage in sexual relations – X City Council v MB, NB and MAB – is as recent as 2005. This article places this and subsequent cases in the historical context of the way in which the law has constructed the sexuality of persons with intellectual impairment. The article argues that, beginning with a series of rape cases in the mid to late nineteenth century, which recognised the concept of consent given through the expression of animal instincts, the law has accepted and deployed a model of intellectual impairment which understands expressions of sexuality in terms of an increasingly unstable opposition between vulnerability and danger, understood as the presence or absence of instinct, and as indicating an underlying ‘monstrosity’. The article argues that the historical continuity apparent in the modern case law is unfortunate and should be rectified.     

Drug Globalization: Eventual Legalization of Beer in Iceland and Marihuana Decriminalization in the USA

This article discusses whether different motivations for and perceptions of the police role, either as ‘law and order‐oriented thrill‐seekers’ or as ‘social workers’ lead officers to adopt different approaches towards the public. The first category police rank‐and‐file officers' desire for action and excitement, causing them to perceive policing as a mission, also causes them to have a distorted view of reality whereby they perceive members of the public either as significant adversaries or as insignificant ones. For them, ‘real police work’ means chasing and catching villains, and this delusional picture of what policing is may lead them to enlarge and redefine ‘insignificant criminals’ and thus perceive them as ‘villains’ who merit and justify police targeting. However, as these insignificant criminals—beggars, drug addicts, vagrants, ethnic minority youths, and drunks—are not perceived as actually ‘significant adversaries’, the targeting of and encounters with them also produce fatigue in police officers as these activities fail to comply with many police officers' desire to ‘catch the villain’, and the encounters are repetitive and tedious. Police fatigue and stereotyping may entail cynicism due to the ways in which some groups respond to police targeting, such as accusing the police of racism or threatening them with complaints. It is argued that the first type of police officers to a larger degree will experience fatigue and cynicism than the second type of officers—‘the social workers’—who are motivated by a will to ‘help others’, and who receive more rewarding responses from the public.     

Judging guilt and accuracy: highly confident eyewitnesses are discounted when they provide featural justifications

Jurors are heavily swayed by confident eyewitnesses. Are they also influenced by how eyewitnesses justify their level of confidence? Here we document a counter-intuitive effect: when eyewitnesses identified a suspect from a lineup with absolute certainty (‘I am completely confident’) and justified their confidence by referring to a visible feature of the accused (‘I remember his nose’), participants judged the suspect as less likely to be guilty than when eyewitnesses identified a suspect with absolute certainty but offered an unobservable justification (‘I would never forget him’) or no justification at all. Moreover, people perceive an eyewitness’s identification as nearly 25% less accurate when the eyewitness has provided a featural justification than an unobservable justification or simply no justification. Even when an eyewitness’s level of confidence is clear because s/he has expressed it numerically (e.g. ‘I am 100% certain’) participants perceive eyewitnesses as not credible (i.e. inaccurate) when the eyewitness has provided a featural justification. However, the effect of featural justifications – relative to a confidence statement only – is maximal when there is an accompanying lineup of faces, moderate when there is a single face and minimal when there is no face at all. The results support our Perceived-Diagnosticity account.     

Ignorance is bliss: self-regulation and Ag-Gag laws in the American meat industry

Abstract

In America, we like to say that we live in a democracy. Yet, it is difficult to believe that the majority would allow current practices to continue if citizens knew how the food animals they eat are treated – both during their short lives and during slaughter. The problem is that the citizens don’t know, and it is not a case of willful blindness. Take a moment to recall what you know about our meat industry. Can’t think of much? That is the goal of the meat industry: out of sight, out of mind. In several states, so called ‘Ag-Gag’ laws are designed to keep the truth from the public. In those states, it is a felony to obtain a job with the intent of being a whistle blower. The meat industry knows that if it were to be exposed, the public would demand better treatment of animals, a demand that would decrease profits for the meat industry. This paper will explain these ‘Ag-Gag’ laws in detail, explore their effect on our society, shed light on the practices that the meat industry tries – very successfully – to hide from voters and consumers, and examine the scary results that can occur when an industry is allowed to regulate itself.     

Smoke Free? Public Health Policy,Coercive Paternalism,and the Ethics of Long-Game Regulation

Contemporary public health advocacy promotes a ‘fifth wave of public health’: a ‘cultural’ shift wherein the public's health becomes recognized as a common good, to be realized through concerted developments in the institutional, social, and physical environments. With reference to examples from anti-tobacco policy, in this article I critically examine the fifth-wave agenda in England. I explore it as an approach that, in the face of liberal individualism, works through a ‘long-game’ method of progressive social change. Given the political context, and a predominant concern with narrow understandings of legal coercion, I explain how efforts are made to apply what are presented as less ethically contentious framings of regulatory methods, such as are provided by ‘libertarian paternalism’ (‘nudge theory’). I argue that these fail as measures of legitimacy for long-game regulation: the philosophical foundations of public health laws require a greater – and more obviously contestable, but also more ambitious – critical depth.     

Prison Birthday: "It's All Good"

Due to an overreliance on arrests in the late 1990s, the incarceration of young women in the United States increased dramatically. On any given day in 2010, over 9000 girls were held in residential placement. Largely hidden from public view, little is known about the health requirements of female adolescent offenders in US secure custody. Less is known about how those needs are met while in detention. Curiously, while most theories regarding female juvenile delinquency draw upon non-criminogenic health-related factors – sexual abuse, family violence, and low self-esteem – their specific legal troubles are rarely, if ever, framed in public health terms. Drawing on original interviews with 100 court-involved girls, detainees’ perceptions of their medical, psychological, sexual, and social health concerns are highlighted. The data link court-involved girls’ prior health issues to their coming to the attention of juvenile authorities as well as demonstrating possible non-compliance with domestic and international standards for the health rights of juveniles deprived of their liberty.     

When Juveniles Commit Sexual Offenses: Considerations and Recommendations for Judges

Considering sexual offenders’ impact on victims, families, and communities, one cannot understate the importance of utilizing evidence‐based dispositions with juvenile offenders adjudicated for sexual offenses. This proves difficult, however, as the body of literature regarding juvenile sexual offenders is complex and often misunderstood. Research on how juvenile sexual offenders experience – broadly construed – the juvenile justice process is particularly sparse. The research that is available about juvenile sexual offender treatment, recidivism, and outcomes in general tends to be mixed as to the best way to deal with this distinctly stigmatized population. Thus, the purpose of this review article is primarily educational in that we summarize the highlights of current research and thinking in regards to juvenile sexual offenders with which judges should be familiar, and subsequently offer practice recommendations. The ultimate goal in offering and applying these recommendations in juvenile court settings is to help alleviate potential collateral consequences, increase positive long‐term outcomes for juveniles, and increase public safety.     

Making Monsters: The Polygraph,the Plethysmograph,and Other Practices for the Performance of Abnormal Sexuality

This article addresses the use of the polygraph, penile plethysmograph, and other practices for the management of sexual offenders as part of the ‘Containment Approach’, a strategy increasingly common in the United States which is, in part, being trialled in the United Kingdom. The polygraph has a tangled history with abnormal sexuality, as we describe in the context of homosexuality in the 1960s. We examine how these strategies target sex offenders as malleable in regard to sexual performances but also, through notions of risk management, paradoxically constitute offenders as fundamentally incurable and thus permanently risky. Using Foucault's notion of the ‘abnormal’, we investigate the implications of this risk management/ performance paradox. We conclude that it reveals a certain anxiety about the relationship between abnormal and normal sexual behaviour in contemporary sex‐offender management discourse, which can help explain the emergence of these practices.     

Reducing recurrent care proceedings: initial evidence from new interventions

The English family justice system faces a crisis of recurrence. As many as one in four birth mothers involved in public law care proceedings in English family courts are likely to reappear in a subsequent set of proceedings within seven years. These mothers are involved in up to one-third of total care applications, as they are – by definition – linked to more than one child . Few birth mothers experiencing the removal of a child to care are offered any follow-up support, despite often facing multiple challenges including poverty, addiction, domestic violence and mental health problems. Since 2011, however, a number of new services have been established to begin to address their unmet needs. This article summarises the findings of the first academic-led evaluation of two of these initiatives. Presenting evidence from a mixed-methods evaluative study, it concludes that the new services were able to foster relationships that ‘worked’ in reducing recurrent proceedings. None of the women engaging with the services went on to experience what could be described as a ‘rapid repeat pregnancy’ within the evaluation window. Just as significantly, a number of clients reported some improvement in their psychological functioning, and the practitioners involved reported positively on their experience of delivering and managing innovative services. The article closes with a discussion of the challenges of evaluating personalised, strengths-based interventions and the possibilities of evidencing empowerment in these cases.